ऌ and लृ

[Radhakrishna Warrier]

I made a post in this forum a few years ago on the difference between ऌ and लृ.  The position of the first character ऌ in the varṇamālā is here: अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ॠ ऌ.  The position of the second character लृ is here: ल, ला, लि, ली. लु, लू, लृ.  I believe the first character (ऌ) is to be pronounced as lĭ, and the second character (लृ) as lrĭ where the character ĭ stands for a very short vowel, a schwa close to a very short i.  But I have heard many people pronounce the first character as lrĭ.  They pronounce the word klĭptam (कॢप्तम्) meaning limited as klrĭptam (क्लृप्तम्).  I have also seen the Sanskrit grammatical term लृट् being written as ऌट्.  Such a confusion is unlikely to happen in Malayalam because the shapes of these two characters are very different: ലൃ (लृ, lrĭ) and ഌ (ऌ, lĭ)

 

The first question is this: Is this confusion the result of the close similarity of the characters ऌ and लृ in Devanagari and scripts close to Devanagari (like Gujarati)?

 

The second question is this:  Why are ऋ and ऌ treated as स्वर (vowels) in Indic scripts?  These are pronounced rĭ and lĭ where ĭ is a very short vowel, a schwa sound close to a very short i.  Shouldn't it be this that should be treated as a vowel in the varṇamālā?

Best regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

[Shashi Joshi]

Namaste.

For Q1 -- Yes, among most, the confusion is due to the similarity of script. Most modern (even back to 80s) school teachers also don't know this.

Q2 -- the pronunciation that should be, is of a vowel, and not of (i or u after a R or  L) a consonant plus vowel. The pronunciation among most people is of Ri or Ru etc is, what happens when language changes with time and region. 

So many more mispronunciations (of words, sentences, grammar constructs), have led to 20+ full fledged languages, that are not called Sanskrit any more.

The pronunciation of ऋ ऌ ज्ञ will remain most contentious ones, known to be in a certain way, but changes regionally to the closest easy way out (ri, ru, li, lu, lri, lru, dya, jna, gya ...)

Such is language and the passage of time.

Thank you,
Shashi

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[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste

 

1.  The point is well made : <  So many more mispronunciations (of words, sentences, grammar constructs), have led to 20+ full fledged languages, that are not called Sanskrit any more.  >

      Why not add the <    mis (- mischievous) - scripting in a plethora of Transliteration schemas ?? for ‘ Text Reading’ ??

 

2. Some one may say more on the  importance of Vedic Passage   related to the  deviant pronunciation in VEDA MANTRA -   ‘ te – asurah- helava- healya…..’    quoted by Patanjali  for ‘ Varnah- Shddhah Pathyante’.   Varnah are Upadeshah.  Listen- Repeat- Perfect.

 

If  ऋ ऌ ज्ञ   pronunciation falters in Samskruth, it is a signature point to give a good bye to the Maheswara / Shiva Sutra base and basics of Samskrutham and figure out a new character set cluster  and write a new grammar !

 

3. If  ऋ ऌ ज्ञ   pronunciation has been ‘ diluted for meeting Social Samskruth outreach’,  the consequence is on mispronunciation and inappropriate construction with arguments on whose ‘VEDIC MANTRA – Pronunciation is Right for Effectiveness’ ??  Something to be deeply pondered over by many researchers who construct – practice ‘ VEDA VALIDATION’  by  ‘ manu-scripts’ which do not by and large provide the technical clarity of ‘ SVARA’  that makes MANTRA effective.

 

So the simplest dismissive way : Mantra has  no Efficiency. The defence argument that ‘Mantra failed due to bad pronunciation’ is a ‘ myth built to cover up incorrect practice’ ?!!

 

4. If this is not enough, the ROMANIZATION- CONVENTIONS OF TRANSLITERATION AND  PHONATION adds multiple dimensions that introduce the CHALLENGE OF VALIDATING WHAT IS RIGHT TEXT of VEDA.  Not even to speak of ‘ Colonial History lens mounting’ for VEDIC RESEARCH ??!!   And  spice it up with  AI tools, Screen Reader hypes and Social Distribution of Spiritual Discourse in Social Media ! and Machine Translation where ‘ Samskruth Language Model is simulated on par with ‘ English’ ??

