Talk:Vedic accent

Devanagari samples[edit]

Please include some devanagari samples where the accents can be seen. Yes, it is not possible in Unicode, so please use an image file.

One can use Baraha 7.0 to create texts with accent, i.e.: अ॒ग्निमी॑ळे पु॒रोहि॑तं. I don't know if this is displayed properly on a browser without the Baraha fonts installed, but it appears correctly on one that does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.80.239 (talk) 18:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At this time it is only possible to use the following Vedic marks in Unicode:

U+0951 Devanagari stress sign udatta ॑ (क॑)
U+0952 Devanagari stress sign anudatta ॒ (क॒)

There are plans to include more in later versions of Unicode. In Unicode version 5.2 (to be released the summer of 2009) there are about fifty Vedic marks proposed for inclusion. They might, or they might not, be included at the end of the day. I guess this page will recieve some more attention whether or not they are included, which would be a good thing, as there is much more to say about the various Vedic accents. I know not enough to be editing the main page myself. —Kess (talk) 15:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounded?[edit]

How does the svarita actually affect pronunciation? I don't quite understand the term "sounded" here. --Grammatical error 07:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"sounded" is just the literal translation of the term, not an explanation. The exact phonetics of this are a matter of reconstruction (for Vedic times), and a matter of expert scholarship (for the minute variants between shakhas). So far, the only thing the article states is that it was some sort of "release", an automatic glide (falling pitch) following any raised pitch syllable. Sadly, no Rishi ever spent time in a phonetics lab :) dab (ᛏ) 13:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In Indu-European times the udatta had the highest pitch. By Vedic times, the pitch rose through the udatta syllable and started to come back down during the next (= svarita) syllable, perhaps due to delay caused by the momentum of the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx as the pitch was changed. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, during Indu-European times, was the increasing order of pitch Anudatta<Svarita<Udatta ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vectoraditya (talk • contribs) 12:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison to the pitch accent in ancient Greek[edit]

Ancient Greek also had a pitch accent, apparently very similar to the Vedic accent. I don't know enough about IE historical linguistics to give a useful comparison, but it'd be worthwhile.