[language] Re: Sound Changes 7 y ? j/c

[H.M. Hubey]

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H.M. Hubey wrote:

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> List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
> Owing to its geographical isolation, Sinhala has also preserved a
> number of old Aryan archaisms not found in any of the North Indian
> vernaculars. For example, whereas Sinhala, like Pali, has preserved
> the initial y of old Indo-Aryan, this has been changed to j in all the
> modern North Indian languages derived from Sanskrit.


In Turkic this is a problem. According to Doerfer, the initial y and c/j
in Turkic come from a *d. It might have been some other
(but related sound). But it seems like, here is a case where we can look
for rules.

It is a serious problem when anything changes to anything.  If there are
rules and there is regularity then it has to be more
uniform. In any case, if this field is to become scientific we have to
look for them.

Any candidate sounds instead of *d, or *dh, or the just-as-unpalatable
y>c.


>  Sanskrit yati (go), Hindi jana, Bengali jay, Sinhala yanna.
>

Could it have been a palatalized g, e.g like Magyar gy which shows up in
Turkic as y, or c. e.g. Gyula=dulo, and later
yula, and Magyar > Macar.

Is that possible?




> Some Sinhala words have however died out and been replaced by Pali or
> Sanskrit. For example, the old sinhala la (heart) occuring the Sigiri
> graffiti (8th-10 centuries) as la-kol hellambuyun (heart shattering
> fair damsels) is today extinct and has been replaced by the Pali hada.
>

Here we see it again, d=l, and/or apparently h=l. It seems
fricative-for-fricative is much better than anything for anything. If
such a thing
occurs the receiving language should be substituting a sound it has for
one it does not have. Again it seems like th>dh>d and
th>l.

This  also seems pretty irregular.

> Similarly, the old Sinhala ag (fire) has been replaced by the Pali
> gini. The old Sinhala term for horse, as today exists only in compound
>

Ditto here. It seems like they both derive from agni, e.g. agni > ag,
and agni> gini.

> terms such as as-val (horse-hair), as-hala (stable) and as-govva
> (horse-keeper) and has been superseded by the Sanskrit ashva.
>
>  Such old Sinhala words like dana (people), rada (king), and pungul
> (person) have to all, intents and purposes ceased to exist, and have
> been superseded by their respective Sanskrit equivalents, jana, raja
> and pudgala.
>
Here too, I see what I see in Turkic and Hittite dh> ng>n, and sometimes
n=m. Like-for-like. Is there no such principle?




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