Guest guest Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 greetings. :-) a simple question this time, i hope! ;-) i would very much like to know how to pronounce the various sanskrit terms i am encountering in my study of vedanta. the spelling inter-capitalization helps, but even better would be audio recordings of native speakers pronouncing the terms. i looked through the Files section of this group, but didn't find exactly what i was looking for. any recommendations? thank you. rachMiel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 Hi Rachmiel, The simple answer here has got to be that there are no native speakers of Sanskrit. It is effectively a dead language, like Latin, although there have been some attempts to set up Sanskrit speaking communities in recent years. Of course, there are many Sanskrit mantras, and scriptures are still chanted or spoken in the sampradAya-s where, it could be argued, they have been for possibly thousands of years. Accordingly, it might be best to go for some audio teaching course stemming from such an organization. See the list of resources at http://www.advaita.org.uk/sanskrit/sanskrit_resources.htm. Having said this, Sanskrit is an incredibly logical, even scientific, language and that includes the pronunciation. It is possibly unique amongst language in that a given letter is pronounced identically in all words - no varying vowel sounds or silent consonants! Accordingly, it is possible to learn the letters and how they are pronounced and then be able to apply this to any word that is encountered. This was one of the main purposes of my book 'An Essential Guide to Sanskrit for Spiritual Seekers', the other being to introduce the ways of combining letters in order to show the reader how to be able to read words and look them up in a dictionary. However, despite this totally logical construction, it is still the case that differences in pronunciation are encountered. For example, Americans insist on pronouncing the letter 'v' as the English 'v', instead of like 'w', despite the fact the letter is actually a combination of the letters 'u' and 'a', which you can easily verify, sounds like 'w' and not 'v'! Also, many Indian speakers sound words in non-standard ways, for example the 'j' and 'nya' sound in j~nAna is sometimes heard pronounced as 'gya'. So take your choice, really! If you want to purchase my own book, it is only available from India (and I have never received any royalties). The book was published by Black & White books in Jan 2005. The ISBN for the Hardbound edition is 8189320009, list price $21, from Sundeep Prakashan (http://www.sundeepbooks.com/) with free shipping by airmail. The softbound version is ISBN 8189320068, list price $19. You may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. Best wishes, Dennis advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf Of rachmiel Saturday, May 30, 2009 11:41 PM advaitin audio recordings of sanskrit words i would very much like to know how to pronounce the various sanskrit terms i am encountering in my study of vedanta. the spelling inter-capitalization helps, but even better would be audio recordings of native speakers pronouncing the terms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 namaste, dennis. thank you very much for this. :-) it is just what i needed. rick advaitin , " Dennis Waite " <dwaite wrote: > > Hi Rachmiel, > > The simple answer here has got to be that there are no native speakers of > Sanskrit. It is effectively a dead language, like Latin, although there have > been some attempts to set up Sanskrit speaking communities in recent years. > Of course, there are many Sanskrit mantras, and scriptures are still chanted > or spoken in the sampradAya-s where, it could be argued, they have been for > possibly thousands of years. Accordingly, it might be best to go for some > audio teaching course stemming from such an organization. See the list of > resources at http://www.advaita.org.uk/sanskrit/sanskrit_resources.htm. > > Having said this, Sanskrit is an incredibly logical, even scientific, > language and that includes the pronunciation. It is possibly unique amongst > language in that a given letter is pronounced identically in all words - no > varying vowel sounds or silent consonants! Accordingly, it is possible to > learn the letters and how they are pronounced and then be able to apply this > to any word that is encountered. This was one of the main purposes of my > book 'An Essential Guide to Sanskrit for Spiritual Seekers', the other being > to introduce the ways of combining letters in order to show the reader how > to be able to read words and look them up in a dictionary. > > However, despite this totally logical construction, it is still the case > that differences in pronunciation are encountered. For example, Americans > insist on pronouncing the letter 'v' as the English 'v', instead of like > 'w', despite the fact the letter is actually a combination of the letters > 'u' and 'a', which you can easily verify, sounds like 'w' and not 'v'! Also, > many Indian speakers sound words in non-standard ways, for example the 'j' > and 'nya' sound in j~nAna is sometimes heard pronounced as 'gya'. > > So take your choice, really! If you want to purchase my own book, it is only > available from India (and I have never received any royalties). The book was > published by Black & White books in Jan 2005. The ISBN for the Hardbound > edition is 8189320009, list price $21, from Sundeep Prakashan > (http://www.sundeepbooks.com/) with free shipping by airmail. The softbound > version is ISBN 8189320068, list price $19. You may be able to find it > cheaper elsewhere. > > Best wishes, > > Dennis > > > > advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf > Of rachmiel > Saturday, May 30, 2009 11:41 PM > advaitin > audio recordings of sanskrit words > > > > i would very much like to know how to pronounce the various sanskrit terms i > am encountering in my study of vedanta. the spelling inter-capitalization > helps, but even better would be audio recordings of native speakers > pronouncing the terms. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 advaitin , " rachmiel " <rachmiel wrote: > > namaste, dennis. > > thank you very much for this. :-) it is just what i needed. > Namaste, These links may be useful too: http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/csas/publications/sanskrit/ http://umich.edu/~iinet/media/csas/sanskrit/audio.html Regards, Sunder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 sunder ji ati sundaram websites ,dhanyavadam. suresh. advaitin , " Sunder Hattangadi " <sunderh wrote: > > advaitin , " rachmiel " <rachmiel@> wrote: > > > > namaste, dennis. > > > > thank you very much for this. :-) it is just what i needed. > > > > Namaste, > > These links may be useful too: > > > http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/csas/publications/sanskrit/ > > http://umich.edu/~iinet/media/csas/sanskrit/audio.html > > > Regards, > > Sunder > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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