Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00213)

July 26 2002

Re Language: Spoken . Written.


Dear Friends:

The THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY (by H P B) [Publishers: Theosophy
Company, Los Angeles, photographic reprint ] gives many
meanings.

Pronunciation varies.

Transliterating into English letters gives no indication of
the exact pronunciation in a foreign language in my
experience.

One has to learn a language THERE. And still there are
provincial and local variants of sound that created
divisions over the years. For instance when there were
Church Synods, the Bishops had to WRITE to each other in
Latin.-- their pronunciations had varied due to local
inflections.

The same in India the Northern Indian or Bengali Brahman
cannot understand exactly what a Brahmin from Maharashtra or
Tamilnadu says. They have to WRITE. Yet the Sanskrit is a
very exact language and it is taught lip to ear in most
Brahmin families -- so that the sounds are maintained.
Within the ordinary spoken Sanskrit (when that is used) are
at least 7 levels of coded sounds -- at least 4 are known
and 3 are secret.

Nowadays English is spoken everywhere -- but there are
hundred of variants in sound due to local linguistic customs
and common speech sounds.

In terms of phonetic symbols, I have found the Sanskrit
(Devanagri) the most flexible and exact in rendering sounds
of words in any language. But there is always a gap between
the written symbol and the lip sound.

Best wishes,

Dal

==================

-----Original Message-----
From: Mic Forster [mailto:micforster@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 8:25 PM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Theos-World pronunciation

Theosophy is full of weird and wonderful terms from a
diverse range of cultures and languages. For those of
us who have not had any experience with these
cultures/languages knowing how to pronunce words
correctly can be difficult. For example, I have a fair
idea of how Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German
words are meant to be pronounced because I have had
experience with their cultures and languages. For
someone of European origin attempting to pronounce
Asian words can be quite difficult. You would not
believe how long it took me to pronounce "Ng" properly
(and I still don't think I can).

Is there any source of reference that is recommended
to assist a student of theosophy in proper
pronunciation?

Your help is most appreciated.

Regards,
Mic

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