• Yaska यास्क
{yaaS~ka.} यास्क aka
{ya-þa.ka.}
: the pre-Paniniyan grammarian BEPS01-3.htm
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA), Tun Institute of Learning
(TIL).
Based on Burmese Grammar and Grammatical Analysis
by A. W. Lonsdale, Education Department, Burma, British Burma Press, Rangoon,
1899. In two parts:
Part 1. Orthoepy (pronunciation) and orthography (spelling) --
BG1899-1-indx.htm -
update 2019Nov
Part 2. Accidence (morphology) and syntax (sentence structure) --
BG1899-2-indx.htm - update
121117
I plan to update Lonsdale's work and name it BEPS (Burmese, English, Pali,
Sanskrit speeches in Myanmar, Latin, and Devanagri scripts) Grammar. But before
I could do it, I must equip myself with Linguistics and Phonetics. Not for sale. No copyright. Free for
everyone. Prepared for students and
staff of TIL Research Station, Yangon, MYANMAR :
http://www.tuninst.net ,
www.romabama.blogspot.com
New terms in Linguistics
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_diacritics 191102
Relating Bur-Myan akshara in Romabama
to IPA
The consonants
Kinds of segments
Marginal segments : onomatopoeic words,
interjections, & loan words
Suprasegmentals
UKT notes
• Yaska यास्क
{yaaS~ka.} यास्क aka
{ya-þa.ka.}
: the pre-Paniniyan grammarian
UKT 191022:
To relate Bur-Myan to IPA we will take the Linguistic approach using the idea of the Segments of Speech. We all know what the Parts of Speech (POS) are, but what are the Segments?
UKT 160407: Segments of Speech (Linguistic):
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segment_linguistics - 160407
See my TIL Grammar and Linguistic Glossary - E4M-indx.htm > GramGloss-indx.htm > S01.htm (link chk 191022)
See videos by Jürgen Handke, 2012, www.linguistics-online.com - 191023
in TIL HD-VIDEO and SD-VIDEO libraries in Phonetics section (link chk 191023)
- PHO106-BasicSegOfSpeechConson<Ô> / Bkp<Ô>
- PHO107-BasicSegOfSpeechVowel1<Ô> / Bkp<Ô>
- PHO107-BasicSegOfSpeechVowel2<Ô> / Bkp<Ô>
UKT 191023: watching the above videos, which is excellent, confirms my suspicion that Western phoneticians fail miserably in analysing our Asokan related languages, and specifically when dealing with Bur-Myan and Pali-Myan when they cannot fully grasp how our{þa.} is pronounced. It is pronounced with the tongue-tip in between the tip of the upper teeth and the tip of the lower teeth.
Studying linguistics I've come face to face with new terms which are
being created to study languages analytically. One such group is words ending
in suffix -eme . I have to coin new words to make my understanding
easier. The pronunciation of -eme sounds so much like the pronunciation of
{aim} 'lit. home or house" - a unit when we describe a village. How many
houses does a particular village has tells us something about the number of
people living in that village. Taking that as a cue, I use
{aim} as a stand-in for -eme .
The group of these three words is now known as Emic unit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_unit - 191022
In linguistics and related fields, an emic unit is a type of abstract object. Kinds of emic units are generally denoted by terms with the suffix -eme, such as phoneme, grapheme, and morpheme. The term "emic unit" is defined by Nöth (1995) to mean "an invariant form obtained from the reduction of a class of variant forms to a limited number of abstract units". The variant forms are called etic units (from phonetic). This means that a given emic unit is considered to be a single underlying object that may have a number of different observable "surface" representations.
The various etic units that represent a given emic unit of a certain kind are denoted by a corresponding term with the prefix allo-, such as allophone, allograph, and allomorph.
-- UKT 121203, 160406, 191107
It is well known that English transcription (imitating pronunciation) of Bur-Myan is not satisfactory, because of which, instead of trying to come up with a transcription scheme, I had to start with a transliteration (depicting spelling).
The difficulty of transcription lies primarily
with the English language because it is not a
phonetic language. Remember, the modern
English language is no longer the language
of Alfred-the-Great which is now called
Old English. The phoneme /θ/
in common English words <thin> and
<thorn> have this sound and is the same
as Bur-Myan
{þa.}, because of which I no longer use the
digraph th , but use the
"thorn-character" þ of
Old English.
Old English is now a foreign language
in England itself. If we are not careful,
Burmese would soon become a foreign
language in Myanmarpré! Now listen to a sample of Old English in TIL
HD-VIDEO and SD-VIDEO libraries in Old English section (link chk 191107):
-
OldEngl-01<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
-
OldEngl-02<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
UKT 160406: The name "Alfred" is spelled in Old English is Ælfrēd, Ælfrǣd, 'elf counsel' or 'wise elf. The vowel æ is a front vowel equal to
{a.}. The present-day spelling is with a which is usually pronounced as the back vowel
{AU:}.
