Omniglot forum • View topic - (Devanagari) What does this inscription say?

booBot · **Posted:** Sat 23 Jan 2010 11:34 am

What does this inscription say?
I spell it as "Sri Sri Sri Matakaamataa Maaii".

Thank you in advance.

PS
This is a photo from Kathmandu.

Delodephius · **Posted:** Sat 23 Jan 2010 2:08 pm

It's Śri Śri Śri Manakāmanā māī.

Śri is a sign of respect, Manakāmanā is a godess, but what māī is I don't know.

booBot · **Posted:** Sun 24 Jan 2010 11:36 pm

Thank you!

The writing on this picture looks like "sakhrata shabdakiisha", right?
(the english text there is wrong, I believe)

Delodephius · **Posted:** Sun 24 Jan 2010 11:45 pm

It says saṃskṛta śabdakoṣa which means Sanskrit Dictionary, although I think 'dictionary' is śabdakośa. The inscription might be in Hindi, I don't know.

booBot · **Posted:** Mon 25 Jan 2010 12:06 am

Thanks!

Those conjuncts puzzle me...

Now I see that I was wrong, with your help I wonder now how could I got that way...

Please explain, why did you drop the inherent "a" from the "skr" glyph? I though that the "ta" is not the part of the previous syllable.

Delodephius · **Posted:** Mon 25 Jan 2010 12:43 am

The /ṛ/ in /skṛ/ is a vocalic /r/ ऋ. It is the syllable carrier. Let me me cut the word into syllables:
saṃskṛta > saṃ.skṛ.ta सं-स्कृ-त

I see you are from Russia. Unlike Russian, other Slavic languages contain a vocalic /r/. For example the famous Czech phrase Strč prst skrz krk illustrates this the best. The /r/ acts as a vowel. In Slovak also /l/, like in jablko (apple) or even a long /l/ as in jabĺčko (small apple). This is also present in Sanskrit and written as /ḷ/ ऌ for example in /kḷ/ कॢ .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocalic_r# ... labic_r.29

Neqitan · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 9:59 pm Posts:397 Location: Canada

booBot wrote:

Thank you!

The writing on this picture looks like "sakhrata shabdakiisha", right?
(the english text there is wrong, I believe)

Delodephius wrote:

It says saṃskṛta śabdakoṣa which means Sanskrit Dictionary, although I think 'dictionary' is śabdakośa. The inscription might be in Hindi, I don't know.

Shouldn't that be moved the Language-related humour forum? =)

booBot · **Posted:** Mon 25 Jan 2010 9:24 am

Delodephius wrote:

The /ṛ/ in /skṛ/ is a vocalic /r/ ऋ. It is the syllable carrier. Let me me cut the word into syllables:
saṃskṛta > saṃ.skṛ.ta सं-स्कृ-त
...
In Slovak also /l/, like in jablko (apple) or even a long /l/ as in jabĺčko (small apple). This is also present in Sanskrit and written as /ḷ/ ऌ for example in /kḷ/ कॢ .

Hmmm...
The word vŕba sounds "верба" in Russian, how do you spell it?
The jabĺčko is "яблочко".

RE: saṃskṛta - it actually should be spelled like "Samskrita", am I right now?

Delodephius · **Posted:** Mon 25 Jan 2010 10:33 am

booBot wrote:

Hmmm...
The word vŕba sounds "верба" in Russian, how do you spell it?
The jabĺčko is "яблочко".

RE: saṃskṛta - it actually should be spelled like "Samskrita", am I right now?

You spell vŕba as it is written: V Ŕ B A. Jabĺčko in the same way: J A B Ĺ Č K O

No, saṃskṛta is spelled as it is written. Sometimes /i/ is added after /r/ because in most western languages vocalic /r/ is not easily pronounceable. For example, in English the language is called Sanskrit, while Croatians call it Sanskrt.

Unlike Russian, Sanskrit as well as several Slavic languages are written phonetically. Sanskrit in fact is an example of phonetical writing. Russian is mostly not phonetical so I understand why this might seem strange to you.

booBot · **Posted:** Mon 25 Jan 2010 11:17 am

My bad again!

I was asking - how does the "vŕba" sound? If it were me - I'd say it as "vreba" instead of the correct "verba/верба".
("to sound" and "to spell" was the same to me, now I know I was wrong)