Dear Howard, Thank you for your contribution.
Regarding your first example, I suspect that the genealogy might look something like Skt. "-akṣa-" > Pkt. "-akkha-" > vernacular "-akha-"?? However, what has my colleague, her student, and I more intrigued is how/why the "-akha-" turns to "-ekha-" in some vernaculars. I can think of some examples of long "ā" turning to "e" in Odia, as with causative verbs. For example from *basibā* "to sit" we get *basāiba* "to cause to sit," which also appears as *baseibā*. But these are all long "ā" vowels followed by another vowel (rather than a short "a" before a consonant as with Gorekha < Gorakṣa ), so I suspect these long "ā" to "e" examples might result from a different process (?). *Sincerely,* *Westin Harris* Ph.D. Candidate Study of Religion University of California, Davis https://religionsgrad.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris <https://religions.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris> 2021 Dissertation Fellow, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies Sarva Mangalam. On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 8:03 PM Howard Resnick <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings Westin, > > I cannot comment on akṣ to ekh, but from my own observations, in parts of > East India, such as West Bengal (which borders Odisha) kṣ routinely > changes to kh. The reason seems to be that Bengali tends to avoid consonant > clusters, probably for ease of pronunciation, in at least two ways: > > 1. By removing one consonant. Thus Parikṣit (Parikshit) becomess Parikhit, > kṣetra -> khetra etc. -akṣ to ekh seems to be a variation of this principle. > > 2. By inserting a vowel between two hard consonants. Thus bhakta becomes > bhakata. > > I’m sure others here know much more about this. > > Best wishes, > Howard > > > On Jun 17, 2024, at 10:41 PM, Westin Harris via INDOLOGY < > [email protected]> wrote: > > Greetings Indologists, > > I am posting for a colleague who is working with a "very bright > undergraduate student" on a research paper that falls slightly outside her > (and my) areas of expertise. > > Her student is looking for thoughts/sources that discuss the evolution of > -akṣ- to -ekh- in certain South Asian vernaculars. Some examples that > immediately come to my mind are "Gorekha" (from gorakṣa) and "Alekha" (from > alakṣya) in Odia. > > They are also looking for sources discussing how such phonetic changes can > impact orthography (like how some phonetic changes come to be reflected in > writing, while others are not?) and/or meaning (like how Odia "alekha" > takes on the semantic range of both a+√lakṣ and a+√likh?). > > Thank you all. > > > *Sincerely,* > > *Westin Harris* > Ph.D. Candidate > Study of Religion > University of California, Davis > https://religionsgrad.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris > <https://religions.ucdavis.edu/people/westin-harris> > > 2021 Dissertation Fellow, > The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies > > Sarva Mangalam. > > _______________________________________________ > INDOLOGY mailing list > [email protected] > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology > > >
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