Re: ~n/.n

Hello Bhante,

Thanks very much for this "brief comparative study" --I was not
expecting such instant research.  To follow on the query.

> Geiger (Pali Grammar para 50) writes:1. ''sn becomes ~nh (Pkt .nh):
> pa~nha (AMg pa.nha) `question' = Skt pra''sna; pa''nhipa.n.nii (sic! not
> pa.nhi-) (name of a plant) Abh 584 = Skt p.r''snipar.nii.

Although interesting, I do not think this is directly related.

> Maybe the .nh in pa.nhitabba.m in the Siam Nikaaya MSS, and in the
> occurence Geiger disapproved of, is a survival from an older strata of
> the Pali language.

I think it is far more likely a question of modern orthography, and
not of historical development of the underlying language; the initial
impression that I was working from was that *modern* Sinhalese
orthography allows/encourages the confusion of ".nh" vs. "~nh" --thus,
I was expecting the confusion would be imposed from the modern
vernacular onto the Pali.  The connection to Thailand may be
extraneous (in this case); I assume the Siam Nikaya MS (that you have
described) are in Sinhalese script.  My assumption would be that the
.nh/~nh error would have arised in transcription, not from the Thai
source --but, as I have said, this assumption is (so far) without
empirical basis.

> The characters .n and ~n are quite different in
> Sinhala ...

I agree, but there seems to be a convention (perhaps euphonic?) in the
modern vernacular of substituting .n for ~n in some circumstances.  In
the same way that the (modern vernacular) Sinhalese convention of
using the anuswara instead of the velar 'n has been imposed on Pali, I
assumed that this might also happen with ~nh in Sinhalese Pali.
However, I was wondering how rare (or how common) it might be --if it
is regarded as an error at all.

Many of the special combined consonants in Sinhalese orthography have
a "disputed applicability" to Pali.  The sythentically combined "mba"
glyph vs. the ligatured "mba" is an example of this --i.e., the former
is reserved for the vernacular, although actually many printed
editions disregard this and use either glyph interchangeably (again,
just like the distinction between anuswara & the velar 'n being
ignored!).  Thus, part of the reason for my question is that I did not
know if the distinction between ".nh / ~nh" was regarded as fixed
--i.e., if the substitution described would be considered an error, or
acceptable orthography (because of approximation to modern Sinhalese).

E.M.