Ebook: Sanskrit Historical Phonology, a Simplified Outline for the Use of Beginners in Sanskrit

American Oriental society, 1946. — 31 p.FoR MANY YEARS the present writer, like some of his colleagues, in teaching Sanskrit to beginners, has tried to introduce them not only to the language, but in some measure to its history, or better prehistory. This has involved the attempt to provide a rudimentary but systematic account of Indo-European phonology in relation to Sanskrit. The account must be very simple, or the average beginner, who usually has little knowledge of either Indo-European or the comparative method, will :find it hard to assimilate. No previously printed work appears to contain a statement satisfactory for this purpose. The closest approach is Thumb's Handbuch; excellent as it is in many ways, it is not what seems to me required. What follows is nothing more than an attempt to satisfy this want. It is intended to furnish, in as simple a form as possible, the barest essentials of the subject: just what it seems to me a beginner must have, in order to get a sound view of the basic system, and no more. Profundity is eschewed. Controversial matters are avoided as far as possible. There is no pretension to either completeness or originality. Most of what is said is commonplace to all Indo-Europeanists. Only in matters connected with the semivowels have ·I felt compelled to go beyond the standard handbooks, for reasons made clear in certain recent
publications, the chief of which is cited in § 60 below. The regular development of each Indo-European sound in Sanskrit is illustrated by (usually) a single etymological correspondence.
At the end a table of Sanskrit vowels, with their possible regular Indo-European correspondences, is provided. It has seemed unnecessary to do the like with the consonants.