Pronunciation of word final "a" in sanskrit

[Robert Zydenbos]

> Date:          Fri, 28 May 1999 07:57:02 -0700
> From:          Periannan Chandrasekaran <perichandra at YAHOO.COM>

[Names in Karnataka]

> > It does not seem so. This is probably a combination of factors: (a)
> > increased popular familiarity with northern India as a consequence of
> > the Independence movement, (b) Hindi cinema, (c) names recently
> > 'imported' from the north,
>
> As is evidenced by clipping of the word-final "a" in Karnataka to
> produce
> "Karnatak" by a kanndaiga himself in the midst of this very discussion
> :-)
> ------------------------------
> From:
>         Balaji Hebbar <bhebbar at EROLS.COM>
>  Subject:
>         Re: VarNa & JAti
>  ..........
> ...............
> This  has  never  been  a  problem  anywhere  in  coastal  Karnatak.  I
> would  even  add  Uttar  Karnatak.  ............

Yes, this is funny... It seems to confirm the strange answer I once
got, when I asked a friend in Mysore why he wrote his name 'Narayan'
instead of 'Narayana': "That's what we do when we write in English,
because that's how English people pronounce our names." This answer
offers more than one problem (e.g.: why accept the supposedly English
way of distorting your own name when using Latin script? or: do
'English people' really do so? and if so: why? and where do they get
such ideas from?). I did not pursue the matter at the time, since it
was bound to become too personal.

I may add that Balaji Hebbar's orthography is not standard. School
children here in Mysore, like my daughter, learn that they live in
'Karnataka', with the final -a.

RZ