SV: KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Jim and Nyanatusita,

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: palistudy@yahoogroups.com [mailto:palistudy@yahoogroups.com] På vegne
af Jim Anderson
Sendt: 30. oktober 2005 18:33
Til: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Emne: Re: [palistudy] KR Norman on by/vy alternation

Dear Ven. Nyanatusita,

Thank-you very much for forwarding Dr. Norman's excellent reply to your
query. Looking through M. Cone's transcription of the Patna Dharmapada (JPTS
XIII) I spotted a -vv- for Skt. -vy- (divvesu = dibbesu in Dhp 187) in verse
146 (p. 141); also, -vv- for -rv- is often seen in many places but
'nibbaa.na' is used for 'nirvaa.na'.
According to M. Cone's introductory remarks the MS is written in a
proto-Bengali script and comparable to other 11th-12th century MSS written
in the same script and notes that v and b (along with other
pairs) are indistinguishable in the MS.

<Now Pali does not disallow vy in initial position and there is also
evidence for the spelling /by/. The spelling /by/ for /vy/ or vice versa may
simply reflect peculiarities of inflection. Think of Spanish /b/ and /v/. In
the middle of a word the treatment differs. The spelling /vv/  as opposed to
/bb/ is subject to similar constraints. The cluster /rv/ is impossible in
Pali so /r/ is assimilated. These differences of spelling are no more than
local peculiarities >

Owing to Ole's use of phonetic terms unfamiliar to me, I've started to read
Indira Y. Junghare's Topics in Pali Historical Phonology (Motilal
Banarsidass, 1979) which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf since 1979.
In her introduction she writes:

"Paali is an archaic Prakrit, a middle Indian language which is a descendant
of one of the Old Indo-Aryan languages. It is very closely related to both
Vedic and Sanskrit, although by no means identical with either one of them."
(p. 1)

<Yes, indeed! However, it is first and foremost related syntactically and
otherwise to the spoken Sanskrit dialect (bhaa.sa) described by Paanini in
his celebrated grammar. The correspondences between Paninian Sanskrit and
Pali are almost unbelievable. However, this is not the place to go into a
detailed discussion of the evidence. I shall publish my investigations in
the near future.>

There is also some agreement with Dr. Norman's remark about Pali being an
artificial language in the following:

"But, by and large, correspondences between Paali and Old Indic are regular
and we may safely conclude that Pali is very close to a Middle Indic
language spoken somewhere in the Indian cultural area but artificially
modified in a few respects on the basis of other Middle Indic languages and
Classical Sanskrit." (p. 3)

<I do not know how to interpret the characterization artificially modified.
Some of the features of the language that have been so characterized are not
at all artificial.>

Best reagards,

Ole Pind



Best wishes,
Jim

> Dear Lance, Jim, etc,
>
> I asked Dr K.R. Norman about the initial by/by alternation and got
the
> reply reproduced below.
> Bh. Nyanatusita
>


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