 

With all this awareness, what are we to follow- uphold as ‘Vyasa- Paramparaa’  which has come up to us as ‘Asmadaacharya – paryantaam’ ?? and duty bound to pass on to next gen ?

 

How may the wise people put together right resource’s for a corrective course of action on Language Base and Basics ?  beyond ‘Vishaada Yoga and Kaliyuga argument’.

Vedanta to be saved needs VEDA- RAKSHAA. Srimad Ramayana , Mahabharata and Puranas are Social outreach of ‘VEDA – VINIYOGA, the backbone of Bharateeya Samskruti.

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

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[Prakash Raj Pandey]

This is not Devanagari, we call it Prachalita Newari (प्रचलित नेवारी), you take note of the shapes of letters, including those of vowel लृ. This page was shared by Manoj Manuj in his Facebook.. 

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[Deepro Chakraborty]

Supporting what Shashi ji said, I would say that
(first question) <ऌ> /ḷ/ pronounced as /lri/ is very likely due to the similarity of their forms. In languages, where the two glyphs are not similar such pronunciation does not exist. In Bengali, for example, ऌ is written as ঌ and लृ is written as লৃ. In Bengali pronunciation of Sanskrit, ऌ is not pronounced as लृ

and

(second question) in Sanskrit, /ṛ/ and /ḷ/ are syllabic or vocalic. They should be pronounced as pure vocalic [r̩] and [l̩]. In Indian traditional phonetics, syllabicity is considered to be the main criterion for being considered a vowel (svara). Therefore, they are listed with the other pure vowels. 

[Surajit Dasgupta]

Any idea how ऌ and लृ used to be represented as graphemes in the pre-Devanagari Brahmi script? I have always held that a reason for Hindi speakers' proclivity to take certain pronunciations for granted is the lack of variety in the Devanagari script to represent different but close phonemes. In fact, the scripts of all modern-day Indian languages have this shortcoming (inability to denote a non-native or obsolete phone). Because especially in India, people learn new words more often from what they read in newspapers, magazines, websites, road signs etc rather than what they hear from the natives of the given language. Pronunciations of foreign words as well as those of archaic words are affected by this common factor — a handicapped script. Of course, the Roman alphabet, Arabic Naskh, Persian and Urdu Nastaliq, the Balkan script, the Cyrillic script, etc are worse.

That raises the question whether the Brahmi script used in the manuscripts of the RgVeda, which are dated 1500 BCE, was perfect.

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Script controlling or influencing pronunciation is not a tenable thinking, particularly for predominantly oral/ non literate societies.

The myth of deficiency of any script system of any language has its roots in the expectation that all phones of a language must have a grapheme in the system.

The script symbols, say in Tamil, correspond to the phonemes in Tamil. Those which are assumed to be not having a script symbol in the Tamil script system are allophones within that phoneme so doesn't create any problem for a Tamil reader or writer of the script.

In any case pronunciation leads to script, not the other way round.

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[L Srinivas]

> The myth of deficiency of any script system of any language has its roots in the expectation that all phones of a language must have a 

> grapheme in the system.

In India, this myth also arises from the faulty expectation that any modern Indian script should be capable of representing the sound inventory of  Sanskrit, else it is deficient.  Lately, Sanskrit has been replaced with English, leading to some unnecessary diacritics in an Indian language script such as Hindi. 

When I was 10 or 11, we had to memorize this poem on Rani Laxmibai called ख़ूब लड़ी मरदानी by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. It was a wonderfully stirring poem, very visual and not that hard to memorize  at all. The version of the poem we were taught had more than the usual share of diacritics. They used to deduct marks if you reproduced lines of poems without appropriate diacritics. I remember a line which had diacritics galore

ज़ख़्मी होकर वाॅकर भागा, उसे अजब हैरानी थी

None of my classmates understood why they had to reproduce the diacritic for 'Walker'. No one however questioned the need for diacritics for the Urdu sounds.

Hope this helps,

Srini

[Surajit Dasgupta]

Yes, Nagaraj ji, I am aware of that, but what about say how we Indians, accustomed to English for at least 150 years, still learn new words of the language? Don't we learn it first from reading? Rather than hearing it from a British, American, Canadian or Australian, the native speakers of English?

Of course, we also learn a new word from somebody misreading it (for example, an Indian teacher in a classroom or an Indian newsreader on television pronouncing "epitome" as ए पि टोम rather than ए पि ट मी).

Wouldn't Sanskrit learning by an Indian in this age work similarly? We don't have the opportunity to listen to how our ancestors sounded 3,500 years ago, do we? We learn Sanskrit today either from reading or how our Sanskrit teachers — who haven't seen the ancient era either — read.

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Surajit ji,

I was responding to your 

" "I have always held that a reason for Hindi speakers' proclivity to take certain pronunciations for granted is the lack of variety in the Devanagari script to represent different but close phonemes" 

Now you are bringing Sanskrit. 

Hindi is a language being spoken today. Majority of the Hindi speakers, even today, are not controlled / influenced by writing.  

Towards the end of the paragraph, you talk of foreign words. 

That is a different topic. Here , there is a scope for imagining / expecting the influence of writing on the pronunciation. 

Whether that actually happened or not needs a serious empirical study. 

In the next paragraph of a single sentence, we again go to a more ancient and a different kind of situation. Rig Veda recitation to Brahmi script which is again, a pronunciation to writing situation. 

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--

Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Dean, IndicA

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra

BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.

Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education, 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

 

 

[Surajit Dasgupta]

Quote

ज़ख़्मी होकर वाॅकर भागा, उसे अजब हैरानी थी

None of my classmates understood why they had to reproduce the diacritic for 'Walker'. No one however questioned the need for diacritics for the Urdu sounds.

Unquote

The nuqtah in Devanagari has proved inefficient to drive home the point of distinct pronunciations. Most Hindi users of today, unlike those till the 1980s, consider it redundant and do not try to sound accordingly. In Urdu Nastaliq, the difference between j ج and z ز, k ک and q ق, kh کھ and Kh خ, g گ and Gh غ etc is not a mere dot.

And we can notice in the example of वाॅकर that even the diacritic couldn't save the day. The received pronunciation (British) of the vowel part of a word with '~all', '~alk', '~aught', '~ought' etc is not ऑ but /ɔː/; walker is /ˈwɔːkə(r)/. /ɔː/ is difficult to be represented in Devanagari; it's an ओ with an उ termination (but not quite, I'd be more satisfied with the description "open-mid back rounded vowel" or "low-mid back rounded vowel"). Even most Americans fail to reproduce this sound. This is popularly referred to as the "cot-caught problem" in Anglophone speech communities. "Cot" is /kɒt/ whereas "caught" is /kɔːt/. ॉ can only denote /ɒ/. There is no diacritic in modern Devanagari for /ɔː/.

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[kenp]

Difference between letter ऌ and लृ

https://vedasunderstanding.com/archives/1057

https://fxru.org/blog/the-case-of-lf-and-x/

[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste  Srinivas

 

1. Good and Clear observation  of historic  legacy practice :   

 

     <  None of my classmates understood why they had to reproduce the diacritic for 'Walker'. No one however questioned the need for diacritics for the Urdu sounds.  >  

      What is the  functionality  and need of a  DIACRITIC  MARKER  ( = Svara-Chinha- Ankana )  ?

 

2. Coming to the observation/s  

                             < myth also arises from the faulty expectation that any modern Indian script should be capable of representing the sound inventory of  Sanskrit, else it is deficient. 

                                 Lately, Sanskrit has been replaced with English, leading to some unnecessary diacritics in an Indian language script such as Hindi.    >    

  

          What is Role , NEED and Significance of  ‘DIACRITIC’  ?  Why Diacritic for a Language? Should Diacritics be  universal ?

 

           Look at the Five variants of ‘a’ Diacritic – in Roman Script for First Vowel :    -    À - Á -   - à -  Ä  - Å  -  Æ – with Code Notation :   00C0-  00C1-00C2-00C3 -00C4 -00C5 -00C6 –

     Clearly one can see Roman Character set does not carry a TOP VERTICAL LINE   OR BOTTOM HORIZONTAL LINE  as DIACRITIC MARKER.

 

    Out of these, for Print –Digital WEB page Publication, Text Authenticity,which diacritic needs to be used with Devanagari अ-0905 ? with which diacritic ॑

      -  ॒ /॑ 0020 - ॒ 0952.

 

          Is Diacritic  a Language Requirement – By Script - Specificity   (= Bhashaa Vyavasthaa :   Like   Differentiate Chandas  from Bhashaa  /   Lipi Chihna difference for  Devanagari and Dramidam )   

 

           Or  Grammar Requirement  for Rule Making- Marking ( Panini sutra :  ucchaih- udaataah)

 

           Or a Social Writing System  convention (= Lipi-Vyavahara – Paddhati)

 

3.  Request for a helpful update:   

 

      Decades down the Time line , Has the situation changed? 

 

     OR  different ‘Transliteration conventions taken over’ 

 

     OR  ‘simplified Roman Transliteration’ replaced the ‘Diacritic mode Latinization’ ?

     And embraced to various degrees in Academia and Technology- Standards   for SAMSKRUTHAM / VEDIC STUDIES since 18^th century ??

 

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

 

 

From: bvpar...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bvpar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of L Srinivas
Sent: 21 February 2024 18:20
To: भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} ऌ and लृ

 

> The myth of deficiency of any script system of any language has its roots in the expectation that all phones of a language must have a 

> grapheme in the system.

 

In India, this myth also arises from the faulty expectation that any modern Indian script should be capable of representing the sound inventory of  Sanskrit, else it is deficient.  Lately, Sanskrit has been replaced with English, leading to some unnecessary diacritics in an Indian language script such as Hindi. 

 

When I was 10 or 11, we had to memorize this poem on Rani Laxmibai called ख़ूब लड़ी मरदानी by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. It was a wonderfully stirring poem, very visual and not that hard to memorize  at all. The version of the poem we were taught had more than the usual share of diacritics. They used to deduct marks if you reproduced lines of poems without appropriate diacritics. I remember a line which had diacritics galore

 

ज़ख़्मी होकर वाॅकर भागा, उसे अजब हैरानी थी

 

None of my classmates understood why they had to reproduce the diacritic for 'Walker'. No one however questioned the need for diacritics for the Urdu sounds.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Srini

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 4:33:39 AM UTC-5 Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

 

Script controlling or influencing pronunciation is not a tenable thinking, particularly for predominantly oral/ non literate societies.

 

The myth of deficiency of any script system of any language has its roots in the expectation that all phones of a language must have a grapheme in the system.

 

The script symbols, say in Tamil, correspond to the phonemes in Tamil. Those which are assumed to be not having a script symbol in the Tamil script system are allophones within that phoneme so doesn't create any problem for a Tamil reader or writer of the script.

 

In any case pronunciation leads to script, not the other way round.

 

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024, 2:51 pm Surajit Dasgupta, <dasgupta...@gmail.com> wrote:

Any idea how ऌ and लृ used to be represented as graphemes in the pre-Devanagari Brahmi script? I have always held that a reason for Hindi speakers' proclivity to take certain pronunciations for granted is the lack of variety in the Devanagari script to represent different but close phonemes. In fact, the scripts of all modern-day Indian languages have this shortcoming (inability to denote a non-native or obsolete phone). Because especially in India, people learn new words more often from what they read in newspapers, magazines, websites, road signs etc rather than what they hear from the natives of the given language. Pronunciations of foreign words as well as those of archaic words are affected by this common factor — a handicapped script. Of course, the Roman alphabet, Arabic Naskh, Persian and Urdu Nastaliq, the Balkan script, the Cyrillic script, etc are worse.

 

That raises the question whether the Brahmi script used in the manuscripts of the RgVeda, which are dated 1500 BCE, was perfect.

 

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024, 8:35 am Deepro Chakraborty, <chakrabo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Supporting what Shashi ji said, I would say that
(first question) <ऌ> /ḷ/ pronounced as /lri/ is very likely due to the similarity of their forms. In languages, where the two glyphs are not similar such pronunciation does not exist. In Bengali, for example, ऌ is written as ঌ and लृ is written as লৃ. In Bengali pronunciation of Sanskrit, ऌ is not pronounced as लृ

 

and

 

(second question) in Sanskrit, /ṛ/ and /ḷ/ are syllabic or vocalic. They should be pronounced as pure vocalic [r̩] and [l̩]. In Indian traditional phonetics, syllabicity is considered to be the main criterion for being considered a vowel (svara). Therefore, they are listed with the other pure vowels. 

On Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 4:24:21 AM UTC-7 Prakash Raj Pandey wrote:

This is not Devanagari, we call it Prachalita Newari (प्रचलित नेवारी), you take note of the shapes of letters, including those of vowel लृ. This page was shared by Manoj Manuj in his Facebook.. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/af09fa5d-2792-4499-86ac-f4012f8c4024n%40googlegroups.com.

