मूर्धा

Retroflex-पक्षः

  • जिह्वाया अधोभागसंस्पर्शेन मूर्धन्यवर्णा जन्यन्त, ऊर्ध्वभागसंस्पर्शेन तालव्यादिवर्णा इति निश्चयेनालम् मन्ये।
  • णकारस् तु मूर्धां विना दुष्कर उच्चरितुम्।
  • “the dental, palatal, and retroflex sounds show a clear hierarchy. dental < palatal < retroflex”
    • “Panini’s rule 8.4.40 ( स्तोः श्चुनाश्चुः) says that a dental stop or sibilant is replaced by the corresponding palatal stop or sibilant if followed or preceded by a palatal stop or sibilant, e.g., तच्च .”
    • “A palatal never becomes a dental. Panini’s rule 8.4.41 (ष्टुना ष्टुः ) says that a dental stop or sibilant is replaced by the corresponding retroflex stop or sibilant if followed or preceded by a retroflex stop or sibilant, e.g., रामष्टीकाम्. A retroflex consonant never becomes dental.”
    • “Similarly, there are rules to change palatals into retroflex consonants, e.g., राज् + भिस् = राड्भिः, but no retroflex consonant is ever changed into a palatal. This gives us a hierarchy of dental →palatal → retroflex, such that there are no changes in the reverse direction. "

इतिहासः

अभिप्रायाः

  • द्राविडप्रायभाषान्तरभाषकैर् वेदरक्षकैः शनैर् वेदेष्वपि मूर्धन्यवर्णा भाविता इति माधवादयः केचित्। ततः प्रागित्यन्ये केचित्।
  • माधवो ऽत्र।
  • उच्चारणपरिवर्तने ऽत्र दृश्यताम्।

Alveolar-कालः

  • Classical Greek: It is not Delta or Tau with retroflexes - they’re alveolar. And, θ is mahAprANa (aspirated). W Eur pronunciation of T, D is NOT retroflex (tongue curl), as per this wiki key.
  • Western European pronunciation of T, D is NOT retroflex (tongue curl). There is no separate retroflex Na. See examples in language drift page.
  • Avestan and reconstructed proto-Indo-Iranic has post-alveolar or palatal श्/š. It does not have a separate retroflex टवर्ग - just dental (and possibly alveolar in case of PII).
  • ब्राह्मीलिप्यां दन्त्यवर्णचिह्नानि मूर्धन्यवर्णचिह्नानि समानमूलानि।
  • “I think ancient Dravidian had alveolar ṯ, in addition to dental t and retroflex ṭ. Similarly it likely had retroflex, alveolar and dental n. Malayalam has all these. In Dravidian, there is a tendency for combinations such as l+ dental t to become alveolar ṯ. … Vilkkŭ means to sell. The root is “vil”. Past tense ‘sold’, is formed by vil+tu and it becomes viṯṯu (alveolar ṯ). Ēlkkŭ = to take responsibility, to get hit, etc. Past tense ēl+tu = ēṯṯu (alveolar ṯ).”

Retroflex-सम्भूतिः

  • णत्वषत्वयोर् अर्वाचीनता
    • णत्वं षत्वं चापवादभूयिष्ठम् भाषायाम् - पाणिनीयसूत्राणि तत्र प्रमाणम्।
    • वेदेष्वपि - “प्र णो " इत्यपि दृश्यते, “प्र नो” इत्यपि।
    • एवञ्च महाभाष्ये १.१.५६ इत्यत्र - “एवं हि श्रूयते- यर्वाणस्तर्वाणो नाम ऋषयो बभूवुः प्रत्यक्षधर्माणः परापरज्ञा विदितवेदितव्या अधिगतयाथातथ्याः। ते तत्रभवन्तो “यद्वा नस्, तद्वा न” इति प्रयोक्तव्ये “यर्वाणस् तर्वाण” इति प्रयुञ्ञ्जते, याज्ञे पुनः कर्मणि नापभाषन्ते।”
  • Fortunatov’s Law: “IE l + dental = l is dropped and the dental is changed to a cerebral”. (cf. Sk पट- ‘cloth’, O Slav. platino , Russ, polotno; sk भाषा , Lithuanian balsa - ‘voice’)
  • Just as alveolar t and d are rendered retroflex in Indian English, so must bilingual speakers of Sanskrit and some retroflexed language have introduced retroflex into sanskrit.
    • In later southern texts and tradition, we find la being replaced with La (mangaLa).
    • “This further suggests that a feature like retroflexion, not genetically evolved, is a product the process of phonetic approximation (cf. Lovins:240) of the phonic material of a given nonretroflexed language by the speakers of a retroflexed langrage.”

