English questions

[zompist]

Short a in Sanskrit and Hindi is very centralized, [ə], which is why we have variants like Punjab, suttee, bungalow, curry (for Panjāb, sātī, bangalo, kari). So हरे hare is more like huh-reh. Likewise, there are early transliterations like Hindoo, loot, wallah, mynah, toddy (for Hindū, lūṭ, vālā, mainā, tāṛī).

But we're fortunate that an excellent Sanskrit transliteration was devised and used in the 1800s, so we don't have the confusion in scholarly sources that we have for Chinese. (My favorite example is the monk Xuánzàng, who went to India in the 600s— historians of India never got the memo on pinyin, so they often write "Hiuen Tsang". Or Yuan Chwang as another book has it.)

[Raphael]

Thank you, too.

(Re: the Chinese transliterations, that reminds me, personally, if I would want to write about the historical relationship between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, I would probably transliterate their names the way I just did, although that is, strictly speaking, contradictory, simply because those are the transliterations they themselves would probably have preferred.)

[zompist]

Re: the Chinese transliterations, that reminds me, personally, if I would want to write about the historical relationship between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, I would probably transliterate their names the way I just did, although that is, strictly speaking, contradictory, simply because those are the transliterations they themselves would probably have preferred.

As you probably know I've written a book on China, and that's the policy I followed.

[Travis B.]

Thank you, too.

(Re: the Chinese transliterations, that reminds me, personally, if I would want to write about the historical relationship between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, I would probably transliterate their names the way I just did, although that is, strictly speaking, contradictory, simply because those are the transliterations they themselves would probably have preferred.)

Thing to remember is that Mao Zedong is in pinyin for Mandarin while Kai-shek is in a Cantonese romanization (Chiang on the other hand is Wade-Giles for the Mandarin pronunciation of his family name). Note that Chiang Kai-shek was natively a Wu-speaker and never spoke Cantonese (it just happened that the Republic of China was based in Canton so he came to be known by Westerners by the Cantonese version of his courtesy name).

[zompist]

Note that Chiang Kai-shek was natively a Wu-speaker and never spoke Cantonese

Wú is kind of the forgotten dialect of China, despite being the home of its largest city. I wish I had good materials on Wú, it looks interesting, if only for its three series of stops (e.g. p / ph / b). Also its word for 'not' is vəʔ55, cf. Mandarin bù.

[WeepingElf]

Why do the Hare Krishnas, in English, transcribe their famous mantra as "Hare Krishna"? I mean, if you look at German pronunciation rules, spelling the first word of the mantra as "Hare" would make perfect sense, but if I'd transliterate it in English, I'd probably spell it as something like "Hah-reh". (Assuming that the "original" spelling is, of course, something in an Indian writing system.)

There is a standard transliteration for Indian writing systems.

Ah, thank you!

However, the spelling Krishna does not conform to these rules, which give Kṛṣṇa.

[Lērisama]

However, the spelling Krishna does not conform to these rules, which give Kṛṣṇa.

When they are used as English words, they tend to lose the diacritics. Both ṣ and ś become sh, most other diacritics are ignored, but ṛ tends to be written as ri¹

¹ I think Sanskrit /r̥/ merged into /ri/ in some Prakrits

[WeepingElf]

However, the spelling Krishna does not conform to these rules, which give Kṛṣṇa.

When they are used as English words, they tend to lose the diacritics. Both ṣ and ś become sh, most other diacritics are ignored, but ṛ tends to be written as ri¹

¹ I think Sanskrit /r̥/ merged into /ri/ in some Prakrits

Precisely.

[zompist]

¹ I think Sanskrit /r̥/ merged into /ri/ in some Prakrits

Sanskrit ṛ is a syllabic [r̩], much as in American English. (Not r̥ which would be a voiceless r.) It's pronounced /ri/ in Hindi (and probably most modern languages).

Another Sanskrit/Hindi source of variation is that Hindi has lost final -a (though not -ā). E.g. we have ashram < Skt. āśrama.

[Lērisama]

(Not r̥ which would be a voiceless r.) It's pronounced /ri/ in Hindi (and probably most modern languages).

The underring seems to be traditional in IE studies¹ for some reason, and the keys are next to each other on my IPA keyboard. Sometimes I make mistakes².