[L Srinivas]

Surajit-jee,

Thanks for your learned remarks.

> The nuqtah in Devanagari has proved inefficient to drive home the point of distinct pronunciations. Most Hindi users of today, unlike 

> those till the 1980s, consider it redundant and do not try to sound accordingly. In Urdu Nastaliq, the difference between j ج and z ز, k ک 

> and q ق, kh کھ and Kh خ, g گ and Gh غ etc is not a mere dot.

This is very true. But Urdu has 4 (or is it 5 ) 'z' equivalent sounds or more appropriately sounds all of which are transliterated in Roman with a 'z'. All are indicated in Hindi as ज़. There is really nothing wrong with that since even Urdu speakers dont distinguish them in their pronunciation of these sounds. Clearly in the parent language the pronunciation is distinct  as indicated by the contrast between Indian transliteration and  foreign  transliteration (Ramzan vs Ramadan, zikr vs dhikr)

> In Urdu Nastaliq, the difference between j ج and z ز, k ک and q ق, kh کھ and Kh خ, g گ and Gh غ etc is not a mere dot.

In the old days, they used to distinguish it in Hindi with a dot (nuqta). Then and now, something as standard as a AIR or Doordarshan Hindi news bulletin never distinguished some of these sounds esp., k and q, kh and Kh, g and Gh. No Hindi speaker, in my experience, did either. Of course, Urdu enthusiasts and native speakers would.

But in the world of performing arts, this was very important. There, Urdu was the vehicle of culture. You hear  Dharmendra, Dara Singh and other actors from a 'rustic' background recalling their early days in the Bombay film industry. By day, they would do their parts in films while by night, they underwent lessons in 'talaffuz' which I presume meant diction i.e., Received Urdu Pronunciation.

 

I guess this is less and less important nowadays. For example, you can hear the actor Kangana Ranaut say that she was made fun of for her rustic Hindi accent. Clearly, no one thought to give her mandatory lessons in 'talaffuz'..

Much of it is cultural politics rather than linguistic purism. 

Hope this helps,

Srini

 

[Radhakrishna Warrier]

"This is very true. But Urdu has 4 (or is it 5 ) 'z' equivalent sounds or more appropriately sounds all of which are transliterated in Roman with a 'z'. All are indicated in Hindi as ज़. There is really nothing wrong with that since even Urdu speakers dont distinguish them in their pronunciation of these sounds. Clearly in the parent language the pronunciation is distinct  as indicated by the contrast between Indian transliteration and  foreign  transliteration (Ramzan vs Ramadan, zikr vs dhikr)"

This is very true.  Persian, from which these different z' s came to Urdu, does not also distinguish these different Arabic sounds.  Looks like very early on, the Persians decided not to go for purity of diction as far as Arabic words are concerned.  The standard Persian pronunciation is 'z' for all these different Arabic sounds.  Persian also does not differentiate the different "t" sounds and the "s" sounds of Arabic.  

Coming to the dot below some of the Devanagari characters to show Persian/Urdu pronunciation, we were not taught in school about these in our Hindi classes in Kerala.  We were made aware of only the difference between z and j.  We were not taught the difference of pronunciation between the genuinely Indic ड and ड़.  Wonder if even our Hindi teachers knew how to pronounce ड़ correctly or how its pronunciation differs from that of ड.

Regards,

Radhakrishna

---

From: bvpar...@googlegroups.com <bvpar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of L Srinivas <lns2...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2024 4:59 AM
To: भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत् <bvpar...@googlegroups.com>

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[L Srinivas]

Namaste BVK Sastry-jee.

> What is the  functionality  and need of a  DIACRITIC  MARKER

Well, in the world of academics and in learned discourse,  the need for diacritics, as a vehicle of precision, might be considered self evident. But under other circumstances, it seems to be largely an expression of linguistic status anxiety.

Thanks,

Srini

[Surajit Dasgupta]

There is really nothing wrong with that since even Urdu speakers dont distinguish them in their pronunciation of these sounds.

Yes, Srinivas ji. Because Indians learnt words of Arabic origin not from Arabs but from Uzbeks, Mongols and Afghans who did not make the k-q (kaaf-qaaf) difference or the difference between zaal, zay, zuad and zoay either when they picked Persian as a language all the invading clans understood to turn it into the court language of Muslim kingdoms.