"... Alfred founded a court school to educate nobles. He also encouraged the great scholars of the time to move to England so they may be a constructive influence upon England's education. It is stated by Alfred that
'...if we have peace, that all the youth now in England-may be devoted to learning.'
He placed a huge emphasis on education and because of his insistence English became the official written language. Alfred himself translated many texts from Latin, the official language for writing before, into English such as "The History of Venerable Bede," "Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy," "Dialogues of Gregory the Great, " Gregory's "Pastoral Care," and Orosius' "Soliloquies of St. Augustine." - Michael KalamchiRead about Alfred-the-Great (849 – 899 AD) and the English language in:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great - 160406
- http://michael-kalamchi.blogspot.com/2010/09/alfred-great-and-english-language.html - 160406
Transliteration, on the other hand is quite
easy because Bur-Myan, like other Asokan
Brahmi related languages
is a phonetic script in which the aim is a
one-to-one mapping between script and
speech. The word Akshara means exactly that
and that the one-to-one relationship is
"unchangeable". The word has
nothing to do with axiomatic Brahma, God,
or YHVH.
There is no reason why Bur-Myan could
not be transliterated into IPA (International
Phonetic Alphabet) script. From IPA
transliteration we can get a fair English
transcription. In order to lay the foundation
on a firmer ground, I started comparing
Skt-Dev (comparable to English, both belonging
to the IE language-group) to Pali-Myan (a
Tib-Bur language just like Bur-Myan). For
corpus of Skt-Dev I use A Practical Sanskrit
dictionary (in Skt-Dev) by A. A. Macdonell,
1893, pp384, and comparing each entry in
Devanagari script to Pal-Myan mainly from
Pali-Myanmar Dictionary by U Hoke Sein
-
In linguistics (specifically, phonetics and phonology), the term segment is any discrete unit that can be identified by "seeing", "hearing", or by both in the stream of speech.
Segments are separate and individual,
such as consonants (C)
{byæÑ:}, and vowels (V)
{þa.ra.}, which can be identified in a
syllable. English syllables have the
canonical form CVC whereas Burmese, and
Sanskrit syllables have the structure CVÇ,
where the Ç is a killed consonant. I rely
on the effect of coda Ç - the killed
consonant - on the nuclear vowel V of the
syllable. By this way I discover that Bur-Myan
Nya-major
/
{Ña.}/{Ñ}), is not a nasal like Nya-minor
/
{ña.}/{ñ.}), but similar in many ways to approximant
/
{ya.}/{ý}.
To confirm that my approach of coming up with a reliable transcription between Bur-Myan and Eng-Lat, I started learn Mon-Myan language. I am 1/8th Mon of Pegu dialect which is now completely lost. I owe it to my maternal great grandmother Daw MèMa (who hailed from Mayan village adjacent to the town of Kungyangon where I was born) to learn her language -- at through the still now extant Martaban dialect. I then discover to my horror that Romabama transcription does not hold for Mon-Myan, because of Romabama's reliance on Burmese phonology (a Tib-Bur language). Mon-Myan phonology (Austro-Asiatic) is very different from that of Bur-Myan even though the same Myanmar script is used. Yet if we use Pali terms, we can still get some meanings because both Bur-Myan speakers and Mon-Myan are of the same religious and cultural background. Now, I am beginning to dream of trying to find a relationship between PaO-Myan speech and Bur-Myan. Of course, in all my endeavors I will rely on the Myanmar script - the unifying element of Myanmarpré, and Theravada Buddhism another equally unifying element.
- UKT 160407, 191107
UKT 191023: Always refer to Vowels and Consonants
- MC-indx.htm > MCvowcon-indx.htm > MC-syllab.htm (link chk 191023)
Note that the Myazédi inscription in Pagan, Myanmarpré, was inscribed in 1113 AD. Also note that Brahmins in Delhi, India, had failed to decipher the Asokan script when their emperor Feroz Shah Tughlaq (1309-1388) of India, had called on them to decipher Asokan inscriptions. It is clear that Asokan had ceased to be known in India. It implies that at least Bur-Myan script was as old as Asokan.UKT 191127: Also remember that the consonant in the Alphabet-Letter, is mute - unpronounceable, whereas in Abugida-Akshara, the consonant by virtue of its intrinsic vowel is an syllable - pronounceable. This effects the canonical structure of the most simple word. In English (Alphabet-Letter) the canonical structure is CVC, whereas in Burmese (Abugida-Akshara), it is CVÇ. In Burmese, C = onset-consonant, V = nuclear vowel, Ç = coda-consonant.
The Abugida-Akshara languages, Bur-Myan,
Pal-Myan, and Skt-Dev, are based on
Phonetics. In these languages, the aim is
represent each human-voice sound known as
phoneme by a dedicated hand-stroke known
as grapheme. The meaning of
"Akshara" is 'unchanging
one-to-one mapping' between speech and
script. Pronounce a word as it is spelled
and you can be sure that it is almost the
pronunciation as articulated and heard by
the respective native speaker. Articulation
and hearing depends on the culture of the
language speaker, and so when a foreign
phonetician tries to simulate what the
native has done, you can be sure that it
may be close but not recognizable enough
for the natives to understand you.
Articulation and hearing is what we call
Phonology. For example in the Wikipedia article on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrasia_djijidae 191127
"The species, A. djijidae, was named in memory of a young girl from
Mogaung
village in central
Myanmar.
|
[1]
Now, what on earth is djijidae ? It is clearly a mispronunciation
of a Bur-Myan name. The closest I can think of is
{kyæÑ kyæÑ hté:} - the name of a famous Bur-Myanmar female actor around the time
of the young girl.
Each grapheme in Abugida-Akshara language
contains an inherent vowel, even for
consonants. Every Aksahara-consonant is
therefore pronounceable. Thus the
akshara-consonant
/
{ta.} has the sound /t/. The
akshara-consonant is a syllable:
pronounceable.
On the other hand, in the Alphabet-Letter
language, the letter-consonant t, not
having an inherent vowel, is mute. The glyph
depicting the Georgian language
letter-consonant t , თ
"consonant-Tan", has the same
shape as
{ta.}, is mute because it does
not have an intrinsic vowel. Supply it with ა
"vowel-An" and the combined თა has the same sound as
{ta.}. Georgian is an Alphabet-Letter
language, where the Letter is mute.
If you want to turn
{ta.} into თ ‹Tan›, you will have
to kill the inherent vowel of
{ta.} with the vowel killer known as Virama
{a.þût} when it becomes
{t} indicated by a flag above the glyph.
The glyph
{t} is now equal to თ ‹Tan›. The
reverse process is:
თ /t/ + ა /a/ --> თ /ta/
თ /t/ + ი /i/ --> თი /ti/ : same sound as
{ti.}
Failure of the language teachers, especially who are teaching ESL, to differentiate Abugida-Akshara (Burmese) from Alphabet-Letter (English) is the most regrettable. Akshara system has been studied by ancient phoneticians like Yaska and Panini who flourished thousands of years ago around the time of Gautama Buddha. Modern Phonetics in the West is but a few centuries old.
Such a deep study of Akshara-Phonetics does
not need to involve many individuals. It
could be done by a few dedicated persons,
who technically are
{ra.þé} aka
{I.þi.} ऋषि «ṛṣi»
working alone, not for the love of money but
dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.
UKT 191107: Inset shows a
Bur-Myan dictionaries always begin with
the consonants, whereas Pal-Myan
dictionaries and Pal-Latin dictionaries
start with vowels. And so following the
way of Bur-Myan dictionaries, I had
started my representation in Romabama
{ro:ma.ba.ma} with
the consonants. If I had started with the
vowels I would not be able to see the
correspondence between the Myanmar akshara
and the IPA.
The task of a one-to-one transliteration of Myanmar-script (and other Asokan-based scripts) into IPA would have been very straight forward if only the IPA symbols were in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Here I find fault with the ASCII designers: they have failed to take IPA symbols into consideration when they designed their code. As it is the following three phonemes are not well represented in English:
/ ŋ / =
/
{gna.}/{ng} ङ
/ ɲ / =
/ θ / =
Bur-Myan (of Tib-Bur group) is thibilant and the pronunciation is
Because, Eng-Lat has used digraphs <ng> for / ŋ /, <ny> for / ɲ / , and <th> for /θ/, the transcribers have simply used the English digraphs to represent the Bur-Myan aksharas instead of using other Latin characters.
They could have easily used,
<ñ> for
<Ñ> for
<þ> for
In case of
In Romabama I have not confined myself to pure
"modern" letters of the English alphabet.
However, we are still left with no character for
/
{gna.}/{ng} . So far, I haven't been able to come
up with a readily recognizable ASCII character, and
so I have to include the vowel and have to rely on
a convention:
To see how I am trying to solve the problem of representing Bur-Myan vowels in Romabama, using syllables with coda consonants, please go to ch04-4.htm (link chk 191023).
-- UKT 081006, 121203, 160408, 191108
This section has been bothering me for a long time primarily due to a lack of a Myanmar font suitable for me, and also due to lack of a reliable transcription. I had felt that Wikipedia had misled me - who is just trying to educate myself. Now that I've managed to come up a "font" in a pix form deposited in AK-BNKs and Romabama, I dare take on the topic again.
Based on Wikipedia articles:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusvara#Burmese 191108
"In the Bur-MyanBurmesescript, the anusvara{auk-mric}, is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate a creaky tone (with a shortened vowel). Bur-Myan
Burmesealso uses a dot above to indicate the /-ɴ/ nasalized ending (called "Myanmar Sign Anusvara" in Unicode), called{þé:þé:tín}. "
" Anunasika (anunāsika) is a form of vowel nasalization, often represented by an anusvara. It is a form of open mouthed nasalization, akin to the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or "m" in Parisian French. When "n" or "m" follow a vowel, the "n" or "m" becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasal (pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part or all of the air to leave through the nostrils). Anunasika is sometimes called a subdot because of its IAST representation.
In Skt-DevDevanagariand related orthographies, it is represented by the chandrabindu ["moon-dot"] diacritic (example: मँ ).
In Bur-MyanBurmese, the anunasika, called), creates the /-ɴ/ nasalized ending when it is attached as a dot above a letter. The anunasika represents the -m final in Pali.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segment_(linguistics) 191108
"In linguistics, a segment is "any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech". [1] The term is most used in phonetics and phonology to refer to the smallest elements in a language, and this usage can be synonymous with the term phone.
"In spoken languages, segments will typically be grouped into consonants and vowels, but the term can be applied to any minimal unit of a linear sequence meaningful to the given field of analysis, such as a mora or a syllable in prosodic phonology, a morpheme in morphology, or a chereme in sign language analysis. [2]
"Segments are called "discrete" because they are, at least at some analytical level, separate and individual, and temporally ordered. Segments are generally not completely discrete in speech production or perception, however. The articulatory, visual and acoustic cues that encode them often overlap. Examples of overlap for spoken languages can be found in discussions of phonological assimilation, coarticulation, and other areas in the study of phonetics and phonology, especially autosegmental phonology.
"Other articulatory, visual or acoustic cues, such as prosody (tone, stress), and secondary articulations such as nasalization, may overlap multiple segments and cannot be discretely ordered with them. These elements are known as suprasegmentals. "
"... ... ...
"Some contrastive elements of speech cannot be easily analyzed as distinct segments but rather belong to a syllable or word. These elements are called suprasegmental, and include intonation and stress. In some languages nasality and vowel harmony are considered suprasegmental or prosodic by some phonologists. [3] [4]
We all know the Parts of Speech in a
grammar, such as nouns and verbs, but
what are the segments of speech?
Now what are Suprasegmentals? Watch a video in TIL HD-VIDEO and SD-VIDEO
libraries in Phonetics section:
-
PHO108SuprasegFeatures<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
(link chk 191103)
-
PHO106BasicSegOfSpeechConson<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô> (link chk 191103)
UKT 121205: I think I know what are the parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. Yet do I know when these were first studied by the ancient sages. See in my note the work of Yaska - the ancient grammarian hundreds if not thousands of years before the birth of our Lord Buddha who had flourished thousands of years before our time. I am really ashamed of myself who had thought greatly of our modern Science and Technology. What about you?
Though I am still not certain, I think the
study of segments is related to what Lonsdale
has given on his p002 as:
(UKT 121205)
{ak~hka.rûp~pa.Bé-da.} -- Distinction of Letters
-- includes Orthography (spelling) and Orthoepy (pronunciation)
Other units, such as tone, stress, and sometimes secondary articulations such as nasalization, may coexist with multiple segments and cannot be discretely ordered with them. These elements are termed suprasegmental.
Now what are Suprasegmentals? Watch a video in TIL HD-VIDEO and SD-VIDEO libraries in Phonetics section:
- PHO108SuprasegFeatures<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 191103)
- PHO106BasicSegOfSpeechConson<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 191103)UKT 121205: Note: suprasegmentals are represented in Bur-Myan & Pal-Myanmar, and Skt-Dev with dots: 'dot above', 'dot below', and 'double dots'. See below.
In phonetics, the smallest perceptible segment is a phone.
In phonology, there is a subfield of segmental phonology that deals with the analysis of speech into phonemes (or segmental phonemes), which correspond fairly well to phonetic segments of the analysed speech.
When analyzing the inventory of segmental units in any given language such as Bur-Myan, some segments will be found to be marginal, in the sense that they are only found in onomatopoeic words, interjections -- one of the eight parts of speech [aka exclamation], loan words , or a very limited number of ordinary words, but not throughout the language. Marginal segments, especially in loan words, are often the source of new segments in the general inventory of a language. This appears to have been the case with English /ʒ/, which originally only occurred in French loans.
In Bur-Myan, we have words that are derived
from the sounds of an event. As an example, the word
{soat} is your making an alveolar sound when
your foot accidentally hit something
resulting in a sharp pang of pain.
{soat} - v. intone MED2006-124
{soat-þut} - v. make an alveolar click sounding something like "tsk-tsk" to alleviate your pain, or a sound you make to calm a horse. -- MED2006-124
Such words, derived from sound, are sound-derived words or onomatopoeic words.
on·o·mat·o·poe·ia n. 1. The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. -- AHTD
(the following is from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interjection 121205)
Several English interjections contain sounds that don't (or very rarely) exist in regular English phonological inventory. For example:
• Ahem /əʔəm/, /ʔəʔəm/, /əɦəm/, or /ʔəhəm/, ("attention!") may contain a glottal stop /ʔ/ or a /ɦ/ in any dialect of English; the glottal stop is common in American English, some British dialects, and in other languages, such as German.
• Shh /ʃːː/ ("quiet!") is an entirely consonantal syllable.
• Ps /psː/ ("here!"), also spelled psst , is another entirely consonantal syllable-word, and its consonant cluster does not occur initially in regular English words.
• Tut-tut /ǀ ǀ/ ("shame..."), also spelled tsk-tsk , is made up entirely of clicks, which are an active part of regular speech in several African languages. This particular click is dental. (This also has the spelling pronunciation /tʌt tʌt/.)
• Ugh /ʌx/ ("disgusting!") ends with a velar fricative consonant, which otherwise does not exist in English, though is common in languages like Spanish, German, and Gaelic.
• Whew or phew /ɸɪu/ ("what a relief!"), also spelled shew , may start with a bilabial fricative, a sound pronounced with a strong puff of air through the lips. This sound is a common phoneme in such languages as Suki (a language of New Guinea) and Ewe and Logba (both spoken in Ghana).
• Gah /ɡæh/ ("Gah , there's nothing to do!") ends with [h], which does not occur with regular English words.
• Yeah /jɛ/ ("yes") ends with the short vowel /ɛ/, or in some dialects /æ/, neither of which are found at the end of any regular English words.
Interjections are known as
{a-mé-ðait} in Bur-Myan.
-- BG-MLC (Burmese Grammar), v.01
Some phonemes cannot be easily analyzed
as distinct segments, but rather belong
to a syllable or even word. Such
"suprasegmentals" include
tone, stress, and prosody. In some languages
such as Bur-Myan, nasality
{nha-þän} or
vowel harmony is suprasegmental.
Suprasegmentals are indicated in Bur-Myan and Skt-Dev by "dots" or "smallest circles. There are three "diacritics" in Bur-Myan and Skt-Dev. The following are some examples from rhyming index, p01-36, of MLC Bur-Myan Orthography, ed. U Tun Tint, 1st.ed., 1986, :
{kän},
{koän},
{kyän},
{kyoän},
{krän},
{kroän},
{kwyän},
{hkän},
{hkoän},
{hkyoän},
{hkroän},
{hkwän},
{hkwyän},
{goän},
{gyoän},
{gnän},
{gnoan},
{sän},
{soän},
{hsän},
{hsoän},
{hswän.}
{Ñän},
{tän},
{män} (labial-r5c5),
{nän} (dental-r4c5),
{än} (indefinite POA)
{ké.},
{kè.},
{kau.},
{kän.}
{ngaa.} (velar)
{wuc~sa. pauk} 'double dots' produces a long-emphatic vowel sound, e.g.
{gna:} (velar),
The above diacritics can give many series with creak, medial, and emphatic sounds. However, I will concentrate first on the following two that concerns the Burmese (Tib-Bur group), and, English & Sanskrit (IE group) speakers.
dental:
{naa.} ,
{na} 'hurt',
{na:} 'ear'
velar:{gna} "vulgar first-person pronoun < I > ",
The IE speakers, unable to articulate the velars, habitually substitute the dentals in their places. Thus:
with hilarious results: a restaurant order for "fried fish" produces a dish of "fried ears" (pig-ears)Bur-Myan
{na:.} नः
I have come to this conclusion after repeated listening of the last line of Gayatri Mantra -- the oldest Vedic hymn now adopted by Hindu religionists. Also look at my Aks-to-Aks transcription from Devanagari to Myanmar:
1st line: no problem.
2nd line: because Devanagari is written without any white spaces Aks-to-Aks is impossible unless I take the IAST transliterationSkt-Dev: Gayatri Mantra
- gayatri<)) (link chk 191107)ॐ भूर्भुवः॒ स्वः ।
Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
{OÄN}
{Buur-wa:.}
{þwa:}
तत्स॑वितुर्वरे॑ण्यं ।
tát savitúr váreṇ(i)yaṃ
{tût}
{þa.wi.tuur} ...
भ॒र्गो॑ दे॒वस्य॑ धीमहि। ।
bhárgo devásya dhīmahiधियो॒ यो नः॑ प्रचो॒दय&#॥ ।
dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt
The following is the translation given by;
http://www.gayatri.info/gayatri-mantra---word-for-word-translation 121203
May our intellect (धियो) bear (धीमहि)
THAT (तत्) Supreme Consciousness (ॐ)which-
-embodies and protects the Vital-Spiritual energies H ,
-eliminates the Sufferings (भुवः),
-embodies Happiness स्वः),
(and) THAT (तत्)
(which) is- Self-Luminous-Divine-Brilliance andUltimate Creative Source (सवितुः),
-the best of the best, most virtuous (वरेण्यं),
-cleanser of all our imperfections (भर्गो),
-aggregate of all Divine Virtues and Strengths (देवस्य);
(and) WHO (यो) (we pray to) propel (प्रé 0;ोदयात्) our (नः) intellect (धियो)
on the Divine-righteous path to unfold spiritual potentiality and enlightenment
Personal note: I am captivated the voice of the Hindi singer Anuradha Paudwal. After listening to her voice and going over the text and meanings of the Mantra -- a hymn to the Goddess of Learning, a form of the primeval Creator or Energy -- I would have to say that my mind is opened!
In my study of Skt-Dev, I have come across
terms such as Anusvara
अनुस्वार
«anusvāra»
{a.nu.þwa-ra.}, and Anunaasika
«anunāsika»
{a.nu.na-ka.} . They mean very little
in terms of understanding, and it is best
to go by words such as "dot above",
"dot below", and "double dots".
Yet I have given below excerpts from
various sources primarily Wikipedia.
Anusvara (Skt-Dev:
अनुस्वार
«anusvāra»
{a.nu.þwa-ra.}) is the diacritic used
to mark a type of nasalization used in
a number of Indic languages. Depending
on the location of the anusvara in the
word, and on the language within which
it is used, its exact pronunciation can
vary greatly.
In the Devanagari script, anusvara is
represented with a dot above the letter,
e.g. मं =
{män}. The dot
above gives the pronunciation
{män}]. In IAST, it is written below the
character (ṃ). Some transcriptions
render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedic
shakhas with variant transcription
(ṁ).
In Sanskrit, nasalization of
a preceding vowel is an allophone
of /m/ & /n/ before a following
consonant (either word-internally or
across a word boundary); /m/ is only
realized as [m] before vowels or in
pausa. In the Devanagari script,
this nasalization is expressed by
the anusvara diacritic dot above
the preceding letter, called bindu
{bain~du.} 'dot'. The nasalization
can be realized either as a nasal
stop
homorganic (i.e. sharing the same place
of articulation) to the following consonant
(e.g. /ɳ/ before retroflex sounds,
/ŋ/ before velar sounds, etc.), or as
/m/ when coda word-final.
In Hindi, it is pronounced as a nasal stop homorganic to the following consonant, or as nasalization of the preceding vowel when no consonant follows. It has merged in pronunciation with the chandrabindu diacritic in Hindi, the two used in complementary distribution depending on the character over which they are placed.
Anusvara is used in other Indic scripts including Bur-Myan as well, usually to represent suprasegmental phones (such as phonation type or nasalization), or for other nasal sounds.
In the Bengali script, [UKT:
speech is Bangla, script is Bengali
giving rise to Bangla-Bengali.]
the anusvara diacritic
(অনুস্বার
onushshar in Bengali) is written
as a circle above a slanted line
(ং), and represents the voiced velar
nasal /ŋ/
[/
{gna.}{ng}]. It is used in the name of the
Bengali language বাংলা
/baŋla/
[ ব া ং ল া ] .
It has merged in pronunciation with the
letter ঙ ungô in Bengali.
[UKT ¶]
UKT: The name of the country in Bur-Myan is spelled with
{kín:si:} as
{Bïn~ga.la:},
from which is derived Bay of Bengal{Bïn~ga.la: au}
Although the anusvara is a consonant in Bengali phonology, it is nevertheless treated in the written system as a diacritic, in that it is always directly adjacent to the preceding consonant, even when spacing consonants apart in titles or banners (e.g. বাং-লা-দে-শ bang-la-de-sh, not বা-ং-লা-দে-শ ba-ng-la-de-sh for বাংলাদেশ Bangladesh), it is never pronounced with the inherent vowel "ô", and it cannot take a vowel sign (instead, the consonant ঙ ungô is used pre-vocalically).
In the Bur-Myan script, the
anusvara
{a.nu.þwa-ra.} is represented as a dot
underneath a nasalised coda
final to indicate
a creaky tone (with a shortened vowel
[duration 1/2 eye-blink]).
UKT: Statements like "anusvara is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final" had threw me off until I came across unambiguous statements:
#
# The "creaky tone" is produced byBelow are examples where the modal pitch-register (or tone) is modified by "dot below"
#1.{gnän.} (1 blk),
#2.
Because descriptive words such as <creak>, <modal>, and <emphatic> are sometimes misleading, I am using my perception of vowel-duration in terms of eye-blinks.
In the Sinhala script, the anusvara is not a diacritic but an independent grapheme. It has circular shape (ං) and resembles a Latin <o> or a <0>, which is why it is called binduva in Sinhala, which means "zero". The anusvara represents the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/ at the end of a syllable. It is used in the name of the Sinhala language සිංහල. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ඞ ṅa in Sinhala.
Anunaasika «anunāsika» is a form of vowel nasalization, often represented by an anusvara. [UKT ¶]
creak (1/2 to 1 blk): ------------
{poän.} derived from
{pu.} + "dot above" + "dot below"
modal (1 blk): -------------------{poän} derived from
emphatic ( 2 blk + emphsis) :{poän:} derived from
It is a form of open mouthed nasalization akin to the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or "m" in Parisian French. When "n" or "m" follow a vowel, the "n" or "m" becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasal (i.e. pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part or all of the air to leave through the nostrils). Anunaasika is sometimes called a subdot because of its IAST representation.
In Sanskrit and related orthographies it is represented as an anusvara, a dot on top of the breve above the letter (e.g. मँ ). When transliterated using IAST, it is represented by a consonant (usually "m") with a dot below (e.g. ṃ ṇ even though only the preceding vowel may be voiced.
In Bur-Myan, the anunaasika
{a.nu.na-þi.ki.}
creates a nasalised final, when attached
as a dot above a letter. The anunaasika
primarily occurs in loan words.
{yaaS~ka.} aka
{ya-þa.ka.} -- UKT: 121206, 191104
See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaska 121206, 191104
"Yāska{pa-Ni.ni. hsa.ra} (4th c. BCE. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [note 1]), he is traditionally identified as the author of Nirukta, the discipline of "etymology" (explanation of words) within Vyākarṇa
{bya-ka.ra.Na.} 'Sanskrit grammatical tradition'."
We know almost nothing of Yāska
{yaaS~ka.}
aka
{ya-þa.ka.} as a historical person. He was a grammarian.
Since Pāṇini cites at least ten grammarians which included Yāska
{yaaS~ka.} before him, he might have been a Védic grammarian. Note: I hold that
Védic is Tib-Bur. The time when Yāska
{yaaS~ka.}
aka
{ya-þa.ka.} flourished was during the change of Bronze Age into Iron Age.
We need to say something
about Yāska
{yaaS~ka.} because he was the author of the Nirukta
{ni.roat~ta.} - a word used by
Gautama Buddha that is a source of contention between Chi Hisen-lin - the noted
Chinese Sanskritist and his Western contemporaries.
There probably was no written script -- Vedic was learned by heart by humans turned into "computers". A method of training -- repeating each sound after the teacher in a forward way, and then in the reversed manner, and then forward-reverse, and then reverse-forward, to prevent the student from making any mistake. It was a painstaking training that turned the student into a "machine" which must be fed, clothed and taken care of by the society which wanted to own it. He in his turn became a teacher and he trained new students. [I have read about this method somewhere but unfortunately I had not recorded the source. ]
If you doubt my story about
"human-computers" you should read
about Mingun Sayadaw U Vicitsara:
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingun_Sayadaw
121206 .
The following is the excerpt from
the Wikipedia article:
"In 1985, the Guinness Book of Records
recorded the sayadaw as a record holder in
the Human memory category. The exact entry
was: Human memory: Bhandanta Vicitsara
(sic) recited 16,000 pages of Buddhist
canonical text in Rangoon, Burma in May 1954.
Rare instances of eidetic memory the ability
to project and hence "usually"
recall material are known to science .
[1]
"
Based Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaska 121206
UKT: I have change the word "Sanskrit" to "Vedic", because Skt-Dev came about only with Panini who flourished much later.
Yaska is the author of the Nirukta
{ni.roat~ta.} a technical treatise on
etymology, lexical category and the
semantics of Vedic words. He is thought
to have succeeded
Śākaṭāyana
{sha-ka.ta-ya.na.}, an older grammarian and
expositor of the Vedas, who is mentioned in
his text.
The Nirukta attempts to explain how certain words get to have their meanings, especially in the context of interpreting the Vedic texts. It includes a system of rules for forming words from roots and affixes, and a glossary of irregular words, and formed the basis for later lexicons and dictionaries. It consists of three parts, viz.:
1. Naighantuka, a collection of synonyms;
2. Naigama, a collection of words peculiar to the Vedas, and
3. Daivata, words relating to deities [which included both{a.þu-ra} and
{dé-wa.}] and sacrifices.
UKT 160408: Note the spelling <ai> in the above three words: it is{è:} unknown in Pali which usually becomes
{é} as in
The Nirukta was one of the six vedangas
or compulsory ritual subjects in syllabus
of Sanskrit scholarship in ancient India. Since, rites and ceremonies are not
important in Buddhism, the vedangas
are more important to us than the Hindu rituals.
See -
http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/bot/pdf/bot_1982_02_02.pdf
191106.
The above by Mrs. M. De in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries
-
MDe-BuddhRitualsBurma<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô> (link chk
191106)
Yāska defines four main categories of words [1]:
1. nāma
{na-ma.} - nouns or substantives
2. ākhyāta{a-hkya-ta.} - verbs
{a-hkyaat} - n. Pali gram verb. -- MED2006-603c2
-- BG-MLC (Burmese Grammar), v.01
3. upasarga - pre-verbs or prefixes
Is it Pal-Myan{U.pa.þa-ra.} (UHS-PMD0233) ? -- UKT121206
4. nipāta{ni.pa-ta.} - particles, invariant words (perhaps prepositions)
Yāska singled out two main ontological categories: a process or an action (bhāva), and an entity or a being or a thing (sattva). Then he first defined the verb as that in which the bhāva ('process') is predominant whereas a noun is that in which the sattva ('thing') is predominant. The 'process' is one that has, according to one interpretation, an early stage and a later stage and when such a 'process' is the dominant sense, a finite verb is used as in vrajati, 'walks', or pachati, 'cooks'. [1]
But this characterization of Noun / Verb is inadequate, for some processes may also have nominal forms (e.g. "He went for a walk"). For this, Yāska proposed that when a process is referred to as a 'petrified' or 'configured' mass (mUrta) extending from start to finish, a verbal noun should be used, e.g. vrajyā, a walk, or pakti, a cooking. The latter may be viewed as a case of summary scanning [2], since the element of sequence in the process is lacking.
UKT 160407: The word mass (mUrta) is:
• मूर्त «mūrta» - adj. formed, stupefied, substantial, insensible, material, concrete [Statistics], unconscious, etc.
- SpkSkt
These concepts are related to modern notions of grammatical aspect, the murta constituting the perfective and the bhāva the imperfective aspect.
Yāska also gives a test for nouns both concrete and abstract: nouns are words which can be indicated by the pronoun that.
As in modern semantic theory, Yāska views words as the main carriers of meaning. This view - that words have a primary or preferred ontological status in defining meaning, was fiercely debated in the Indian tradition over many centuries. The two sides of the debate may be called the Nairuktas (based on Yāska's Nirukta, atomists), vs the Vaiyākarans (grammarians following Pāṇini, holists), and the debate continued in various forms for twelve centuries involving different philosophers from the Nyaya, Mimamsa and Buddhist schools.
In the prātishākhya texts that precede Yāska, and possibly Sakatayana as well, the gist of the controversy was stated cryptically in sutra form as "saṃhitā pada-prakṛtiḥ". According to the atomist view, the words would be the primary elements (prakṛti) out of which the sentence is constructed, while the holistic view considers the sentence as the primary entity, originally given in its context of utterance, and the words are arrived at only through analysis and abstraction.
This debate relates to the atomistic vs holistic interpretation of linguistic fragments - a very similar debate is raging today between traditional semantics and cognitive linguistics, over the view whether words in themselves have semantic interpretations that can be composed to form larger strings. The cognitive linguistics view of semantics is that any definition of a word ultimately constrains it meanings because the actual meaning of a word can only be construed by considering a large number of individual contextual cues.
Yāska also defends the view,
presented first in the lost text of
Sakatayana that etymologically,
most nouns have their origins in verbs.
An example in English may be the noun
origin, derived from the Latin
originalis, which is ultimately
based on the verb oriri,
"to rise". This view is related
to the position that in defining agent
categories, behaviours are ontologically
primary to, say, appearance. This was
also a source for considerable debate for
several centuries (see Sakatayana
for details).
See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakatayana
160409
"Śākaṭāyana was an early "etymologist" or
nairukta
{ni.roak~ta.}
निरुक्त
= न ि र ु क ् त .
He is the oldest grammarian known by name, even though
his work is only known indirectly, via references by
Yaska and Panini."
UKT 191120: We are interested the word Niroakta
- lang-probl.htm - update 15Nov (link chk 191120)
"I permit you, O Monks, to learn the word of the Buddha in his own language."
After reading what is given below "Don't memorize, seek the meaning", I interpret that Buddha allows his monks to learn the teachings of Buddha in their own vernacular language, and pass on the message to their own audience as they understand it. They are not just to recite the Buddha's words in Sanskrit even though Sanskrit is a perfect language.Now what about Pali? I think it is alright to recite the Buddha's words in Pali-Myan, provided that the preaching monk explains it in Bur-Myan to his Burmese audience. There is a caveat: the preacher himself must understand the Buddha's words down to their underlying meaning! That means the preacher monk must be continually analysing the Buddha's words based on his life's experience.
See also Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirukta 191120
" Don't memorize, seek the meaning
"What has been taken [from the teacher's mouth] but not understood,
"is uttered by mere [memory] recitation,
"it never flares up, like dry firewood without fire.
"Many a one, [although] seeing, do not see Speech,
"many a one, [although] hearing, do not hear Her,
"and many a one, She spreads out [Her] body, like a wife desiring her husband.
"The meaning of Speech, is its fruit and flower."
— Yaska, Nirukta 1.18-1.20
[11]
[12]
Go back Yaska-note-b
End of TIL file