¹ Citations for this is what I have on hand, i.e. a pdf of Indo-European language and Culture, by Benjamin Forston + Wikipedia & Wiktionary. I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere, but I can't think where off the top of my head
² My usual practice is to follow the most-widely used convention, so an underdot for Sanskrit, an underring for reconstructed PIE (it makes copy-pasting into Brassica easier, using the same as Wiktionary) and the proper ◌̩ in IPA transcriptions. Yes, this is unnecessarily confusing

[zompist]

(Not r̥ which would be a voiceless r.) It's pronounced /ri/ in Hindi (and probably most modern languages).

The underring seems to be traditional in IE studies¹ for some reason, and the keys are next to each other on my IPA keyboard. Sometimes I make mistakes².

Weird, we're both right. I'm used to the IAST standard, which was formalized in 1894 but dates back earlier— Max Müller's 1864 edition of the Hitopadeśa is almost identical.

I'd never seen the underring in sources on Sanskrit, but apparently ISO 15919, which dates only to 2001, wants to use r̥ instead. We'll see who wins, though linguistics is one area where 150-year-old sources may still be authoritative. I don't see scholars throwing out their copies of Whitney soon.

[Travis B.]

(Not r̥ which would be a voiceless r.) It's pronounced /ri/ in Hindi (and probably most modern languages).

The underring seems to be traditional in IE studies¹ for some reason, and the keys are next to each other on my IPA keyboard. Sometimes I make mistakes².

Weird, we're both right. I'm used to the IAST standard, which was formalized in 1894 but dates back earlier— Max Müller's 1864 edition of the Hitopadeśa is almost identical.

I'd never seen the underring in sources on Sanskrit, but apparently ISO 15919, which dates only to 2001, wants to use r̥ instead. We'll see who wins, though linguistics is one area where 150-year-old sources may still be authoritative. I don't see scholars throwing out their copies of Whitney soon.

Apparently in ISO 15919 r-underdot is used to represent the retroflex flap /ɽ/ for the sake of consistency with the representation of other retroflex consonants.

[zompist]

Apparently in ISO 15919 r-underdot is used to represent the retroflex flap /ɽ/ for the sake of consistency with the representation of other retroflex consonants.

You know what xkcd says about standards...

[Richard W]

I don't see scholars throwing out their copies of Whitney soon.

Whitney has some idiosyncrasies of his own. His grammar also has a greater tolerance of the manuscript traditions.

Furthermore, the IAST used today is not quite the same as originally published. I think the Wikipedia article notes these minor variations.

[Raphael]

It is well known that in American and British English, the short form of "mathematics" is spelled differently - "math" vs "maths". But what I wonder is, is it also pronounced differently? Because I'm not sure how to pronounce "maths" differently than "math".

[Richard W]

It is well known that in American and British English, the short form of "mathematics" is spelled differently - "math" vs "maths". But what I wonder is, is it also pronounced differently? Because I'm not sure how to pronounce "maths" differently than "math".

Yes. Like ‘meths’, both fricatives are pronounced and voiceless in British English.
As far as I am aware, ‘math’ rimes with ‘Cath’ and ‘hath’.

[Travis B.]

It is well known that in American and British English, the short form of "mathematics" is spelled differently - "math" vs "maths". But what I wonder is, is it also pronounced differently? Because I'm not sure how to pronounce "maths" differently than "math".

Yes. Like ‘meths’, both fricatives are pronounced and voiceless in British English.
As far as I am aware, ‘math’ rimes with ‘Cath’ and ‘hath’.

Math is /mæθ/ in NAE. (I should note that even in dialects where /θ/ is often stopped this remains a fricative because it is not in initial position.)

[Travis B.]

It is well known that in American and British English, the short form of "mathematics" is spelled differently - "math" vs "maths". But what I wonder is, is it also pronounced differently? Because I'm not sure how to pronounce "maths" differently than "math".

Yes. Like ‘meths’, both fricatives are pronounced and voiceless in British English.
As far as I am aware, ‘math’ rimes with ‘Cath’ and ‘hath’.

Does EngE have /pæðz/ for paths? I ask because it is common to pronounce paths that way in NAE -- for instance, I pronounce it as [pʰɛːθs] in isolation and [pʰɛːðz] before a vowel, not as *[pʰɛθs].

(I should have googled it -- RP has /pɑːðz/.)

[Richard W]

I’m pretty sure that English English can have paths with a short vowel and voiced fricatives, but I can’t pluck the plural from memory. Wiktionary describes it as Northern, but non-lengthening is quite common elsewhere.

[Raphael]

Thank you both!