Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/43

 with a following : for example थ् nearly as in English boathook, फ्  as in haphazard, ध्  as in madhouse, भ्  as in abhor, and so on. This is (as we have seen above) strictly accurate only as regards the surd aspirates.

The sonant aspirates are (in the opinion of most), or at least represent, original Indo-European sounds, while the surd aspirates are a special Indian development. The former are more than twice as common as the latter. The unaspirated (non-nasal) mutes are very much more frequent (5 times) than the aspirates (for the special frequency of and original, see 50 and 66); and among them the surds are more numerous (2½ times) than the sonants. The nasals (chiefly and ) are nearly as frequent as the surd non-aspirates.

We take up now the several mute-series.

Guttural series: क्, ख् , ग् , घ् , ङ्. These are the ordinary European k and g-sounds, with their corresponding aspirates and nasal (the last, like English ng in singing).

The gutturals are defined by the Prātiçākhyas as made by contact of the base of the tongue with the base of the jaw, and they are called, from the former organ, tongue-root sounds. The Paninean scheme describes them simply as made in the throat. From the euphonic influence of a on a following  (below, 180), we may perhaps infer that in their utterance the tongue was well drawn back in the mouth.

The is by far the commonest of the guttural series, occurring considerably more often than all the other four taken together. The nasal, except as standing before one of the others of the same series, is found only as final (after the loss of a following : 386, 407) in a very small number of words, and as product of the assimilation of final to a following nasal (161).

The Sanskrit guttural series represents only a minority of Indo-European gutturals; these last have suffered more and more general corruption than any other class of consonants. By processes of alteration which began in the Indo-European period, the palatal mutes, the palatal sibilant, and the aspiration , have come from gutturals. See these various sounds below.

Palatal series: च्, छ् , ज् , झ् , ञ्.

The whole palatal series is derivative, being generated by the corruption of original gutturals. The comes from an original  — as does also, by another degree of alteration, the palatal sibilant  (see below, 64). The, in like manner, comes from a ; but the