Sanskrit

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<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Apr 30 2008, 03:23 PM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Apr 30 2008, 03:23 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-Ashok Kumar+Apr 30 2008, 12:58 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Apr 30 2008, 12:58 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->So when spoken, the version "sanskritam" is more accurate than "samskritam".[right][snapback]81047[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Playing broken record again, but as I've heard it, this M in Samskritam has more of a nasal sound. Still, when I've had occasion to hear it, this nasal M always sounded closer to an 'm' than an 'n' to me.
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Please look at the following two words:

sandhi
saMsAra

Even though the second word uses the anusVara, this anusvAra should sound quite close to the "n" in the first word, since the following consonants in both the words are dental (dantya), viz, dha and sa. Although the sounds can be slightly different, since "sa" even though being dental, is not in the main dental ta-varga, but not as different as to start sounding like a labial "ma" of pa-varga.

Although I have heard people say the second word as "samsAra" too, which replaces the anusvAra by a labial (pa-varga) "ma" sound, even though the following consonant "sa" is dental.


Regarding why such errors have become prevalent:

All I can say is that ancient writers of shikShA and vyAkaraNa texts were linguistic scientists and used experimentation to come with their rules and classifications. Later people were followers and took their results as given by tradition. But if somewhere in the tradition tree, a slight deviation in a certain pronunciation was introduced, that deviation propagated down the tree, and was kept alive by the weight of tradition.

But fortunately, the ancient shikShA and vyAkaraNa writers left enough material to pry through their thought processes and methodologies, so it is possible to go back and use their original ideas to correct any deviations that we see in practice today.