Re: Niggahiita in IPA?

A basic point about IPA has so far not been made: IPA is a tool to
represent pronunciation in a language independent way.  It is not
intended (and not suited) for use as a practical orthography.  This
discussion began with a request from Dhammanando for suggestions on how
to represent Pali niggahiita using IPA.  I made one suggestion (and so
far there hasn't been another).  But even if we agreed on how to
represent niggahiita, that would not mean that everybody should write
niggahiita (or Pali in general) in IPA.  I don't believe Dhammanando
would advocate that, and I certainly would not.  Phonetic
representation (of which IPA is most widespread system) and practical
orthography are two different animals.

So what is a good practical orthography?  A system of symbols (letters)
which represents not every phonetic property of every sound, but just
enough to distinguish each word in the language from all the others.
Considerations of this sort belong not to phonetics, but to phonology.
In the case of Pali there is a centuries old analysis (which everybody
still uses).  It is the list of 41 (or 43) vannas to be found at the
beginning of Pali grammars.  An orthography results from assigning a
letter to each them, and it really doesn't matter much whether those
letters are of Indian origin (Sinhalese, Burmese, nagari, etc.) or of
western origin (romanization) so long as each vanna is represented in a
distinct way.

> The problem is that virtually all Pali textbooks I've seen
> claim that this [velar nasal] is the correct pronunciation
> of the anuswara itself (Narada, etc.);

Naarada (p. 3) is discussing pronunciation, therefore he should be
using IPA.  He does say that the pronunciation of niggahiita is the
same as the ka-vagga nasal, and distinguishes them in terms of the
phonetic environment.  It is not clear whether this represents his own
pronunciation, or what he thinks his English-speaking students can
handle.  But in either case there is nothing problematic about it.

> As with the comments alluded to from Sk. sources, this may
> be a "linguistic ideal" that can only exist in metapysics,
> not spoken language.

To the extent that this is so, it disqualifies the passages in question
from relevance to our concerns.  Possibly the Indians did not
distinguish between phonetics and metaphysics; we (I hope) do.

> the correct IPA form for the velar nasal (viz., the "ng"
> ending the first line of the Pali alphabet) is currently
> used to represent the anuswara (e.g., in the English-Pali
> dictionary, etc.) --so to follow the IPA convention here
> would cause more confusion than it solves.

If the compilers of the dictionary intended to represent a velar nasal
(as Naarada did), there is no problem here.  Even if they did not,
there is no problem if they clearly stated what their symbol means.

> But the PTS standard has been especially problematic in
> precisely this respect, viz., the issue of breaking off
> compound words with the velar /'n/ into a sequence of words
> ending with anuswara, and even destroying combinations where
> /.m/ becomes /m/ due to euphony, etc.  I would further say
> that the PTS is influential only with a small circle of
> scholars in England who continue to put out un-edited and
> un-corrected re-issues (similar to Xerox copies) of 100
> year old texts for the edification of a small circle of
> subscribers.  Despite the awe that the PTS inspires with
> so many in Sri Lanka, their orthographic conventions have
> not been (nor are now becoming) universal there.

Eisel has a bee in his bonnet about western Pali scholarship in general
and the PTS in particular.  The 'problem' he refers to (when to apply
sandhi and when not) arises no matter what orthography is used.  No
doubt the influence of western scholarship has had some negative
effects.  But I cannot imagine what Pali studies would be like today
without the legacy of the PTS.  Certainly it would be closed to me.
The PTS standard is a transliteration of standard Pali orthographies in
the Indic tradition.  Pace Eisel, it is a very good orthography, easy
to learn and easy to use (for westerners at least). Compare it with
standard Chinese or English orthography.

George Bedell


*   *   *   *   *
George Bedell
120/2 Palm Springs Place
Mahidol Road, Chiang Mai 50000
THAILAND
+66 (0)53-241342
correspondence in Japanese may be addressed to
      gbedelljp@...

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com