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The change of a to e in the Indo-Aryan Loan Words of Malayāḷam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

K. Goda Varma
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Extract

The pronunciation of a coming after certain initial consonants as e, is the most important of the vowel changes met with in the Indo-Aryan loanwords of Malayāḷam, and also perhaps the most interesting from a phonological point of view.

The first to note and record the change was Gundert. He observed that a occurring after the voiced sounds g, j, d, d, y, and r is heard as e in the pronunciation of the Malayāḷis (A Grammar of the Malayalam Language, 2nd ed., p. 8). Gundert's observation is obviously imperfect inasmuch as the change is regularly manifested after b and l also, over and above the sounds specified by him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2-3 , January 1936 , pp. 559 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1936

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References

page 559 note 1 malayāḷam speakers who are also natives of Kēraḷa.

page 559 note 2 ḍambha is Prākrit, the corresponding Sanskrit word being dambha-.

page 562 note 1 In Malayāḷam. r and l are pronounced with the tongue placed in a palatal position. be noted that there are two kinds of r in Malayāḷam, one palatal (ŕ) and the other alveolar (r), and that the alveolar r occurs only very rarely in the Indo-Aryan borrowings.