Spelling "Ashtanga/Astanga"

[Guest guest]

Dave,<br><br>I've been expecting this question

for some time now - ever since an incident a while

back about spelling "Sri/Shri" in "Sri K Pattabhi

Jois". I personally prefer "Astanga" but I've noticed

that I'm in a minority here.<br><br>As a linguist, I

guess you are aware that there is generally no single

"right" answer as to how to transcribe sounds from one

language into another. I'm not a Sanskrit or Kannada

scholar, so I have no idea if there is a generally

accepted way of transcribing those languages into English.

I'm just a Brit living in Germany - where "st" and

"sht" sound the same anyway. But I think I was using

the "st" spelling before I lived here. Just personal

preference, really.<br><br>Another piece of web sanskrit

trivia: since I not only can't spell "ashtanga" but also

don't know the as(h)tanga mantra by heart yet, I though

I'd find a website with it on so that I could print

it off and learn it. So I did a search on

"caranaravinde" and found 45 pages. Great. Out of curiosity I did

a search on "Caranaravinde" excluding "Madona". 8

pages. I have nothing against Madonna, but I find this a

mildly interesting piece of web culture

trivia.<br><br>Alan