I was having a discussion with Srikanth at Srican on loss of vowels in spoken languages. The discussion drifted away to Anusvara. The nasal consonants ('~g' and '~j' only) have totally vanished from present day Kannada and their place has been taken by anusvara, an import from Indic languages(or could be a local innovation).
In my opinion, Bengaluru (ben-ga-Looru) would have kept its form in spoken language(generally pronounced ben-gLooru) if the written from used nasal consonant '~g' instead of anusvara 'n' between 'be' and 'ga'. But according to Srikanth, though Tamils use '~g' in the written from their spoken form is similar to Kannadigas(loss of 'a' after 'g').
Something is seriously wrong here. The written language should follow the spoken form of native speakers and not the other way round. Therefore, you have phonetics. However, if apply the same rule to Kannada, the language will lose its charm. Many of Kannada spoken forms are simply unspeakable. I think I am missing something here.
I was comparing Malayalam(a Dravidian language with more phonemes than any other major Dravidian languages) words with nasal consonants to Kannada words with anusvaras. I was stuck with a single word which means 'like that'.
In Malayalam, 'a(~g)ne' is the word. The word in literary Kannada is 'haage'. But the Mysore region spoken form is 'hange'(or if you want an exact match you can say, 'hangene'). We can see that a single nasal consonant(~g) is replaced by an anusvara(n) and a consonant (ga). For some reason, Kannadigas have lost many of the consonants and their replacements have reduced the charm of the language. However, literary Kannada, unaware of the losses has modified the words in such a way that though they sound beautiful, many a time, do not have any correspondence with the spoken form.
As we are in the middle of changing the names of our cities to their native forms, I think now it is the time for us to go one step forward and revert back to the original forms of some of these names. I think Bengaluru must be Be(~g)luru. Wait a minute. When we are already in this path, we can think of something more radical. Let us revive our own Kannada 'zh'! I believe a 'nasal consonant' will have a natural companion in a retroflex.
Welcome to ಬೆಙೞೂರು(Be(~g)zhuru) or may be ಬೆಙೞೂಱು!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
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“….We can see that a single nasal consonant (~g) is replaced by an anusvara (n) and a consonant (ga) …“
ReplyDeleteAs far as written Kannada (or any Indian language):
It’s not a local innovation to replace 'nasal consonant's by “anuswara”. It’s a provision given, right from “Sanskrit” itself. It says, an anuswara can be replaced by a nasal consonant, and vice-versa depending upon which consonant followed next.
For spoken language,
We don’t have to worry how do we pronounce it? The sounds ~ng, ~njya, ~N, n, m sound come naturally while pronouncing in combination with respective consonant groups
Bachodi:
ReplyDeleteThanks for that information.
It says, an anuswara can be replaced by a nasal consonant, and vice-versa depending upon which consonant followed next.
Just curious. I wonder if this rule fits well with Dravidian languages. In my opinion, the velar nasal(~g) has been replaced by an ansvara and a voiced velar. According to that rule the word should be;
ಬೆಂಳೂರು in Kannada.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if all Dravidian languages follow this rule. As far as my knowledge Kannada does, (In Telugu also, as one of my friends observed). But I don’t have any document supporting it, but for the examples.
In Be(O)gaLUru the regular anuswara can be replaced with fifth consonant of the group. That would be (~g) as you mentioned. ~g is selected since the following consonant is ga. ( ka kha gag ha ~g)
Your ( written in kannada) example is perfectly alright , but for a missing ‘ga’. Anuswara replaces the nasal consonant ( and vice versa ) but not following letter
Some other non-sanskrit examples.
thimma ( a famous poet uses this to end his four liner mankutimma ) - this can be written as thimma and thi(O)ma. Here m is selected as nasal consonant since the following is a ma ( pa pha ba bha ma)
For Telugu language ( above mentioned friend observed it ) example , if you go to kanchipuram / kanjivaram/kanchi the official government board is written as ka(~nya ) chi in telugu script instead of regular kanchi.
Here I have given examples of three consonant groups of the alphabet. For the rest two of the group I cant think of a non-sanskrit example.
I don’t have any Indian language software right here, so I have written the anuswara with (O) and the nasal consonant with (~ ) sign. .
I would love to have joined the Anuswara discussion that has already begun. I have some views (that I had planned to blog sometime). But too much work, work...
ReplyDeleteI believe a 'nasal consonant' will have a natural companion in a retroflex.
