Pronunciation of the word "Carnatic"
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From time to time I see purists in this forum and elsewhere getting ticked off by the "tic" part of the word Carnatic insisting that it should really be Karnatak and hence CM should really be KM and so on...
I believe the error started because of insufficient training in English phonetics among Indian subjects. It seems plausible that when some British surveyor first heard the word Karnatak he (most likely not a "she") spelled it correctly as Carnatic, with the vowel 'i' pronounced as in "sir" or "first". Over the decades and centuries, Indians reading just the spelling and being trained to pronounce the 'i' mostly as in words like "fit" and such, started pronouncing Carnatic like we do now. In the process the word Carnatic has acquired an almost english adjectival ring to it...like pathetic or idiotic .
Another Indian name/word that used to be spelled in English with an 'i' in the place of an 'a' is the Bengali name Sarkar which was often spelled as Sircar. This is less in vogue after independence. In the old days I think Karachi used to have an alternative spelling "Kirachi".
The trouble is that the english language does not have the concept of long and short vowels like we do in India. So "Karnatak" or "Carnatak" might have ended up sounding a little "tachy" with the last syllable "tak" being pronounced as in the word "tachy". So the original British spellers did their best under the circumstances.
Today, Indians can pronounce my last name shankar correctly, thanks to their poor training in english phonetics. But everybody else in the world calls me "shaankahr". So much so that I myself do so to speed up transactions with an airline booking clerk, say. Ideally my name should have been spelled "shunker" or some such. But then Indians would distort it beyond recognition.
Take the original names of the little satellite towns of Kolkata...Baranagar and Chandernagar. The old British spellings for these towns - Baranagore and Chundernagore respectively - were perfect phonetic representations of the Bengali pronunciations of those names. And yet, I've heard people make fun of those spellings as if it were some quaint British distortions.
I believe the error started because of insufficient training in English phonetics among Indian subjects. It seems plausible that when some British surveyor first heard the word Karnatak he (most likely not a "she") spelled it correctly as Carnatic, with the vowel 'i' pronounced as in "sir" or "first". Over the decades and centuries, Indians reading just the spelling and being trained to pronounce the 'i' mostly as in words like "fit" and such, started pronouncing Carnatic like we do now. In the process the word Carnatic has acquired an almost english adjectival ring to it...like pathetic or idiotic .
Another Indian name/word that used to be spelled in English with an 'i' in the place of an 'a' is the Bengali name Sarkar which was often spelled as Sircar. This is less in vogue after independence. In the old days I think Karachi used to have an alternative spelling "Kirachi".
The trouble is that the english language does not have the concept of long and short vowels like we do in India. So "Karnatak" or "Carnatak" might have ended up sounding a little "tachy" with the last syllable "tak" being pronounced as in the word "tachy". So the original British spellers did their best under the circumstances.
Today, Indians can pronounce my last name shankar correctly, thanks to their poor training in english phonetics. But everybody else in the world calls me "shaankahr". So much so that I myself do so to speed up transactions with an airline booking clerk, say. Ideally my name should have been spelled "shunker" or some such. But then Indians would distort it beyond recognition.
Take the original names of the little satellite towns of Kolkata...Baranagar and Chandernagar. The old British spellings for these towns - Baranagore and Chundernagore respectively - were perfect phonetic representations of the Bengali pronunciations of those names. And yet, I've heard people make fun of those spellings as if it were some quaint British distortions.
Last edited by Guest on 18 Jun 2009, 22:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Uday - a rose by any other name!
Regarding your issue with the (mis)pronunciation of your name - all I can say is 'pittan enrAlum avan pEyan enrAlum...'.... (before you throw those brick bats, just want to point out that I share the very same issue! )
Regarding your issue with the (mis)pronunciation of your name - all I can say is 'pittan enrAlum avan pEyan enrAlum...'.... (before you throw those brick bats, just want to point out that I share the very same issue! )
Last edited by rshankar on 18 Jun 2009, 23:33, edited 1 time in total.
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I am glad Uday has given a logical derivation of the spelling of carnatic by the early English men! I thought those Sahibs with their nose in the air labelled the sounds (cur = a crazy dog +nut = an eccentric person +ack = the ear-aching sound of the ack-ack) curnutack but a benign dubaaShi changed the spelling to 'carnatic'
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So would it be correct to say:
Karnataka music = tradition (but not followed today, some want to bring it back!)
Carnatic music = Style (Englishman's or the dubaash's style of spelling the word?)
And in this case, thankfully, Tradition = Style
Karnataka music = tradition (but not followed today, some want to bring it back!)
Carnatic music = Style (Englishman's or the dubaash's style of spelling the word?)
And in this case, thankfully, Tradition = Style
Last edited by sridhar_ranga on 19 Jun 2009, 13:32, edited 1 time in total.