But the k-q, kh-Kh, j-z (sans further classifications of z), g-G, ph-f differences remained sacrosanct in literary and music circles. The Hindi language poets and writers I read at school and those that my wife read in her postgraduation in Hindi — Jaishankar Prasad, Maithilisharan Gupt, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Nagarjun, Rahul Sankrityayan, Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya' et al — never missed the nuqtah where it was due in printed books, I noticed in the Hindi literature books in the curriculum of University of Delhi. Even today, when most Indians across regions misinterpret the indigenous फ /pʰ/as a foreign /f/, judges of music reality shows correct the contestants. Conversely, where a foreign phone is indigenised, even to a lay person in the Punjab-Awadh stretch, ग़ज़ल (غزل) interpreted as गजल would be jarring, but it wouldn't be in Bihar or Purvanchal of Uttar Pradesh.

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[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste  Srinivas ji

 

1.   There is a lot more to explore on this issue, unpalatable though. The point to focus is < ANXIETY STATUS   for linguistically Appropriate REPRESENTATION >

 

      Talking on these issues, many times,  I have felt that it is good to keep ‘ academic – friendship’ with ‘scholars’  than keep telling ‘Unpleasant Truth’ and

       loose friend ship.    ( - Wisdom from Ramayana : Apriyasya ca pathyasya, vaktaa –srotaa- ca – durlabhah). 

 

2.   There is a foundational need for Rethinking and Remodelling, with lots of Clean up  to set right  errors of Samskruth Text-Representation with ‘Latin-

        Diacritics’. The problem is not new. Before advent of Digital Font model,  The Type set- Metal Foundry printers ( like Nirnaya Sagara/ Vaidika

        samshodhana Mandala ….)  provided a ‘ Basic Text’ that needed ‘VEDIC – PRACTICING -  Scholarly –Human -Supplementation for Learning and Research

        by Academics.  

 

       When  University ‘Professors’ looked down on ‘ Native Purohita/ Priest (?) / Shaastra Sampradaya at Gurukulas ’ and preferred ‘European Dress Code-

        Linguistics from Tower of Babel over Panini Shikshaa Shaastra,    at least two centuries ago, the ‘fashionable - diacritics’ surfaced. And it has continued to

        Digital World !

 

       The restoration of ‘Technicalities of Tradition’ for Todays Media and needs  demand efforts and resources  to revisit  - reset- restore- rejuvenate

        Native Brahmi Methods and Systems  of

 

           < Samskruth Varna- Akshara – Samaamnaaya > relevant  < Swara- Chinha- Ankana/ Lekhana >  on  < Brahmi –Bhashaa – Lipi- Akshara – Maalaa’>.

 

     The needs a prior work on  discovery of Brahmi Native Linguistics as distinct unique semiotic system of ‘Manu(al)- Scripting =  LIPI- SHAASTRA -PADDHATI.

3.   This, possibly is the only antidote and  ‘damage control and correction’ for the current academic practice  and learned discourse, promoting SAMSKRUTH-

      TEXT generation in  < Print media / Digital Media>  with <‘Roman-Diacritic Markers’ on ‘( modern) English character set  -Writing Character visuals , using

      Diacritic >  Precision Fine tuning Script and Sound link.

 

4.   Summary statement ( Details are available at the  public repository - Diacritic - Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic :   

 

   a)   Diacritic:  Role, Need, Functionality  of European Languages does not work with Samskrutham/ Brahmi Language Families:  Design and  Model.  

 

   b)   Diacritic is NOT ‘Accent (VEDIC- Swara – Chinha Ankana): The systemic design of Diacritics of European Language/  Euro centric  Language Character sets

           and semiotics  in Learned Discourse and Writing systems  is INAPPROPRIATE for adoption  ‘as it is’  -  to  Brahmi - Language System (Phonetic and

           Scripting).  Diacritic functionality depends upon the PRIMARY PHONEME VALUE associated with LANGUAGE - SCRIPT SYMBOL to which it  gets added.

