Questions on Kannada orthography

[Nityanand Misra]

Dear list members

The attached image is from a Kannada newspaper. Some questions on Kannada orthography—

1) Why is Jharkhand spelt with ಜಾ (जा) and not ಝಾ (झा)? 

2) Why is Chhattisgarh spelt with ಚ (च) and not ಛ (छ)?

3) Why does the spelling of Jharkhand end with ಖಂಡ್ (without schwa) when the spelling of Uttarakhand ends with ಖಂಡ (with schwa)?

Is this always the case or is this publication an exception?

Thanks, Nityananda

[Nityanand Misra]

On Tuesday, 7 July 2020 17:20:51 UTC+5:30, Nityanand Misra wrote:

1) Why is Jharkhand spelt with ಜಾ (जा) and not ಝಾ (झा)? 

This appears to be quite widespread. A Google search for "ಜಾರ್ಖಂಡ್" (in quotes) returns 80,500 results, while a search for "ಝಾರ್ಖಂಡ್" (also in quotes) returns only 3,660 results. Seems the ಅಲ್ಪಪ್ರಾಣ spelling ಜಾರ್ಖಂಡ್ is much more common on the Internet (I’m not sure about print though).

 

[K S Kannan]

What jars on the ears of the sensible

is the preference of the lay

adopted by all without delay

today !

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Dr. K.S.Kannan  D.Litt.

​Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj Chair Professor, IIT-Madras.

Senior Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi.

Academic Director, Swadeshi Indology.

Member, Academic Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthana.

Nominated Member, IIAS, Shimla.

Former Professor, CAHC, Jain University, Bangalore.

Former Director, Karnataka Samskrit University, Bangalore.

Former Head, Dept. of Sanskrit, The National Colleges, Bangalore.

[Nagaraj Paturi]

MahaapraaNa jha in the beginning of a word is a very rare occurrence in the phonemic distribution in many Indian , particularly south Indian languages. 

Very few words have a padaadijhakaara. Even those which have are tatsama words. 

Most of the jhakaaraadi words are onomatopoeic. ಝಾಮ್ಮಂತ , ఝామ్మని, ఝుమ్మని etc. 

That explains the change of the mahaapraaNa jhakaara into alpapraaNa jakaara during borrowing and localization of words into these languages.  

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Director,  Inter-Gurukula-University Centre , Indic Academy

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala

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.

 

 

 

[Radhakrishna Warrier]

The same happens in Malayalam too - both in newspapers and on the internet.  They write Jārkhaṇḍ (ജാർഖണ്ഡ്) instead of Jhārkhaṇḍ (ഝാർഖണ്ഡ്).  Sometimes the ignorance of journalists and netizens go to the extent of confusing jha (ഝ) as a conjunct letter of ta (ത) and dha (ധ) because of its shape 🙂.

Aspirated (mahaapraana) letters came to South Indian languages from Sanskrit and Prakrits.  Excepting Tamil, other south Indian languages had these letters for centuries and perhaps millennia, but many people are still unable to pronounce these correctly.

Regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

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From: bvpar...@googlegroups.com <bvpar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of K S Kannan <ks.kann...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2020 5:25 AM
To: bvparishat <bvpar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Re: Questions on Kannada orthography

 

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

In Sanskrit too jhakaaraadi words are very small in number

Just these two pages cover jhakaaraadi in Apte found at Digital Dictionaries of South Asia site. 

https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/apte_query.py?page=747 

https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/apte_query.py?page=748 

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[Radhakrishna Warrier]

Not just jha even cha (छ) is often transcribed as ca (and pronounced also as ca) by many Malayalam journalists and netizens.  I have seen many times Chhattisgarh transcribed as Cattīsgaḍ (ചത്തീസ് ഗഡ്).

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[Veeranarayanacharya Pandurangi]

It is coined by ಶಂಕರ ಬಟ.  He said jarring is important. There are many followers. 

I too couldn't digest changes that Kannada has undergone when I returned to Karnataka after fifteen years outside. 

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[Radhakrishna Warrier]

1) Why is Jharkhand spelt with ಜಾ (जा) and not ಝಾ (झा)? 

This is not limited to Kannada alone.  In all south Indian languages many newspapers and other publications do this. In the other thread on the same topic, I have given examples of the same in Malayalam.  The reason is that aspirate (mahAprANa) sounds are not natural to Dravidian languages. They came into Dravidian languages from Sanskrit and Prakrit. In spite of centuries, and perhaps millennia of contact with these sounds, many speakers of south Indian languages find it difficult to pronounce these sounds which leads to mispronunciation.  Mispronunciation leads to errors in transcription.

2) Why is Chhattisgarh spelt with ಚ (च) and not ಛ (छ)?

Same answer as above.  छ is mahAprANa, hence substitution by non-aspirate च.

3) Why does the spelling of Jharkhand end with ಖಂಡ್ (without schwa) when the spelling of Uttarakhand ends with ಖಂಡ (with schwa)?

Unlike north Indian languages, south Indian languages pronounce the word final hrasva (short) 'a'.   I am not sure if this is to be called a schwa.  A schwa for me is a samvrta ukaara (very short u) found in Malayalam and Tamil.  The word final short a is a short a for the south Indian.  Nothing short of it. 🙂 .

Why does Jharkhand end with ಖಂಡ್ in Kannada while Uttarakhand ends with ಖಂಡ?  This is just an inconsistency I found in Kannada.  I have seen HAsan bound buses with destination written inconsistently as ಹಾಸನ  (HAsana) and as   ಹಾಸನ್ (HAsan), but haven't heard a single person pronouncing the place name as HAsana with a word final short a.  Same with ಧಾರವಾಡ್ and ಧಾರವಾಡ . The tendency of adding a hrasva 'a' in writing where none exists in pronunciation is more in the northern parts of Karnataka.

Regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

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Subject: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Questions on Kannada orthography

 

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[Radhakrishna Warrier]

On a lighter note, here is my three-and-a-half year old grandson pronouncing the aspirate ch with considerable aspiration 🙂

The little guy speaks three languages - English that he speaks outside his home and with his friends in the daycare, Malayalam that his father speaks to him and Kannada that his mother speaks to him. He has started reading words in English.  His dad taught him Malayalam letters and he can read simple words like aana (elephant) and amma (mother).  Here his mother is teaching him Kannada letters through "high tech" means.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PDoR9DPLlrqk7VONrTDJvMRK6GDK2dy_/view?usp=sharing

Regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier

Aditya_Learning_Kannada.MP4 drive.google.com

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Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Questions on Kannada orthography

 

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