[language] Re: Sound Changes1

H.M. Hubey hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu
Tue Dec 3 22:10:58 UTC 2002


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H.M. Hubey wrote:

> <><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language
> List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
> I clipped the following from this website. I want to make some
> off-the-cuff comments (later).
>
> http://members.tripod.com/~hettiarachchi/sinhala.html
>
> For example, in Sanskrit, the sound r takes more prominence, appearing
> in many words. This is not so in Prakrit (Pali) which has a tendency
> to eliminate this sound. In turn Pali words possessed a high
> proportion of double consonants, a feature that was eliminated in
> Sinhala. This had taken place by the 3rd century B.C. as borne out by
> the earliest cave inscriptions.
>
>         Sanskrit        Pali            Sinhala
>         karman  kamma   kam  (work)
>         marga           magga           maga  (path )
>

The mar- root has to be related to Hittite pai, Turkic bar, Latin ped,
and Persian pai (foot).  I can't believe that d>y or y>d.
The sound must have been *dh, as seen in Turkic (attested). Any
comments. Furthermore, like the PIE p > Germanic f
which was caused by nonIE speakers causing the change (Comrie), I
believe dh>d was caused by nonIE learners.

Comments appreciated.

>



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