I have noticed in Tamil that the Gg pattern (as in Bengaloor) is usually followed by a L, rather than zh.
I have always wondered why the letters "zh" were chosen to represent that retroflex sound.
Bachodi:
ReplyDeleteAnuswara replaces the nasal consonant ( and vice versa ) but not following letter
I started the discussion with a Malayalam word a(~g)ne which is an equivalent to 'hange'. My opinion is that a single '~g' has been replaced by a nasal 'n' and a 'ga'. The original word with a nasal consonant did not have 'ga'.
Anusvara is alright wherever nasal consonant makes a combined letter(sanyuktakshara?) with another consonant(can be another nasal too). However, what about the cases where the nasal present as a single letter. The Dravidian languages show (Malayalam here) nasals without any combined consonants. But Kannada does not show that. I wonder when Anusvara made its entry into Kannada.
In opinion, typical to Malayalam word the original Kannada word could have been 'ha(~g)ene' which became ha(n)(ge)(ie. a single nasal consonant replaced by another nasal consonant and a consonant to form a combined letter). I believe that is what happened to Bengaluru too. I am not sure if I am clear here.
Srikanth:
ReplyDeleteI have noticed in Tamil that the Gg pattern (as in Bengaloor) is usually followed by a L, rather than zh.
Indeed, La follows 'ga' but what about '~ga'. My spelling is Be(~ga)zhuru and not Be(~g)gaLuru. Take the case of Tamizh. Here nasal 'ma' is followed by 'zh'.
All (~g) in my previous entries must be read as (~ga).
I have always wondered why the letters "zh" were chosen to represent that retroflex sound.
Beats me too. Unfortunately, I can't even produce that sound! So, difficult to imagine.
Hi Manjunatha,
ReplyDeleteI am not at all familiar with Malayalam words (even though I tried a bit). In-fact I wont be able to discuss any exceptional cases (or any languages with don’t obey) since I am not good at grammar. I just happened to remember a Sanskrit grammar rule I was taught in 9th standard.
I have a guess that be (~ga) aLuru instead of be (~g) gaLuru might be the result of conversational convenience, eventually. We often omit certain alphabets from the words not by rule, but by convenience. Say for e.g. HeLuththene has eventually has become HeLthini in certain dialects of Kannada. Similarly a (~ga) ne could be a derived form of a (~g) gane for conversational convenience, and later it could’ve been widely adopted,. Eventually. I am just guessing here. Don’t take this paragraph as my argument.
(Still I wrote this because I have a strong affection towards classified consonants table, since I feel it is created based on pronunciation science, irrespective to any language.)
Kannada is a Dravidian language. It can exist with very small usage of Sanskrit words (or the words derived from it). If you compare all those non-Sanskrit words in Kannada do have similarity with Tamil and Telugu (I don’t know much about Malayalam). As far as I knew Malayalam also has high quantity of Sanskrit words, near to Kannada and Telugu. (E.g. cheta (for brother) is derived from Jyeastan (brother in Sanskrit). But Kannada and Tamil Use Anna, a pure Dravidian language word)
Though not relevant to the post, these comments made one of my posts relevant here. Just realized I too have written something about them. Have a look if you are interested: (http://bachodi.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/my-mother-tongue-isnt-perfect/ )
@ Srikant.
I too was wondering where why and how “zh” sound comes? (Both in Tamil and Malayalam. Even I can’t produce that sound. After trying one year my friends say I come somewhere near to it. ;-(
i guess im not too late to comment, but i had written one such cimilar entry. probably you can go thru this. http://trivia.blogdrive.com/archive/87.html
ReplyDeleteHi , what happened to comments here ? it was good discussion. will you be using using Haloscan for comments and trackback , or just trying it. You may need to transfer all the comments too..
ReplyDeleteBack to blogger commenting. Unfortunately, Haloscan commenting won't fetch blog titles and I had to struggle to find your comment among my posts.
ReplyDeleteanusvara is employed for [~g] and [~j] in kannaDa and Telugu scripts, because they are allophonic with [n] in majority of intervocalic positions. You must remember that Indian scripts attempt to achieve phonemic orthography, not phonetic orthograhphy.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with another commentator that 'zh' is an unfortunate choice of transliteration for retroflex approximant. It is neither a fricative to justify the use of [z], nor an aspirated consonant for using 'h' (as you know 'h' is typically used to represent aspiration in Indian transliteration schemes).
Mallinath:
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for those inputs.