"Marshy" was the way a number of teachers pronounced it back in the
1970s and they did not intend any disrespect. They thought it was the
proper pronunciation because they heard Indians say it that way. Of
course the Brits thought that Indians were saying "Bombay" when they
were saying "Mumbai." :-D
On 11/07/2013 09:14 AM, authfri...@yahoo.com wrote:
Bevan and other TMO suits tend to pronounce it "Ma-HAR-shi." It seems
to be the first "i" that got short shrift, not the "a."
I don't remember who started spelling it "Marshy" here, but it was
intended, as I recall, to show disrespect.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote:
It probably has something to do with Devanagari script where the
short "a" is not written but understood. So only long vowels would be
pronounced. "Marshy" sounds the way Indians would pronounce it.
As for the technical terms, remember some folks are tossing those
around just to impress people, not that they know anything.
Then there is the word kapha. There is no "f" sounding word in
Sanskrit so kapha should be pronounced more like kappa because the h
is an aspiration and doesn't mean we should pronounce it like kaffa.
I noted that in a Frontline report on ayurveda where the Indian
ayurvedic doctor pronounced the reporter as being "pitta kappa". But
that confuses western ayurevedists.
My tantra teacher would pronounce yoga "yog" dropping the final a.
On 11/06/2013 10:11 PM, s3raphita@... <mailto:s3raphita@...> wrote:
Sanskrit/Indian pronunciation has always bemused me. The most obvious
example to us is that "Maharishi" should be "Marshy". But most
everyone in the world of common folk says "Maharishi". It's the smug
insiders who like to say "Marshy". And when it comes to the longer,
technical terms used in Advaita-Vedanta the correct pronunciation
becomes positively impossible for westerners to grasp - or guess at.
I take the laziest course and always pronounce terms as they are
written - which is clearly incorrect.
The common thread is that there seems to be a collapse of the vowels.
Is there some simple rule one can follow so as not to make a fool of
oneself?
---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com>, <noozguru@...>
<mailto:noozguru@...> wrote:
An Indian friend who ran an little grocery store had a boy working
for her who was from the Punjab. She told me she could barely
understand him because of his accent. Indian accents very from
region to region. And it also depends on education too. One thing
that Maharishi had going for him was that his English was
understandable for westerners. Going to ACVA events there were always
a wide range of speakers and some folks had difficulty with some of
the Indian accents.
If you learn some Hindi then you'll understand the origins of Indian
accents. I also have heard that there is northern and southern
Sanskrit pronunciations. This I found out when I noticed that a
friend who had studied Sanskrit elsewhere pronounced words
differently than how I learned to pronounce them (from the American
Sanskrit Institute materials).
On 11/06/2013 07:43 PM, jr_esq@... <mailto:jr_esq@...> wrote:
Bhairitu,
It's actually cool to have an Indian accent, especially if you're a
guru of some kind. Also, if one comes to the USA after 16 years old
or so, it's difficult to adopt the American accent even if you tried.
One's native tongue is hard to erase. I believe MMY stated that
it's better to speak your native tongue for physiological and
psychological reasons.
Here's Russell Peters on the subject of accents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2W8aGgmn1A
---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com>, <s3raphita@...>
<mailto:s3raphita@...> wrote:
Re "I tried to help my tantra teacher take some accent-reduction
courses. Online there were some videos and they were able to boil
down to a few points the way for someone from India to sound American.":
Why so? Isn't hearing your own tongue spoken with a foreign accent
rather appealing? In fact, it's often regarded as rather sexy to
hear English spoken with a Continental accent! Could be a selling
point for a tantric teacher . . .
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>, <noozguru@...>
<mailto:noozguru@...> wrote:
Seems that British actors are very good at doing various American
accents. Although in the commentary of the movie "The Ward" Jared
Harris (Richard Harris's son) says there are some British accents
that he finds difficult to do. It seems there is a better drama
tradition in the UK whereas the US has cut many of their programs
from schools.
Doing accents shouldn't be that difficult. There are experts in
training actors to learn them in short work. I tried to help my
tantra teacher take some accent reduction courses. Online there
were some videos and they were able to boil down to a few points the
way for someone from India to sound American.
On 11/06/2013 03:57 PM, s3raphita@... <mailto:s3raphita@...>
wrote:
Interesting video link. The funny thing is, I've always found the
Southern "drawl" one of the most appealing of American accents.
I used to work for the BBC and I can tell you that whenever BBC
Radio broadcast a play which featured an American character,
listeners would always write in to complain about the producer
using an English actor or actress and expecting him or her to fake
an American accent that sounded obviously phony. Why, O why, they
said, doesn't the BBC employ an American actor for the part.
And every time that complaint was made the producer was always able
to reply that actually the actor used *was* an American!
The funny thing is, I'm with the listeners who complained! The
accents always sound false. I don't know if they pick Yank actors
who have some of the rarer regional variants or the signal
compression used by technicians does something weird to the sound.
(I wouldn't know what "signal compression" means of course.)
On a related note, whenever I've seen Reese Witherspoon or Gwyneth
Paltrow do an English accent in a movie role they have been pitch
perfect. I suppose imitating an accent is just bread-and-butter
routine for an actor but I am in awe at how effortlessly those two
pull it off.
---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com>, <noozguru@...>
<mailto:noozguru@...> wrote:
According to this video, southerners are speaking with a "slowed
down" British accent:
http://youtu.be/mNqY6ftqGq0
On 11/06/2013 01:48 PM, Michael Jackson wrote:
you have never been to the South if you think the Brits speak like
we do.
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 11/6/13, jr_esq@... <mailto:jr_esq@...> <jr_esq@...>
<mailto:jr_esq@...> wrote:
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Rare Picture of Vivian Leigh
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 4:33 PM
I saw her in "Gone With the Wind".
She was excellent in the movie, but I did not realize
up till now that she was born in England. I suppose
speaking like an American Southerner is very similar to the
British accent.
However, this got me wondering, why aren't
there any Brits in England who speak like a
Southerner?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/05/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/vivien-leigh-gallery/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook
