Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:50 am
There is no evidence that Sera Jetsun studied Sanskrit with a native Sanskrit speaker.
Who is Sera Jetsun?
Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:50 am
His reasoning is also unsound.
What reasoning, and how?
Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:50 am
There is also no evidence that pronouncing a labial as a guttural is valid in any Sanskrit context.
What labial?
Virgo wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:51 am
Have you demonstrated that?
There are lots of different sources on this, e.g.
this or
this. That first link provides an example of ཥ་ being read as "kha" per Vedic standards, as Zhen Li mentioned.
Virgo wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:51 am
Just because there are regional variations does not mean that some ways are not more correct than others.
If there are regional variations, then what makes some ways more correct than others?
The fact is, all you have is the axiomatic assertion that a certain way is correct, whereas other ways are wrong. You can try to support this with texts, but again, those texts will just be other people who hold to the same axiom.
Virgo wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:51 am
Don't you think this applies more to common languages like English?
Sanskrit places import on specific sounds and pronunciations, does it not?
Religious people place this import (because they believe Sanskrit to be soteriologically powerful), not Sanskrit itself. Grammarians place this import (because they are describing the language), not Sanskrit itself. Sanskrit has nevertheless been subject to natural language variation and will do what it wants, regardless of what people feel about it.
stong gzugs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:03 am
Let's take the benza example. This term seems to pretty clearly stem from two facts: (1) a lot of the tantras were translated out of Bengal where the v and b sounds are often conflated as a matter of dialect, and (2) the va letter isn't really present in Tibetan. Hence the Sanskrit "vajra" transforms into something like "badzra" and ends up "benza" in plenty of today's sadhanas.
I think calling 1) an example of "conflation" is not a value neutral description; it has the implication that this is wrong just because it's different from an earlier standard. More plainly, we can simply say that this stems from Bengali pronunciation of Sanskrit.
stong gzugs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:03 am
it's pretty standard fair there to use such jargon as a cudgel in service of their own axiomatic assumptions (like that knowledge is indistinguishable from power, such that to maintain standards is thereby to exercise power and exclude others, so we should be skeptical of all standards, etc.). But I don't find these moves particularly impressive.
I'm not evoking linguistic prescriptivism here for some kind of argument about power or exclusion; my point is that axioms are baseless by definition, so ideas of a "correct" form of Sanskrit is basically just a bunch of people saying "no, do it this way!" and getting angry when people point out differences. I find the whole thing quite silly. I'm more interested in historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, which describe how languages change and vary over space and time.
stong gzugs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:03 am
If we're embracing a skepticism of standards for "correctness and legitimacy," how far do we take that? There are clearly transcription errors that occur when manuscripts are hand-copied. Do we no longer have a basis to identify those as "errors"? Why privilege one language use over another?
Descriptivism is sensitive to things that are considered incorrect by a given speech community. So, for example, it would capture people's insistence that there is only one correct way to pronounce Sanskrit, and their judgment that this or that form is incorrect. This kind of information would not be excluded from a description of a language. Transcription errors are recognized as errors in a given speech community, and it is fine to acknowledge that. There's also the distinction that transcription errors are typically considered to be errors (and worthy of correction) by the people who make them, unlike most language drift. It's really just about describing what people are doing and how they feel about things, without getting caught up in some fossilized ideal and thus becoming emotionally resistant to or critical of any change or difference.
stong gzugs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 5:03 am
I've seen a large amount of variability in all the above and don't find it surprising that Tibetan lamas might not be experts on the nuances of a language they don't natively speak
Sure, but this is not what I mean. I'm not saying that every single Tibetan is an expert in Sanskrit, I'm saying that Tibetans in general are making intentional and textually-based decisions for Sanskrit pronunciation; and furthermore, I see no reason to think that all these deviations from whatever norm are reducible to Tibetans just being bad at pronouncing Sanskrit.