Ashin Angulimala

Ashin Angulimala to the rescue
in solving the mystery of missing ङ
- Devanagari akshara «nga»

by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) , Daw Khin Wutyi (B.Sc.), and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) . Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students and staff of TIL  Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR :  http://www.tuninst.net , http://www.softguide.net.mm
Contact persons:
   U Han Tun, Yangon phone: 527-388
   Daw Khin Wutyi: 09-511-3477

UKT notes on A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary by A. A. Macdonell, 1893
on scanned p149 in http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/ 

-- UKT120615 

{pa.nga.} by itself is absent in Sanskrit. Instead, we find the {king:si:} -- a special vertical conjunct literally meaning 'ridden by a centipede'. It's glyph is standing for {pa.} followed by {king:si:}. It is the sound of {ping} /pɪŋ/ the modal, and may be pronounced with emphasis as {ping:} the emphatic. The Sanskrit speakers (IE linguistic group) have difficulty pronouncing the nasals {nga.} ङ /ŋa/ and {ña.} ञ /ɲ/ [Note: the scripts are: Myanmar, Romabama, Devanagari, & IPA]. We find the same to be with another group of IE-speakers the so-called English-native speakers speaking many different dialects. Sanskrit speakers had gradually substituted the {king:si:} sound with the {þé:þé:ting} 'small dot above' sound, so for example, {în~gu.li.ma-la.} has become {än-gu.li.ma-la.}.

The question now is which pronunciation is correct? If the famous Buddhist monk was a Tib-Bur (Tibeto-Burman) speaker his name would be {în~gu.li.ma-la.} [starting sound: अङ् /ɪŋ/ ], close to how we say in Myanmarland where we speak Tib-Bur languages: elsewhere it doesn't matter to the Bur-Myan speakers. How would Gautama Buddha call him? Because, it is usual for kings and nobility, the class or caste from which the Buddha came, to speak to the non-Brahmins, in particular to the commoners most of whom are Sudras, to use the Prakrit Magadhi of north-eastern India, the Buddha would address him as {în~gu.li.ma-la.}.



Reference:
• Language Problem of Primitive Buddhism
  - by Chi Hisen-lin, Journal of the Burma Research Society, XLIII, i, June 1960
End of TIL file