anunAsikamulu, etc.
RAO@FCRFV1.NCIFCRF.GOV
Thu, 16 May 1996 17:20:30 -0400 (EDT)
priya mitrmA: If one reads Sanskrit books in telugu lipi, there
will not be any confusions about anunasikamAlu. For example, a word like
aMDamu (egg) is written as aNDamu in such books. The anusvAra is only a
short-hand or a convention. It is understood that the pronunciation is such
that the correct anunAsikam is used. In fact, SaMkara is pronounced as
Sangkara and written as shaN^kara or sha.nkara in ITRANS (Sanskrit). Same
way, for paJNchAkshari, etc. Not only here, I have a problem for a few
other letters. As we know, in acca telugu, words like cali, cUlu, coTu,
jAmu, junnu, jOla are pronounced as tsali, tsUlu, tsOTu, zAmu, zunnu and
zOla. By the way, only three Indian languages, viz., telugu, marAThi and
kAshmIri have these sounds. Even though Hindi has this in zamIn (land), it
comes from Persian, not in pure Hindi. In old telugu books, we used to
distinguish these sounds by putting a ta-ottu-like symbol on the letters
like ca and ja. These have gone out of fashion in the last forty or
fifty years. In fact, non-Telugu stars like saroja Devi used to pronounce
tsUci as choochi! Here also, like anusvAra, it is understood that ca must
be pronounced as tsa, etc. Also, the ara sunna (ardhAnusvAra) as in
rAmu(Du has completely gone out of vogue!
Regards! - J. K. Mohana Rao