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

[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