Reconstruction talk:Ashokan Prakrit/𑀙𑁄𑀝𑁆𑀝

@AryamanA, माधवपंडित: In theory, what are some ways you can get *ćʰ- and *-ṭṭ- from PIA? --Victar (talk) 17:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Incidentally, the source given connects it to Zebaki cuṭ, Ishkashimi cᵘtōkok, which could derive from some root like *čáwt-. --Victar (talk) 20:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@Victar: -ṭṭa- in MIA primarily comes from Old Indo-Aryan ṭra-. *ćʰa- comes from ćṣa. My only argument against creating a PIA reconstruction "*ćṣawṭrás" is that it is waaay too speculative. Why should we assume that it existed from the PIA times? The retroflexed ṭ is just out of the blue, there is nothing next to it to have triggered retroflexion. Also, scholars agree that Vedic/OIA was very conservative in its vocab; after a whole lot of research on a Dravidian substratum, they could find 4% of foreign words or words whose etymology is unclear. If Vedic itself was this conservative, imagine how conservative its predecessor might have been. So how can we be sure that a word like "*ćṣawṭrás" existed in PIA?. Many words may have been innovated during the MIA period which is why they don't exist in Sanskrit.

Lastly, even the Middle Indic descendants are irregular. Forms like *ćʰ- and *-ṭṭ- come from unexpected OIA sources too. By rights, a PIA word like *gẓʰayas (corruption, ruin), which became Standard Sanskrit क्षय (kṣaya), should have given Pali *jhaya. But the actual word is khaya, which pegs the PIA word at *kṣayas which is nonsensed by the *dʰgʷʰey- etymon. -- माधवपंडित (talk) 01:38, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Victar: Adding on, Maharastri Prakrit standardized on ch for Sanskrit क्ष (kṣa), so it's also possible that it could have been any PIA thorn cluster that led to this (but ćṣa is the most likely). Furthermore, the o could be from aCw where C is an unvoiced unaspirated consonant (which were often dropped intervocalically in all Prakrit, and always dropped in Maharastri). Finally PIA tr and ṣṭ could have also led to ṭṭ. It's like trying to reconstruct PIE with only Sanskrit and Avestan, we just don't have enough data. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 02:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm asking not because I'm saying we should blindly reconstruct a PIA form, but because there are several PIr forms that are similar, including the one Turner cites. Perhaps we can reconstruct a PII form from the both. --Victar (talk) 02:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)