That's not what the text I quoted says. It says, གཞུང་ལས་ཥ་ནི་ཁ་དང་ཆ་མཐུན་པར་ཞེས་གསལ་བས་ཥ་འདིའི་སྒྲ་ཁ་ཞེས་བཀླག་དགོས། "because it is clarified in a classic text that Sa [is read] as equivalent with kha..." In this sentence there is an explicit reason, namely གཞུང་ལས་་་་་་ཞེས་གསལ་བས་ "because it is clarified in a classic text", so the reasoning given for pronouncing Sa as kha is that this is what is taught in a classic text.
Sapan only says this in the context of stacked letters (which is the focus of the 2nd half of the text).
When discussing standalone letters, he presents Sa as a retroflex unambiguously. But as I've said, this is just one style of pronunciation, and there are others.
Kha is not retroflex in any context.
Okay, great, so you acknowledge this now.
A single example of someone pronouncing Sa as Sa even while living around Tibetans is not exactly a convincing case for the pronunciation of kha being caused by Tibetan influence.Malcolm wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 1:11 pmTibetan influence. My roommate for many years (since passed) was Newari. He chanted the Namasamgiti in perfect Sanskrit daily. I listened to him every morning. Granted he also was at Varanasi at the same time as Khenpo Migmar, but he had been doing this since he was a small boy, and his father was a famous Newar Lana who trained in Tibet.Plus, Zhen Li has already commented on how this is also done in Newar recitation.
That's not what it says; it says that [puruSa] is pronounced [purukha], and [pUSA] is pronounced [pUkhA]. The distinction being made is between Sa being followed by a vowel, in which case it is pronounced as kha, vs. Sa being followed by a consonant, in which case it is pronounced as Sa.Malcolm wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 1:11 pmNot buying it.So, it is established beyond any doubt that this pronunciation of ṣa as "kha" is a known phenomenon in North India, not some oddity restricted to Tibetan.
Your response article points out that this Yajur Veda voicing is a voiceless pronunciation, I.e “purukh,” not “purukha.” So for example, following the article itself, no one would pronounce bhaISajya as Bhekhenze as Tibetans regularly do, since in these instances Sa followed by the vowel, etc.
That is just the Madhyandina style, too, because there is other evidence presented in the initial proposal I linked (e.g. likhyate written as liSyate) that show these letters were sometimes treated as equivalent before consonants too.