Talk:般若

Middle Chinese

@Wyang Are you sure about the Middle Chinese? 般 bō is not found in Guangyun, so there wouldn't be a reconstruction corresponding to this. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 00:52, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Ah thanks! I did not realise the lack of a -n ending in 般 (duh!). Removed (until we allow inferred MC?). Wyang (talk) 04:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

@Justinrelung: @沈澄心 restored the Middle Chinese parameter for some reason. The Sino-Xenic descendants come from the Middle Chinese borrowing puan ȵia/pˠan ȵia, how did the Mandarin pronunciation bōrě got developed? ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 02:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Poketalker: I think there's likely some sort of irregular development to Mandarin, but I'm not sure what the reason is. The Sino-Xenic descendants were likely a result of being unaware of the special reading and using the usual reading of 般. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, 沈澄心, Poketalker: IMO the "如字" reading [i.e. *般若 (MC paen nyaeX) in MC] would have been a fairly good phonetic match for the Pali paññā, and was probably the original borrowing. The Sanskrit प्रज्ञा (prajñā), if borrowed at a later stage, may have been re-analysed as two syllables, where the ज्ञ (jña) conjunct would have been broken in two to create the syllable boundary in the Chinese. The *j (a plosive, which may sound like a *g) in jña, as a plosive giving the 入聲 final of the Chinese first syllable, had no close phonetic match and would have been unstable. If the *j ~ g got drawn backward, it might have created something that sounded like "*柏 (MC paek)若 (MC nyaeX)"; if pushed forward, it might sound like "*跋 (MC bat)若 (MC nyaeX)". If that is the case (which is far from certain), the Sanskrit-derived sound may simply have been assigned to the Pali-derived orthography which had become canonical. In any case, the plosive final *-k̚/-t̚ would have been lost in Mandarin, producing the vowel final in 般 (bō). --Frigoris (talk) 08:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@Frigoris: Thanks for your insight. It'd be interesting if there's any evidence of 入聲 in orthographic variants of this word. 龍龕手鑑 records it as homophonous to 撥, so it's possible that some of the readings in the modern lects are based on 龍龕手鑑 (like Cantonese but3). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:56, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Thanks. Maybe, the *-t final was influenced by the next sound's initial in some way; the points of articulation could be closer (to some extent) if it's *-t instead of *-k. --Frigoris (talk) 19:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC)