Sanskritsanskritsanskrit

[icarus]

Got up at nine as the cat walked over me. Oof. Fourteen pounds of wake-up-now-I'm-hungry kitty.

Pulled out the Sanskrit homework and started reading, copying, testing myself, writing, reading.

wildernessguru brought in a yogurt, happy to have a shot at the computer for a change. I mumbled something incoherent, digging a spoon into it without tasting it.

Sanskritsanskritsanskrit...

...if the visarga (":") is the absolute final, the end of a sentence, then it remains unchanged. If it's followed by the unvoiced palatal, retroflex, or dental consonants, and preceded by the vowel AH, the visarga transforms to the sibilant of that varga (i.e. the palatal, retroflex, or dental varga) and combines with the following consonant. If it's followed by the unvoiced labial and gutteral consonants then the visarga remains. If the visarga is preceded by the vowel AH and followed by voiced consonants (and vowels which are also voiced) it changes to O plus that consonant. If the visarga is preceded by the vowel AH and followed by the vowel AH, it transforms to O, but the consonant is dropped and replaced by an avagraha squiggle. If the visarga is preceded by the vowel AH and followed by a vowel other than AH, the visarga is dropped and the two morphemes are not written in the same string of Devanagri letters.

Sanskritsanskritsanskrit...

...if the visarga is preceded by AAH, and followed by a voiced consonant (or a vowel; all vowels are voiced), the visarga is simply dropped and the two morphemes are not written in the same string of Devanagri leters. If the visarga is preceded by any other vowel (besides AH or AAH) and followed by a voiced consonant (other than R), it turns into that vowel plus R (example "UR" or "IR") plus that voiced consonant (example "NUR" or "NIR"). If the visarga is preceded by any other vowel (besides the AH/AAH twins) and followed by the voiced consonant R (technically a semi-vowel in Sanskrit), then drop the visarga and make whatever vowel it is Long, as double RR is illegal -- do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Vanna, can we buy a vowel?

Sanskritsanskritsanskrit...

wilderness, finally bored with his rare opportunity to have the computer on the weekend, poked his head in. "Are you still studying that Sanskrit stuff?"

"Wha-? Yeah." I blinked up. It was three thirty. Holy cow.

"It's that hard?"

I realize that I usually don't have to study much and this is a big change. I don't think he's seen me work except on finals.

"Yes." Then I correct myself. "Well, I got distracted last week, so I fell behind."

To take a break I worked on a very satisfying beta project. Then I was back at the books. Sanskritsanskritsanskrit...

Surfacing again. It's nine pm and I'm about halfway through what I need for the quiz tomorrow.

• Break


• Write out consonant combo review


• Move on to consonant sandhi (other than visarga)


• Rewrite last week's homework to test if I've improved over Friday


• Write sandhi rules sheet

It's fun. Sort of like a 2,000-piece puzzle only on a deadline.

Comments

[greenling.livejournal.com]

Nnk. Textbooks that require knowledge of phonetics. Woonderful.

I wish I had your willpower. I need to study enough to catch up on Hebrew since... since... the beginning of the semester, really.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I started by just getting out a pen and copying everything, and saying it aloud. Even if it wasn't going in, at least my pen was getting it. That seemed to prime the pump and get me moving.

The other day on the bus I was (doing my belated homework) next to someone else from the U. I glanced over. I had my Sanskrit text out. She had her Hebrew out. We twittered at each other happily about the coolness of foreign languages for the next several minutes. She was in her second year though, while I'm just past learning the Sanskrit alphabet.

Icarus

[twistedrecesses.livejournal.com]

And I'm having trouble with French grammar - are you SuperWoman?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Nope, I am behind. And I'm in a class where one of my classmates is studying Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek -- all at the same time.

I say that I'm impressed. I think awed would be a better description.

Icarus

[cyanei.livejournal.com]

I love languages, but my knack does not extend past the germanic or romanic. I've got a Hindi vocab of about a hundred words from immersion alone, but studying it would just be beyond me. Let alone Sanskrit, wow.

(Mostly, I can ask for food, insult people, and point at things while saying "hum oocheech muntha" [I have no idea how to write that, but it's meant to be "I want that"], which I think is about all I need to head to India. *L*)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

How did you manage to learn Hindi by immersion? Did you live in India?

Mostly, I can ask for food, insult people...

Insulting people is the most important part. *laughs*

Icarus

[cyanei.livejournal.com]

Naw, I've never lived in India. My step-family is Indo-Fijian, and they basically stopped speaking English in my presence after the first month of knowing me. So if I wanted to not be bored out of my mind every weekend we spent with the family, I had to figure it out. Also, my favouritest Aji can't speak English, so I've learned enough to understand what she says to me.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha! The sink or swim approach to family relations. *chuckles*

But what is an Aji? (I didn't say that I know Sanskrit or Hindi. I've just learned the alphabet two weeks ago. :)

Icarus

[cyanei.livejournal.com]

Indeed!

Aji means "grandmother on my father's side". But I call everyone by the names my step-father calls them by, so really she's his grandma.

[jaig.livejournal.com]

I can do that!

Oshitaitisoharda. ;)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wanna be my study partner?

Icarus

[jaig.livejournal.com]

Youacrazygirla.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Man, all the rules in Sanskrit can be confusing. *I* had difficulties learning it in school - even though my mothertongue is derived from Sanskrit and has great similarities to it, to this date. I can't imagine what it must be like for you, lol!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, we have a few people who are of Indian descent and some who've studied Hindi. But on the main everyone in class is in the same boat. Somehow that makes it easier.

Icarus

[ncp.livejournal.com]

That "ah" sound is very confusing. Could never keep the rules for it straight, I ended up falling back on instinct -- whatever sounded right. I know Hindi pretty well, so "sounded right" worked for me. I can't imagine having to actually memorize all those rules without knowing the language! Maybe your knowledge of Tibetean will help?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Actually, Tibetan is soooo much easier than Sanskrit. The main issue is all those silent letters. Once we get to particles knowing some Tibetan should help, since they both use similar particles. Tibetan is largely (slips on linguistics cap) an isolating and compounding morphology while Sanskrit is inflected.

It'll be great if I can develop some sort of sense for this, a feel. That's really the only way you can learn it, I think.

Icarus

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Oy. That's some complicated pronounciation rules.

At least when I'm trying to pronounce words like blb, chrstnout and ctvrtek I generally know they're pronounced pretty much exactly like they're spelt.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sanskrit's completely phonetic. The trick is the spelling of the word changes according to how it's pronounced based on the sounds the follow it. So picture blb being spelled blp if followed by a word beginning with "m," and spelled blbh if followed by a word beginning with "n," or bl- if followed by a vowel.

Icarus

[enname.livejournal.com]

Oh phonetics how you bring me back to my days of studying linguistics. *happy moment* The only way to do those sort of passages is to write it out and say it out aloud whenever they go 'and when.... use with...' so that you have a physical and aural memory of it. Or you know, write it in hideously complicated phonetics script that makes your eyes bleed and is akin to learning another language as well. :)

Now, I am going to go do the shove my head in some books for the rest of this night so that my thesis is not so lagged that I want to cry. Or hit things. Oh god, must find work, work, sleep and then Latin.

*sympathy*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It is fun, just hard. I would have picked this up a lot more quickly 15 years ago.

Or you know, write it in hideously complicated phonetics script that makes your eyes bleed and is akin to learning another language as well. :)

Eeek. I think I'll say it aloud.