 

5.    Summary Action –Course Correction needed  ( If some one is listening- watching, wanting  and ready to take action !)  :  

 

The < linguistic Status Anxiety> to  Represent < Native Samskruth Text >  in a Non-Native Language- Script Semiotic System  to meet the  expectation of   world of academics and for learned discourse  needs a ‘Method and System’ for ‘Visuals –of – Panini Language Scripting with need for ‘Tonal Variation markers’ , as a vehicle of precision. The problem is considered Scholarly – Technologically unresolved and self-evident.  

 

But under  compulsion of  < Social Print/ Digital Outreach /access of Samskruth Texts- Documents > for Education and  Social Public Use  as  < Socio-linguistic / Socio- Economic / Socio-Religious  -  Academic status of anxiety>, the working methods of ‘Romanized Diacritics to represent Sanskrit Text’ -  need a different solution and refinement to current prevalent practice.  The problem is Socially- Academically Prevalent and is  self-evident.  

 

 

The key point: We today , need to understand the Native Text- Internal Guidance on Script-Documenting Samskruth Documents with Brahmi Linguistics- Semiotics ( technically called LIPI –Shaastra – Sampradaya) for In-House needs, before going for a ‘ Non-Brahmi- Scripted Representation of Text of Samskruth, as Academic Research. This is Bharateeya model of study is for Yoga- Samskara- Prayoga- Viniyoga (- Vedanga Brahmi- Bhashaa Vijnana). The Abrahamic Academic research is based on ‘Historicity – Script- ManuScript- Scripture framework and ‘ Theologically Gods language ( Devataa- Bhashaa).

 

For any one with clarity on traditional education, it would be self-evident that ‘Brahmi/ Brahma- Bhashaa’ (= Chandas) design is different from Deva-Bhashaa/ Loka – Vyavahara –Kavya - Bhashaa’  ( Sura-Bharati-  Sahitya - Bhashaa) design.   Jaimini  echnicality would be ‘Mantra- Brahmana – Bhashaa vaividhyataa  for VEDA.)

 

The  Philosophical anchor:  Languages of All Devata’s and related are manifest finites from (Para) Brahma Source. Academics call this model as ‘Proto’ modelling of Language- Evolution.

 

Additional Notes:

 

1.  Role and Need of Diacritic marker for Script :   In Academic  eco system of European Scripts –  Diacritic marker was designed and used for a specific set of characters and writing system.      Diacritic - Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic 

 

2.  Notice  the following snippet from Wiki resource.   ‘ Gunitakshara’ ( Abugida) technicality of Brahmi - Devanagari Bhashaa - Writing system is ‘marked as

       ‘DIACRITIC’ ?!   Take note of foot note to the image below from Wiki.  

 

 

 

3.   A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός (diakritikós, "distinguishing"), from διακρίνω (diakrī́nō, "to distinguish"). Some diacritics, such as the acute ⟨á⟩, grave ⟨à⟩, and circumflex ⟨â⟩ - are often called accents.  Accents  were so called because the acute, grave, and circumflex were originally used to indicate different types of pitch accents in the polytonic transcription of Greek. Not all diacritics occur adjacent to the letter they modify. In the Wali language of Ghana, for example, an apostrophe indicates a change of vowel quality, but occurs at the beginning of the word, as in the dialects ’Bulengee and ’Dolimi. Because of vowel harmony, all vowels in a word are affected, so the scope of the diacritic is the entire word.

 

Diacritics specific to non-Latin alphabets is a historic development and locked to ‘Specific Language Scripting’.  

 

Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.

 

The main use of diacritics in Latin script is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Historically, English has used the diaeresis diacritic to indicate the correct pronunciation of ambiguous words.

 

In orthography and collation, a letter modified by a diacritic may be treated either as a new, distinct letter or as a letter–diacritic combination. This varies from language to language and may vary from case to case within a language.

 

Diacritic Logic  affects  Alphabetization or collation.

Different languages use different rules to put diacritic characters in alphabetical order. French and Portuguese treat letters with diacritical marks the same as the underlying letter for purposes of ordering and dictionaries.  The Scandinavian languages and the Finnish language, by contrast, treat the characters with diacritics å, ä, and ö as distinct letters of the alphabet, and sort them after z. Usually ä (a-umlaut) and ö (o-umlaut) [used in Swedish and Finnish] are sorted as equivalent to æ (ash) and ø (o-slash) [used in Danish and Norwegian]. Also, aa, when used as an alternative spelling to å, is sorted as such. Other letters modified by diacritics are treated as variants of the underlying letter, with the exception that ü is frequently sorted as y.

