A classical dictionary of Hindu mythology and religion, geography, history, & literature / by John Dowson.

  • Dowson, John, active 1913.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A classical dictionary of Hindu mythology and religion, geography, history, & literature / by John Dowson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the uninitiated Englishman the chief difficulty lies in the short ‘a,’ the primary inherent vowel of the Sanskrit, pro- nounced as in the word ‘America.’ The English alphabet has no distinct letter for this sound, but uses every one of its vowels in turn, and some even of its double vowels to represent it; so it is the ‘ a ’ and ‘ e ’ in ‘ servant,’ the ‘ i ’ in ‘ bird,’ the ‘ o ’ in ‘ word,’ the ‘ u ’ in ‘ curd,’ the ‘ y ’ in ‘ myrtle,’ and the ‘ ea ’ in ‘heard.’ The Sanskrit short ‘a’ has this sound invariably, and unaffected by any combination of consonants; so Sanskrit ‘ harn ’ must be pronounced not as the English ‘bam’ but as ‘burn.’ The pronunciation of the other vowels is sufficiently obvious. The vowel ‘ ri ’ is represented in italics to distinguish it from the consonants ‘r’ and ‘i’ Of the consonants, the cerebral letters ‘‘‘ti,’ ‘dh' and ‘n,’the palatal sibilant ‘5,’and the visarga are represented in italics. Practically these are the only distinctions necessary. The guttural nasal is used only in combination with a guttural letter (‘ nk ’ or ‘ ng ’); the palatal nasal is used only with palatals (‘ nch ’ and ‘ nj ’), and no other nasal can be combined with these letters. The anuswara, and the anuswara only, is used before the sibilants and ‘ h,’ so in ‘ ns,’ ‘ nsh,’ ‘ ns,’ and ‘ nh,’ the nasal is the anuswara. The letter m before a semi-vowel may be represented either by m or anuswara. In all these instances the combinations distinctly indicate the proper nasal, and no discriminative sign is necessary. Of the pronunciation of the nasals it is only necessary to notice the anuswara. This, with a sibilant, is a simple n, but before h it is like ng or the French n in hon; so the Sanskrit Sinha, in the modern derivative tongues, is written and pro- nounced Singh. The aspirates are simple aspirations of their respective con- sonants, and make no other change of their sounds; so ‘ th ’ is to be pronounced as in the words ‘ at home,’ and ‘ ph ’ as in ‘ up- hill,’ never as in ‘thine’and in ‘physia’ The letter ‘g’ is always hard as in ‘gift’ The nalatals are the simple English