This is a comment by Giovanni Ciotti that was not accepted by the evil machinery of blogger, probably because it contains an overdose of truth and bon sens. I think it deserves a post, so here it is:
Dear all,
I'd like to spend a few word on how I translate the above mentioned terms:
1. varṇa = "speech-sound". Being varṇa described in the Sanskrit literature as a bunch of articulatory features, its closest correspondent in modern Western linguistics is "phone" or "sound". Since "sound" alone can be sometimes ambiguous and refer to any sounds in nature, I usually employ the expression "speech-sound".
(see e.g. Pāṇinīyaśikṣā:
so'dīrṇo mūrdhny abhihato vaktram āpadya mārutaḥ |
varṇāñ janayate teṣāṃ vibhāgaḥ pañcadhā smṛtaḥ || 9 ||
svarataḥ kālataḥ sthānāt prayatnānupradānataḥ || 10a,b ||
"Once this breath, which has been upraised and has struck at the head, enters the mouth, it produces the speech-sounds, which are traditionally said to have a fivefold division (9) depending on the svara (“pitch modulation”), duration, place of articulation, prayatna (“primary effort”), and anupradāna (“additional effort”) (10a,b)")
2. akṣara: according to the context, it can mean:
2a. "syllable" or better a particular configuration of it. In fact, akṣara can sometimes indicate just a vowel, but - to the best of my knowledge - always in connection to the fact that it can appear alone as well as accompanied by a consonant (e.g. Paspaśāhnika: akṣara iti || akṣaraṃ vyañjanasahito 'c “An akṣara [is] a vowel accompanied by consonants”). In other words, I understand the term akṣara to hint at the potentiality proper to each Sanskrit svara ("vowel") to constitute the nucleus of a syllable.
2b. "graph" or, alternatively, "character". The reason for the term akṣara has been used to indicate the set of symbols used in script can easily be understood observing the nature of the Brahmi-derived scripts, where each unmarked graph indicates a syllable. (Concerning the possible influence of the Sanskrit grammatical tradition in the formation of the script, I have no formed opinion. However, I think it should be wise to keep in mind that script most probably came to South Asia from the outside, thus bearing the marks of further language-related traditions.)
3. eḻuttu: it comes from the root eḻutu ("to write", "to paint"). In the oldest available Tamil grammar, namely the Tolkāppiyam (see, in particular, the Eḻuttatikāram section), this term can ambiguously stand for both "speech-sound" and "graph". It is indeed very hard to understand what the actual object of Tolkāppiyam is, whether oral language or written language (possibly it is both). Furthermore, the debate concerning the dating of this text - thus whether it precedes or follows the introduction of writing practices - is a rather thorny one!
I never use the following terms:
1. 'phoneme': this term belongs to a very well-defined group of traditions within modern Western linguistics (one name for all, the Prague school) and has a very specific meaning concerning the functional representation of the role played by speech-sounds in each language in order to create minimal pairs of semantic oppositions (e.g. '/p/ear' vs. '/b/ear'). Apart from a few passages (see Patañjali), this semantic/functional property is never attributed to varṇa in vyākaraṇa and surely it does not constitute a building block of the Pāṇinian grammatical architecture, which is derivational and not distributional.
2. 'letter': "a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet" (Oxford Dictionary). Surely, this term refers to written language and not to spoken language. It borders with the second meaning of akṣara. However, since I have the impression that it's mostly used for Western scripts (e.g. Greek, Latin, Cyrillic), it mainly fits those scripts in which each graph correspond to a single phone/sound (I'm aware that all three Western scripts I mentioned can bear exceptions according to the language they are used for. E.g. ψ, x, я). Therefore, I prefer the terms "graph" and "character".
Sorry for the long message,
Best wishes,
Giovanni
Dear all,
I'd like to spend a few word on how I translate the above mentioned terms:
1. varṇa = "speech-sound". Being varṇa described in the Sanskrit literature as a bunch of articulatory features, its closest correspondent in modern Western linguistics is "phone" or "sound". Since "sound" alone can be sometimes ambiguous and refer to any sounds in nature, I usually employ the expression "speech-sound".
(see e.g. Pāṇinīyaśikṣā:
so'dīrṇo mūrdhny abhihato vaktram āpadya mārutaḥ |
varṇāñ janayate teṣāṃ vibhāgaḥ pañcadhā smṛtaḥ || 9 ||
svarataḥ kālataḥ sthānāt prayatnānupradānataḥ || 10a,b ||
"Once this breath, which has been upraised and has struck at the head, enters the mouth, it produces the speech-sounds, which are traditionally said to have a fivefold division (9) depending on the svara (“pitch modulation”), duration, place of articulation, prayatna (“primary effort”), and anupradāna (“additional effort”) (10a,b)")
2. akṣara: according to the context, it can mean:
2a. "syllable" or better a particular configuration of it. In fact, akṣara can sometimes indicate just a vowel, but - to the best of my knowledge - always in connection to the fact that it can appear alone as well as accompanied by a consonant (e.g. Paspaśāhnika: akṣara iti || akṣaraṃ vyañjanasahito 'c “An akṣara [is] a vowel accompanied by consonants”). In other words, I understand the term akṣara to hint at the potentiality proper to each Sanskrit svara ("vowel") to constitute the nucleus of a syllable.
2b. "graph" or, alternatively, "character". The reason for the term akṣara has been used to indicate the set of symbols used in script can easily be understood observing the nature of the Brahmi-derived scripts, where each unmarked graph indicates a syllable. (Concerning the possible influence of the Sanskrit grammatical tradition in the formation of the script, I have no formed opinion. However, I think it should be wise to keep in mind that script most probably came to South Asia from the outside, thus bearing the marks of further language-related traditions.)
3. eḻuttu: it comes from the root eḻutu ("to write", "to paint"). In the oldest available Tamil grammar, namely the Tolkāppiyam (see, in particular, the Eḻuttatikāram section), this term can ambiguously stand for both "speech-sound" and "graph". It is indeed very hard to understand what the actual object of Tolkāppiyam is, whether oral language or written language (possibly it is both). Furthermore, the debate concerning the dating of this text - thus whether it precedes or follows the introduction of writing practices - is a rather thorny one!
I never use the following terms:
1. 'phoneme': this term belongs to a very well-defined group of traditions within modern Western linguistics (one name for all, the Prague school) and has a very specific meaning concerning the functional representation of the role played by speech-sounds in each language in order to create minimal pairs of semantic oppositions (e.g. '/p/ear' vs. '/b/ear'). Apart from a few passages (see Patañjali), this semantic/functional property is never attributed to varṇa in vyākaraṇa and surely it does not constitute a building block of the Pāṇinian grammatical architecture, which is derivational and not distributional.
2. 'letter': "a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet" (Oxford Dictionary). Surely, this term refers to written language and not to spoken language. It borders with the second meaning of akṣara. However, since I have the impression that it's mostly used for Western scripts (e.g. Greek, Latin, Cyrillic), it mainly fits those scripts in which each graph correspond to a single phone/sound (I'm aware that all three Western scripts I mentioned can bear exceptions according to the language they are used for. E.g. ψ, x, я). Therefore, I prefer the terms "graph" and "character".
Sorry for the long message,
Best wishes,
Giovanni
