From: Balaji
Message: 4246
Date: 2015-03-16
The way to pronounce Brahma is verily as if it were bramha.
The English transliteration unfortunately follows how it is written in modern scripts. And I believe the ancient Indians had a queer way of writing words that contained 'mh' and 'ms' sounds. The unique writing style might have been carried over into Devanagari when the script was invented in the 13th century, and nobody bothered to correct it as per phonetics since it is so brahma (pronounced bramha) is so often used for liturgical purposes. The English transliteration simply follows how it is usually written in Devanagari and other scripts.
There are some words however that underwent spelling transformation to meet the phonetic rules. The words 'simha' and 'hamsa' are among those. Most people don't know this, but they were earlier written as 'sihma' and 'hasma'. Evidence for that can be found in manuscripts and edicts written in the Kharoshti script.
All that said, it is also possible that the Old Indic pronunciation for these words was quite different.
Thanks,
Balaji
Thanks,
Balaji
Hello Jim,
Yes, I even heard that some do the inverse, so they pronounce brahma as bramha for some reason.I guess nobody can claim final knowledge on this matter, but just speculate.In any case, I will stick to clearly pronouncing the "h" sound when it comes after a vowel, since I think it is the right way, because as I said my native language is "harsh" in that aspect, each letter/sound is short and sharp ( and that seems to be the way of pali as well), so I believe that native english speakers ( because of their language ) tend to pronounce the pali words the english way kind of, and not the clear and to the point way.