षकारोद्भवः

  • “The ruki rule says that the Indo-European *s is changed to श् in Indo Iranian if preceded by r, u k, or i. This particular rule ceases to be productive in Indo-Aryan except as a derivation of retroflex ष्. Panini’s rules 8.3.57 and 8.3.59 (इण्कोः, आदेशप्रत्यययोः) say that स् which is either a substitute or a part of an affix is replaced by ष्, if preceeded by इण्, कुँ. (देवे + सु - देवेषु)”
    • “However, if we look at the present text of the Rgveda, we find changes like the ones mentioned above taking place even when the conditioning sound belongs to a different word. All that seems to matter is the sound sequence within a metrical foot (pada). A metrical foot is looked upon as if it is a continuous sequence, and the awareness of word boundaries is dispensed with in making changes like n>n and s>s.”
  • “ष् is not present in northern Dravidian languages and is absent from Old Kannada, Old Telugu and Old Tamil. … the development of ष् in Sanskrit, by a special modification of the ruki rule, was a somewhat different process from the emergence of ट ठ ड ढ ण. However, later phonemicization of ष् is indirectly connected with the general levelling of all retroflex sounds.”
  • “Now ष् is a cerebral by convention only. It is, like र् a cerebralizer, rather than a cerebral, has been differentiated from the palatal श्, its fellow hush-sound, party for graphical and partly for phonetic reasons. So we find अष्टौ, but अशीतिः, पृष्ट and प्रश्न.”
  • “This phoneme is not carried into Middle Indian and for षष्, we find छ, which seems to show that ष् is a graphic variant of क्ष्, regular predecessor of छ् or ख् in Middle Indian. The later confusion of ष् and ख्, both phonetically and graphically (the Gujarati अक्षर for ख् is a form of नागरी ष्.)”
  • श्र् to ष् reduction: In prakrits - श्रयते → षयति, श्मश्रु → मषु, श्रमण → षमन
  • “This “phonological retroflexion” may be viewed in a functional sense in that all three sounds ऋ, र्, and ष् are “cerebralizers,” if not all cerebrals themselves in the view of the Pratisakhyas. In later texts such as the Paniniya-SiksA, both ऋ and र्, along with ष् are classified as retroflexes, and thus all of them become “cerebralizers” and cerebrals.”
    • “This “development” may be viewed as a phonetic development, but at the same time one may speculate that the phonological behavior of these sounds—their phonological or functional retroflexion- may have at least partially contributed to this phonetic shift. Thus, we find that the phonological requirements in Paninian grammar are greatly facilitated if we assume that r and r had the same point-of-articulation classification (Bare 1976:171).”

मूर्धन्यस्वीकारः

“The Aitareya Āraṇyaka already records a debate on whether the Saṃhitā of the R̥gveda is अणकार and अषकार, or सणकार and सषकार, and concludes that the tradition represented by the author of this Āraṇyaka follows the lineage of Māṇḍūkeya, and that the Saṃhitā should be recited सणकार and सषकार. But the discussion attests to the historical fact that some reciters were in favor of an अणकार and अषकार recitation of the R̥gveda.”

ऋकार-रेफयोः

  • Varied classification despite functional similarity
    • “no Pratisakhyas consider r and ऋ to be retroflex sounds ( murdhanya ), and to find them classified as retroflexes we have to come down to such late texts as the Paniniya-Siksa.”
    • “The Rktantra (2.1.4, 7, 8) classifies ऋ as a jihvA-muliya ‘velar’, and r as either a dantya ‘dental’ or danta-muliya ‘alveolar’ sound. The TaittirIya-prAtishAkhya (2.18, 41) classifies ऋ as being produced at the upper back gums and jaws, while r is an alveolar.” Similarly the shaunakIyas.
  • “It may be that in all variant classifications of ऋ and r there is some degree of tongue-raising involved, if not retroflexing in the strict sense.”
  • “It is important to realize that despite the variations in the phonetic classifications of ऋ and r in different texts, these sounds had the same functional load in all the known grammatical systems of Sanskrit, and this functional load was shared in common with the sibilant ष्, which is classified by all the known Sanskrit phonetic treatises as a retroflex. "

क्वचिद् Alveolar-पुनर्भवः

  • In Assamese : “The O.I.A. dental and cerebral series lost their original sound values and became alveolars, i.e., the point of articulation for the dentals is pushed back and for the cerebrals pushed forward” due to the Tibeto-Burman influence which had this leveling effect.”
  • “The Cambodians also adopted several aspects of Indian culture, but not retroflexion. In old and modern Cambodian, the Sanskrit and Pali retroflexes are are reduced to dentals. The same Phenomenon takes place in Old and Modern Siamese. Burmese does have separate characters for retroflex sounds, which are only used in writing Pali words, but the Burmese pronounce them exactly as the corresponding alveolars.”

ऋकारभेदाः

  • “ऋति सवर्णे ऋ वा” इति वार्तिकम् आश्रित्य “होतृ-ऋकारः = होतृकारः” इत्यत्र भट्टोजीदीक्षितो नृसिंहाकृतिं काञ्चित् कल्पयति (पेजावरयतिर् अत्र )। तद् अनपेक्षितम्। +++(कन्नडे लोपसन्धिर् इव।)+++