Topic Research: Understanding Sanskrit and the Sounds of Sanskrit

Hello VagaBuddies,

At much encouragement, and with genuine curiosity, I have decided to do a storybook focusing on Sanskrit! (probably a death sentence but we will see!)
For this week's research, I decided to just focus on some of the sounds of Sanskrit and becoming familiar with how the language sounds. First, I started at Valmiki's Ramayana, which gave a wonderful page that allowed me to see the original Sanskrit, the romanticized Sanskrit, an English language, and English commentary about the passage, all at once! For about 15-20 minutes, I just tried to follow along the romanticized script! Even just that was pretty difficult!

A necessary phrase after trying to follow along Sanskrit : Illumine

After struggling through this a little bit, I decided to try to find linguistic descriptions of the sounds that Sanskrit uses that aren't in English, so I could try to familiarize myself with those sounds before I went back to trying to follow along. English already has a lot of vowels, so luckily I didn't have much to learn there, just a few consonant-vowel mergers such as ɽɪ (think of a classed rolled 'r' but only doing one tap instead of the full roll, and saying the vowel from 'sit' at the same time). For my own notes (or for other interested people), here are all the vowels of Sanskrit:

IPA Nagari IAST English approximation

ɐ अ, प         a         comma

aː आ, पा ā         bra

ɪ इ, पि         i         sit

iː ई, पी         ī         feet

ʊ उ, पु         u         look

uː ऊ, पू         ū         loot

ɽɪ ऋ, पृ         ṛ         as rri

ɽiː ॠ, पॄ         ṝ         as rrī

lɪ ऌ, पॢ         ḷ         as lli

liː ॡ, पॣ         ḹ         as llī

eː ए, पे         e         wait

ai ऐ, पै         ai         hi

oː ओ, पो o         old

au औ, पौ au         h'ow

◌̃ ँ         ◌̃/m̐ nasal vowel [ɐ̃], [ãː], [õː], etc.) *

*ok I have only like half an idea what this vowel is supposed sound like. 

The consonants of Sanskrit were a bit trickier. For the non-linguists, we describe consonants with three characteristics: where the sound is made with the tongue (the place of articulation), how the sound is made (manner of articulation), and whether you use your vocal cords or not (voicing). For example, the [p] in 'pit' would be described as a voiced (vocal cords are engaged) bilabial (made at your lips) stop (you one puff of air and then none more). One important note about Sanskrit is that it makes a distinction between aspirated consonants and un-aspirated consonants. In English, this would be like if the [p] sounds in 'pie' and 'ripe' were completely different letters. In 'pie' we also release a little bit of air when we make the [p] sound (called aspiration), but we don't when we make the [p] sound in 'ripe.' That tiny difference to us would be as clear as the difference between [b] and [p] to Sanskrit speakers, so it's something that I should watch for.

For next week's research topic, I want to delve further into what stories I could use. Right now, I still really enjoyed the Ganges Origin story that I talked about in my Ramayana Reading A Notes and the Story of this week, so I would like to use that story. Potentially focusing in-depth on a couple words to discover the full breadth of their meaning, or using a couple short mantras to describe broad trends in the stories! We will see next week!
Vaga-Buon Voyage

Introduction to Daniel the Vagablond

Hello VagaBuddies! Welcome to my Vaga-Blog!

My name is Daniel Pfaff and welcome to this blog! (If you are confused about the title of the blog, or the first line, go read the P.S. section at the end of this post.)
Here is my bland college introduction: I am a Junior majoring in Biochemistry and Linguistics. I am from Kansas City, MO. And my favorite style of potatoes is some nice thin french fries (Think McDonalds but like better).

Me halfway into an eight hour hike in Northern Italy: Personal Photo. 

For a little more in-depth about my studies, I would eventually like to go on to study neurolinguistics in grad school (which is the study of how the brain processes language), but that is very long term. In the near term, I love learning languages! Besides random little phrases in various languages, I have studied Latin for many years, I speak Italian at an almost conversational level, and I am just starting to learn ASL!

Adjacent to my love for languages, and a drive for me to learn other languages, is my love of traveling. I was lucky enough that my family could travel around the United States as a kid, but my focus in the last few years has been international. I have done a bit of traveling throughout the Caribbean, and I studied abroad at OU in Arezzo, Italy last spring semester. I had the amazing opportunity to work as an English teaching assistant for an Italian high school, and my students probably taught me about their slang, hobbies, and customs just as much as I taught them (I even taught them a bit about Ultimate frisbee, which I play here at OU!). My love for travel is actually the inspiration for my blog name! (Scroll down to the bottom of this post for further explanation). I traveled throughout a lot of Europe while I was there, and I will continue my world traveling throughout my life!!

Heres some more fun facts about me:

- I have visited 12 countries

- I collect national flags at the country's capital and I have seven flags so far. 

- I have driven a steamboat down the Mississippi River.

- I biked 50 miles in one day (but I am not a biking guy at all. It was rough.)

- I can recite 100 digits of pi.

- I am the 2011 State Fence Painting Champion in Missouri.

Me overlooking the Florence skyline last spring: Personal Photo.

Well, that's all for now! I hope you got a little bit of my energetic, friendly personality, and if we ever meet in person feel free to say hi!


P.S. - Vagabond (noun) [vag·​a·​bond | ˈva-gə-ˌbänd] : a person who wanders from place to place without a fixed home; one leading a vagabond life. (Merriam Webster)
Yes, I am going all in on vagabond puns. Go big or go home right? Actually vagabonds don't have a home haha jokes.
P.P.S. - I will admit I did kind of maybe steal the word Vagabuddies from a travel YouTube channel called the VagaBrothers, so go check them out. They did a great 6 month travel around the world challenge video series a few years ago, so I highly recommend that!