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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
My Hindi is progressing at an undefined pace. I say that because the native speaker I spend most time with is from Fiji, and so my Hindi is likely to be "corrupted", at least in the view of speakers from India (including another friend from the Panjab, who is dismissive of the Fijian patois). Also, much like my Italian, I don't get enough practice speaking, so in both cases, my written comprehension is way ahead of my ability to make myself understood. Devanagari is beautiful, but my handwriting isn't, as I was reminded the other while watching a 7-year old Nepali friend writing the syllabary. It confirmed that being left-handed is not the reason my attempts at writing devanagari are unreadable. 
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
My Hindi is progressing at an undefined pace.I love this sentence. Can I use it sometime? It can be attached to any subject. "How's your report coming on?" "Oh, my report is progrssing at an undefined pace." It'll baffle people just enough that they won't push for more info...as in, "undefined?? what did she mean by undefined. Is there a meaning I don't know about. I won't ask just in case in makes me sound ignorant." Yup. I think I shall adopt it if you don't mind. It confirmed that being left-handed is not the reason my attempts at writing devanagari are unreadable.Isn't it annoying when your excuse for something gets tossed aside so easily. And by a little kid, too. It's like the last time I went skiing and immediately fell...some little kid zipped up, swooshed to a perfect stop and said "Do you need help, ma'am?" 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
Just to shove my oar in.
I believe that Raj is simply a corruption of Rajya. A lot of Hindi words were simplified when taken on in Anglo-Indian usage.
And Raj would be pronounced as a single syllable. The point is that, unlike Sanskrit, in Hindi in general use (at least the 22 years of use I had of it) the final consonant is not given the full value (with schwa) that it might usually be given in Sanskrit. Hence the Shiv/Shiva confusion, and simplification into either single syllable Shiv or made into Shiva with an 'ah' sound at the end.
Of course, dialect matters too - in BrijBhasha (a lot of Bhakti hymns to Krishna are written in that dialect) Krishna is pronounced Kish'n (or sometimes Krish'n), hence the popularity of the name Kishen throughout Northern India.
Hope this either helps, or adds to the melee! :)
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
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I believe that Raj is simply a corruption of Rajya. A lot of Hindi words were simplified when taken on in Anglo-Indian usage.
Then do you believe that Hindi rAj was borrowed back into Hindi from Indian English? I assumed that Hindi rAj < Skt rAjan 'king', and I guess that H rAjya < Skt rAjya 'royal, princely; kingdom'.
And Raj would be pronounced as a single syllable. The point is that, unlike Sanskrit, in Hindi in general use (at least the 22 years of use I had of it) the final consonant is not given the full value (with schwa) that it might usually be given in Sanskrit. Hence the Shiv/Shiva confusion, and simplification into either single syllable Shiv or made into Shiva with an 'ah' sound at the end.
This is what I noticed. In Sanskrit, you'd need to use a virama to suppress explicitly the default -a (schwa) vowel. But rAjya is pronounced with the final -a, isn't it?
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Joined: Mar 2000
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
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Jheem
My belief is that the creation of Hindustani/Urdu included a combination of the Hindu, Muslim and British influence over the last three-and-a-half centuries, and 'Raj' is a word that was jointly 'invented' over this period. It will be used in all forms of the languages they use. (Of course, I could be entirely wrong, but we'd need an etymological dictionary along the lines of the OED to discover first written use of Raj, on its own, in the literature.)
As for your second query, Rajya is pronounced with, strangely enough, the schwa-like -uh, not the full -ah sound that so many other words seem to take on in Hindi. Don't know why, but it's definitely, for instance, the Rajy-uh Sabha (upper house of parliament) not Rajy-ah Sabha.
That's my take, anyway.
cheer
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