Linguistics and Questions in Indian Philosophy

[Narayan R. Joshi]

In Indology postings, discussions return, now and then,to the etymology of
Sanskrit and Tamil words.As I understand Semantics of Sanskrit is one of
the important components of the continued discussions in Indian Philosophy
from at least 4th century BCE to this day.Dr.Guy L. Beck in his book,"Sonic
Theology" (Univ.South Carolina Press)offerred detailed review of this
debated topic of Indian philosophy.To quote from the book,"The
confrontation between MimA.msA School (VarNa-vAda) and the Grammarians
(SpoTa-vAda) informs the underlying linguistic substructures of many of the
post-Vedic, Yogic and sectarian theories....". Sometimes the discussion
oscillates between two extremes-the mystical realm of "NAda-Brahman or
Shabda(Zabda)-Brahman on one hand and the despised realm of primitive magic
on other hand leading to nothing.Even the modern scholarly books and
research publications on this topic discussed by great AcAryas like
Patanjali,Bhatrihari,ShankarAcArya, MadhvAcArya and by almost all ancient
Schools of Indian philosophy (Vedic, Buddhists, Jainas)did not produce, to
the best of my knowledge, any tangible results other than debate and more
debate. If one assumes the hypothesis that Sanskrit is hybrid language
developed within the sub-continent by the mixture of Proto-Indo-European of
outsider Aryans and Dravidian, Munda, Para-Munda languages of indigenous
tribes, the subject then takes another turn of hunting IA and non-IA sounds
and words leading to nothing tangible again.Time has come to bring the
esoteric Shabda and Dhvani discussions down to the mundane level of sound
engineering because language is a formal system made of approximately 52
different sounds the human vocal tract is capable of making.In this
connection, I am looking for a book or research publications that present
sonograms of sounds from Sanskrit words similar to the one published for
English sounds of English words by Dr.SadAnanda Singh and KalA Singh.
Thanks.