Voiced aspirated consonants and neighing (was Re:Meaning of the word 'ghoSa')

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, GthomGT@c... wrote:

> [...]

> ghoSa is an old Indo-Iranian word without Indo-European

> etymology. It may

> derive from a Central Asian substratum language

> otherwise unknown. There is

> an important article by A. Lubotsky [about to appear]

> on words of this sort.

>

> In the oldest language ghoSa refers to a cry

> or call, say to one's horse or

> cow or other herded animals.

> [.........]

> George Thompson

 

Dear George Thompson (and other list members),

 

I have been wondering for sometime

whether there was a metaphor (involving animal cries)

in the description

of sanskrit voiced consonants

as ghoSavant.

 

The reason is that we have been discussing

(on the CTamil list)

the Tamil description

of the pronunciation

of sanskrit consonants

by Tamil grammarians (in Tamil]

[You probably know that

whereas Sanskrit has k, kh, g, gh

tamil has only k,

and so on for c, ch, j & jh...]

and that there is at least

a 13th century Tamil grammatical text

that explains the pronunciation

of gh, jh, Dh, dh & bh

(voiced aspirated occlusive consonants)

in such words as

megha, jharjhara, d.rDha, dharA & bhAra

by describing it as neighing.

 

The tamil verb for that is kan2aittal

and we have tried to determine

whether it is primarily used

for buffaloes, bulls, horses or elephant?

(or even for the roaring sea?)

 

Details of the discussion referred to are

available (with a lot of Tamil passages :-)

at:

<http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2002-05/msg00013.html>

<http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2002-05/msg00014.html>

<http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2002-05/msg00015.html>

 

So the basic question I am asking you is:

Was the 13th century Tamil Scholar

(also proficient in Sanskrit)

who explained to the tamil students

the pronunciation of gh, jh, etc.

by using a verb usually used

for animal cries

simply routinely translating into Tamil

an ordinary sanskrit metaphor

(even if the metaphor was not based

on historical etymology,

like we Frenchmen have

a popular etymology

for the word "choucroute" :-) ?

 

Thanks for any pointer to Sanskrit

grammatical glosses

 

Best wishes

 

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard

(CNRS, University Paris 7,

History of Linguistics Research Team [HTL, UMR7597]