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I guess this is the translation of 'karnATaka sangIta(m)...', but not everything with the prefix 'karnATaka' is considered desirable or good - CML/Arasi/GBL and others will remember the line 'kaDu kaDu vena mug(kh)am mArudal karnATaka vazhakkam anrO' from the song (in sindhu bhairavi?) 'nalla peNmaNi miga nalla peNmaNI', from the movie maNamagaL.mohan wrote:I have seen academics like Prof N. Ramanathan and Prof R. Sathyanarayana use the term "Karnataka Music".
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In mOhanam?
kaDu kaDuvena mugam mARudal karnAtaka vazhakkam anRO?
ga pa/ ga pa ga pa/ dA da/ SA Sa
Sa Ri/ GA Ri Sa/ dA da/SA Sa
Here karnAtakam means old fashioned--not being 'with it'. We used the expression often. 'orE karnatakam!' about a girl or a family who did not follow any modern trends. How did that meaning come about? Anyway, that had nothing to do with karnAtaka. Kalki chose that pseudonym for his reviews because he was writing about karnATaka sangeetam, I guess.
CML, does this make you KML?!
kaDu kaDuvena mugam mARudal karnAtaka vazhakkam anRO?
ga pa/ ga pa ga pa/ dA da/ SA Sa
Sa Ri/ GA Ri Sa/ dA da/SA Sa
Here karnAtakam means old fashioned--not being 'with it'. We used the expression often. 'orE karnatakam!' about a girl or a family who did not follow any modern trends. How did that meaning come about? Anyway, that had nothing to do with karnAtaka. Kalki chose that pseudonym for his reviews because he was writing about karnATaka sangeetam, I guess.
CML, does this make you KML?!
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Sorry! Since I was occupied hunting for a rare RTP I made the error!
Ragam is the foundation (bIjaM) of CM. It has an independent existence. taaLam does not survive by itself (except in 'laya vinyaasam' which iis not strictly CM). Hence the ardhanaari R-T is still naked without the lyrics (provided in a pallavi). I mean R-T is incomplete! R-T becomes a laughing-stock trying to put tala for the raaga aalaapana in a concert:)
cmlover will enjoy that comedy
Ragam is the foundation (bIjaM) of CM. It has an independent existence. taaLam does not survive by itself (except in 'laya vinyaasam' which iis not strictly CM). Hence the ardhanaari R-T is still naked without the lyrics (provided in a pallavi). I mean R-T is incomplete! R-T becomes a laughing-stock trying to put tala for the raaga aalaapana in a concert:)
cmlover will enjoy that comedy
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There's a talk by Palghat Mani Iyer where he speaks about talam existing in everything in life. SRJ talks about a certain time measure that is appropriate even for raga alapanam.
No sir, ragam and talam are two sides of the same coin called music.
Hmm, the ardhanaari is Shiva himself! And his dance is this very existence itself.
All this, while 'cml over' sits in a corner and laughs away.
Tut tut...
No sir, ragam and talam are two sides of the same coin called music.
Hmm, the ardhanaari is Shiva himself! And his dance is this very existence itself.
All this, while 'cml over' sits in a corner and laughs away.
Tut tut...
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Of course there are four stages in raga aalaapana but they are not time bound. Only during thaanam they get within time measures in a limited way. Finally the taalam evolves fully only during the kriti. Siva on his own is unitary. He was the primeval praNava sound which was not time-bound. When he decided to create the universe the shakti evolved out of him. Then from his 'Damaru' he created the Maheshvara Sutra from which were born the very first language 'deva bhaaSha'. That articulated the vedas (which was always there). In particular Sama veda evolved into music with primitive time measures (anudatta, udatta, svarita). So obviously tala evolved out of 'raga'. The combination with lyrics (words) evolved into the music as we know today. So raga has the individual existence, the combination R-T does not (though I am not denying that some mridangists do play for the 'taanam' part of RTP.
There can be an infinity of ragas. But the number of talas are limited unless it is inflated artificially (I could not appreciate the simhanandana tala , for example).
R-T is the evolutionary stage and is as such incomplete like the ardhanari. Only with the lyrics it becomes CM like the fully adorned Uma Maheshvara. Wipe out our vaggeyakaras and then there is no CM. 'cmlover' is a lover of CM, the finished product. Not a half-baked R-T
cmlover's laugh can be captured in a raga but it is not tala-bound
(By the by, I would love to get a reference to SRJ's talk)
There can be an infinity of ragas. But the number of talas are limited unless it is inflated artificially (I could not appreciate the simhanandana tala , for example).
R-T is the evolutionary stage and is as such incomplete like the ardhanari. Only with the lyrics it becomes CM like the fully adorned Uma Maheshvara. Wipe out our vaggeyakaras and then there is no CM. 'cmlover' is a lover of CM, the finished product. Not a half-baked R-T
cmlover's laugh can be captured in a raga but it is not tala-bound
(By the by, I would love to get a reference to SRJ's talk)
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Seems you haven't heard of the saying "Sruthi matha, laya pitha"
See here: http://popcorns101.blogspot.com/2009/06 ... natic.html
I will look for the SRJ lec-dem. Must be somewhere in the public domain.
See here: http://popcorns101.blogspot.com/2009/06 ... natic.html
This says it all. cmlover is left in the wayside. Possibly Cine film music lover? Or Cuchra music lover?‘Sruti matha, laya pitha’ is the crux of Carnatic music.
It means the drone and rhythm are mother and father to music.
Subduing sruthi and laya is required to master the art.
Carnatic music expresses these two by the way of Raga and Tala respectively.
I will look for the SRJ lec-dem. Must be somewhere in the public domain.
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Of course "Sruthi matha, laya pitha"
They are the rudiments like the alphabets. But alphabets do not make a language! Similarly the monotony of shruthi and laya is no good for cmlover (maybe good just during meditation!). Maybe R-T munching 'popcorns' can enjoy them eternally! By the by Sruthi and Laya do not coexist without kritis. What laya do you play for a shruti? Don't they switch off the shruti during tani? Hence R-T the way you claim is a curious mongrel
cmlover continues laughing
They are the rudiments like the alphabets. But alphabets do not make a language! Similarly the monotony of shruthi and laya is no good for cmlover (maybe good just during meditation!). Maybe R-T munching 'popcorns' can enjoy them eternally! By the by Sruthi and Laya do not coexist without kritis. What laya do you play for a shruti? Don't they switch off the shruti during tani? Hence R-T the way you claim is a curious mongrel
cmlover continues laughing
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'Shruti mAtA'layah pitA'- I am reproducing one of my posts from the 'hilarity in kutcheris 'thread; may be somewhat relevant- of course not on the comical side but on a more serious note-
Re: Hilarity in kutcherisI wonder whether this post of mine belongs here; but could not find an appropriate thread-worth pondering over.
In kalki magazine, there is a column 'ask crazy(Mohan)-crazyaikkELungaL'.
Some one has asked him 'if shruti is mAtA,and layam is pitA, what is bhAvam?
Crazy Mohan has replied 'bhAvam is wife. but if one forgets mother(shruti) and father(layam) after the wife(bhAvam) arrives, it is ahambhAvam!
I think he has said it all
Re: Hilarity in kutcherisI wonder whether this post of mine belongs here; but could not find an appropriate thread-worth pondering over.
In kalki magazine, there is a column 'ask crazy(Mohan)-crazyaikkELungaL'.
Some one has asked him 'if shruti is mAtA,and layam is pitA, what is bhAvam?
Crazy Mohan has replied 'bhAvam is wife. but if one forgets mother(shruti) and father(layam) after the wife(bhAvam) arrives, it is ahambhAvam!
I think he has said it all
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Punarvasu:
shruti mAtA layah pitA
sAhityam Eva ca bhAryA
mAtA pitA ca bhavakAraNaM
bhAryA hi bhavati bhAvaM||
bhAvamEva janayati gItaM
bhAvaM vinA kuta sangItaM?
(no translation needed !
R-T:
I meant you need a 'kick' (udhay) to get you on the right track
The appearance of Uday is immaterial
(since anybody can deliver it
Note also that R-T is a bachelor (or widower) without sahitya and hence will fade off 'intestate' ; let alone rule!
(cmlover will then be crying
shruti mAtA layah pitA
sAhityam Eva ca bhAryA
mAtA pitA ca bhavakAraNaM
bhAryA hi bhavati bhAvaM||
bhAvamEva janayati gItaM
bhAvaM vinA kuta sangItaM?
(no translation needed !
R-T:
I meant you need a 'kick' (udhay) to get you on the right track
The appearance of Uday is immaterial
(since anybody can deliver it
Note also that R-T is a bachelor (or widower) without sahitya and hence will fade off 'intestate' ; let alone rule!
(cmlover will then be crying
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I've heard the anglicization of Thirunelveli to Tinnevelly. Kind of captures what the Englishmen understood as they listened to colloquials spell out the name of the place.
I use Carnatic music most times, but am not averse to using "Karnataka sangeetham". Trouble is, it is difficult to popularize a change in something which is used so universally. The erstwhile name of Madras has been changed to Chennai and the old guard is indeed changing, but even purists refer to the art form as "Carnatic" music. How is change possible?
I use Carnatic music most times, but am not averse to using "Karnataka sangeetham". Trouble is, it is difficult to popularize a change in something which is used so universally. The erstwhile name of Madras has been changed to Chennai and the old guard is indeed changing, but even purists refer to the art form as "Carnatic" music. How is change possible?