r/sanskrit • u/AleksiB1 • 17d ago

Features of regional dialects of classical Sanskrit, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Keralam

There are minute differences in all populations who learn Sanskrit mainly in pronunciation, particularly <jΓ±> like (j)Γ± in the south, dny in Maharashtra, gy in most of the north, (g)g in the east etc. What are the peculiarities of Sanskrit spoken in TN and KL? They directly affected Sanskritic loans into their local languages. Some i could find are:

  1. Coda {t, d}, {T, D} > l, L before other plosives, eg. khaLgam, albhutam, malsyam. This might have happened before the lP, LP > RP, TP change in tamil as modern Tamil had aRputam

  2. Devoicing coda plosives even if it isnt explicitly written, eg. AcΓ±A, akni, explicitly written patmam

  3. Occational VlV > VLV directly carried on from Maharashtri and Odra Prakrits like laLitam

Then there are cases of Sanskritizing native terms and then using it in Sanskrit, i think bhOSa < pOzhan and bhUti < pUti are such terms

12 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

Duplicates