Vedic Accents - Very important. Can not ignore.

[Guest guest]

A quote below for HK's and all who read or speak vedic verses.

 

i believe that with some effort to learn the accetns from the indian people who know the accets, any one can learn the accents.

 

most western vaishnavas pronounce sanskrit very bady.

 

e.g. they pronounce

tad viddhi praNipAtena

 

like:

TaD viDDhi pranipatena.

 

to those who know sanskrit and most indians, this accent is painful to hear. however they are tolerant and friendly to them.

----------

 

VEDIC ACCENTS: In order to have full conception of the inner meaning of the Vedic prose, poetry and lyric (the Yajus, the Rk, and eh Saman), one should be familiar not only with the grammar of the language, and the etymology of words, he should also be conversant with proper accentuations. The old interpreters of the Vedic verses have laid great emphasis on proper accentuations. Being the earliest divine human speech, the words of the Vedic language are in their most fluid and plastic state. A slight change of accents brings about very often a considerable change in the meaning of the words. And therefore, our ancestors, not only made heroic attempts to preserve the Vedic texts to this day by reciting and memorizing, they did their best to retain the accents also. Panini, the great grammarian and the author of Astadhyayi devotes a number of aphorisms in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 8th chapters, and Dayananda edited a collection of these Sutras, and published it under the title of the Sauvara with notes and explanations.

 

… It must be remembered that the readings of the Vedic texts are of two types: . pATha (pd paQ), with each word (.) or term spoken clearly and distinctly,(.) and when these padas are connected together according to the rules of euphony or sandhi, we get the sa.nhitA pATha (s<ihta paQ); in fact, sandhi is the euphonic junction of final and initial letters in grammar grammar, (.)…

Four types of accents - ..only vowels (..) are accentuated(.) (The accents are:)

udAtta

 

udAtta (%daÄ),anudAtta (AnudaÄ), svarita (Svirt), and kshaipra (]Eà).

 

(Pg. 251.) Venkata Madhava has thus clearly stated, that if the accent differs, the interpretation should also be changed.

 

- (Veda Prathisthana Publication New Delhi) Rgveda Samhita Vol. 1, Pg. 237

 

======

 

jai sri krishna! -maadhav

 

[Guest guest]

please, just keep in mind that for westerners learning sanskrit is not that easy, especially in terms of accents! besides, the whole process of learning the language and all the grammar is so time-consuming that learning to read and write is more important at the beginning than speaking fluently and above all with the right accents.

but I'm sure with some practice and help from indians this is a minor problem.