Kyoto-Harvard transliteration

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

it is Summer and the weekend now, so a lazy note of correction:

 

Colleagues have been referring, since 1990, to our 7-bit

transliteration for Sanskrit as Harvard-Kyoto (a A, i, I ..., etc.).

 

But the laws of language do not trump the (perceived) pre-eminence of

Harvard.

In compounds, the shorter member precedes the longer one. This is

Behaghel's 19th century 'law of growing members' (Gesetz der

wachsenden Glieder).

 

Here we have a problem as both Kyoto and Harvard have two syllables.

(Something like the erstwhile Baltimore-Washington or Washington-

Baltimore airport)

 

However, as Kyoto is metrically shorter (kyoo-to, 2+ 1) than Harvard

(har-vard, 2+ 2), and thus also has less letters, Kyoto takes

precedence. In addition, the system was devised at Kyoto in 1990.

 

In short, call it the " Kyoto-Harvard " system!

 

To be honest, it was based, to a large degree, on that created by

Andrea van Arkel at Leiden in 1984, when our department was the first

there to use a PC (together with Mathematics) for the input of the

Paippalada Samhita of the Atharvaveda.

 

Have a good Summer!

 

Michael

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Witzel

witzel

www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

 

Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street

Cambridge MA 02138, USA

 

phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295 (voice & messages), 496 8570, fax 617 - 496

8571;

my direct line (also for messages) : 617- 496 2990