Panini's arrangement of Devanagari letters unique

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`Panini's arrangement of Devanagiri letters unique'

 

By Our Staff Correspondent

 

MYSORE, AUG. 19. Recalling sage Panini's 2,000-year-old contribution

to acoustics, the former Vice-Chancellor of Hyderabad University,

B.S. Ramakrishna, on Thursday said the sage's well-researched

arrangement of the alphabet of Devanagiri script was a unique

effort.

 

Inaugurating a national workshop on "Acoustic analysis of speech''

here, Prof. Ramakrishna said the scientific arrangement of alphabets

of Devanagiri script was in accordance with the pronunciation of

sounds. "This is not found in any other language in the world,''

Prof. Ramakrishna said.

 

Objective

 

 

Organised by the Department of Speech Language Sciences, All India

Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) and the Central Institute of

Indian Languages, the workshop is aimed at training speech

pathologists and linguists on the more recent techniques of acoustic

analysis of speech.

 

The participants will be trained in the methods of acoustic

analysis, which will be relevant to the acoustic theory of speech

production.

 

Pioneer

 

 

Prof. Ramakrishna described Panini as the first researcher in the

field of acoustics. Dwelling upon the connection between the eye and

the ear, Prof. Ramakrishna gave examples to prove the "McGurk

effect". He called upon young researchers to work on the "McGurk

effect" and the "Cocktail party effect".

 

In his presidential address, the Director of All India Institute of

Speech and Hearing, Mysore, M. Jayaram, said the primary

responsibility of speech pathologists was to use information from

acoustic analysis to correct speech impairment.

 

The results of acoustic analysis of speech had been used to develop

automatic speech recognition systems and speech transmission system.

 

The analysis also had its use in the synthesis of speech and music.

About 100 delegates from all parts of South India, Shillong, Assam,

Chandigarh and Mumbai are participating in the workshop.

 

http://www.hindu.com/2004/08/20/stories/2004082002710300.htm