Re: origin of the first alphabet

ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: 10 Feb 2005 16:43:22 -0800

Neeraj Mathur wrote:
> <ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com> wrote ...
> > andrew_woode@hotmail.com wrote:
> >> in Sanskrit 'e' and 'o' were 'ai' and 'au' in origin
> >
> > Hindi [E:] & [O:] are allophones of [aI] & [aU] and originate from
> > Sanskrit [aI] & [aU]. Do you have a source of information that
Sanskrit
> > [e:] & [o:] originate from PIE/ protoAryan [aI] and [aU]?
>
> The Sanskrit 'diphthongs' - arranged in the alphabet after the long
vocalic
> [l:] (which doesn't actually exist in any word) - are as follows:

How were vocalic <R:> (<kR:>,<pR:>) and vocalic <L> (<klp>) pronounced?
If it is of any help in guessing the answer, the passive form of <kR:>
is <kIrya>.
www.svbf.org/sringeri/journal/vol2no4/sansk1.pdf

> e < [ai]
> ai < [a:i]
> o < [au]
> au < [a:u]
>
> In front of a vowel in a Sanskrit word, these become ay-, a:y-, av-,
a:v-
> respectively.
>
> There is plenty of evidence within Sanskrit itself for this; it was
> recognized by the Indian grammarians (hence the reason for the
placement).
> For instance, the present tense of Class 1 verbs have a root
strengthened to
> guna grade, and the thematic vowel added between the root and the
endings.
> Thus from the root <s'uc> we get <s'ocati>. From <ji> however we get
> <jayati>, and the -y- here is just a consonantal allophone of the -i-
in
> what was originally a diphthong The infinitives of these words are
<s'oktum>
> and <jetum>. Also <gai> gives a present <ga:yati> which has a similar
story.

Is it [j^e:tum] because of a rule applied to [j^ajatum] making it
[j^e:tum] or is it [j^e:tum] because that is authors' preferred usage?
That the consonantal allophone of <u> is <v> in Sanskrit seems to
suggest that it might have once been rounded like in French <oui>
although it is not as rounded today in Hindi <vijay> or <vimal>. For an
example of <v>-><u>, the passive of <vas> is <USya>.
www.svbf.org/sringeri/journal/vol2no4/sansk1.pdf

> As far as Indo-European evidence, it is certainly not lacking: cf.
Greek
> <keitai> = Skt <s'ete> and several other examples.

Interesting; thanks. One example comes to mind of [aI]->[e:] in the
development of Hindi from Sanskrit is that oil is [taIl@] in Sanskrit
but [te:l] in Hindi. (In Malayalam, only oils used for therapeutic
massages are called [taIlam].)

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