 

Languages that treat accented letters as variants of the underlying letter usually alphabetize words with such symbols immediately after similar unmarked words. For instance, in German where two words differ only by an umlaut, the word without it is sorted first in German dictionaries (e.g. schon and then schön, or fallen and then fällen). However, when names are concerned (e.g. in phone books or in author catalogues in libraries), umlauts are often treated as combinations of the vowel with a suffixed e; Austrian phone books now treat characters with umlauts as separate letters (immediately following the underlying vowel).  In Spanish, the grapheme ñ is considered a new letter different from n and collated between n and o, as it denotes a different sound from that of a plain n. But the accented vowels á, é, í, ó, ú are not separated from the unaccented vowels a, e, i, o, u, as the acute accent in Spanish only modifies stress within the word or denotes a distinction between homonyms, and does not modify the sound of a letter.

 

Diacritics and Generation with computers :     Modern computer technology was developed mostly in English-speaking countries, so data formats, keyboard layouts, etc. were developed with a bias favoring English, a language with an alphabet without diacritical marks. Efforts have been made to create internationalized domain names that further extend the English alphabet (e.g., "pokémon.com").

 

Depending on the keyboard layout, which differs amongst countries, it is more or less easy to enter letters with diacritics on computers and typewriters. Some have their own keys; some are created by first pressing the key with the diacritic mark followed by the letter to place it on. Such a key is sometimes referred to as a dead key, as it produces no output of its own but modifies the output of the key pressed after it.

 

In modern Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems, the keyboard layouts US International and UK International feature dead keys that allow one to type Latin letters with the acute, grave, circumflex, diaeresis/umlaut, tilde, and cedilla found in Western European languages (specifically, those combinations found in the ISO Latin-1 character set) directly: ¨ + e gives ë, ~ + o gives õ, etc. On Apple Macintosh computers, there are keyboard shortcuts for the most common diacritics; ⌥ Option+E followed by a vowel places an acute accent, ⌥ Option+U followed by a vowel gives an umlaut, ⌥ Option+C gives a cedilla, etc. Diacritics can be composed in most X Window System keyboard layouts, as well as other operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, using additional software.

 

Several languages that are not written with the Roman alphabet are transliterated, or romanized, using diacritics. Examples:

 

Arabic has several romanisations, depending on the type of the application, region, intended audience, country, etc. many of them extensively use diacritics, e.g., some methods use an underdot for rendering emphatic consonants (ṣ, ṭ, ḍ, ẓ, ḥ). The macron is often used to render long vowels. š is often used for /ʃ/, ġ for /ɣ/.

Chinese has several romanizations that use the umlaut, but only on u (ü). In Hanyu Pinyin, the four tones of Mandarin Chinese are denoted by the macron (first tone), acute (second tone), caron (third tone) and grave (fourth tone) diacritics. Example: ā, á, ǎ, à.

Romanized Japanese (Rōmaji) occasionally uses macrons to mark long vowels. The Hepburn romanization system uses macrons to mark long vowels, and the Kunrei-shiki and Nihon-shiki systems use a circumflex.

 

Sanskrit, as well as many of its descendants, like Hindi and Bengali, uses a lossless romanization system, IAST. This includes several letters with diacritical markings, such as the macron (ā, ī, ū), over- and underdots (ṛ, ḥ, ṃ, ṇ, ṣ, ṭ, ḍ) as well as a few others (ś, ñ).

 

Some users have explored the limits of rendering in web browsers and other software by "decorating" words with excessive nonsensical diacritics per character to produce so-called Zalgo text.  Explore More at    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21042-phonetic%20punct.pdf  

 

 

I hope this helps.

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

 

 

 

From: bvpar...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bvpar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of L Srinivas
Sent: 23 February 2024 01:59
To: भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} ऌ and लृ

 

Namaste BVK Sastry-jee.

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[Narayan Prasad]

>

> Q2 -- the pronunciation that should be, is of a vowel, and not of (i or u after a R or  L) a consonant plus vowel.

>

That the varNa ऋ has the nature of a vowel + the consonant r is supported by Panini's sutras:

उरण् रपरः।
रषाभ्यां नो णः समानपदे। 

In the latter, the र includes ऋ as well. (see महाभाष्य)

Regards

Narayan Prasad