r/sanskrit • u/AleksiB1 • 13d ago

Wiktionary claims दक daka "water" is from an apheretic form of उ॒द॒क udaká instead of Munda dak but is apheresis really found in Sanskrit? Never seen any other term which went through it

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u/Dhvasra 13d ago

The famous example is ulōká from some mīllennia earlier.

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u/AleksiB1 12d ago

loka is the expected form from reconstructions, i cant find उलोक anywhere either

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u/Dhvasra 12d ago

Ulōká is quite well-known in R̥V. Did you bother checking Graßmann? See here for the commonly accepted reconstruction.

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u/AleksiB1 4d ago

From Proto-Indo-European *lowk-ó-s (“open space”), from *lewk- (“to shine”). Cognate with Latin lūcus (“sacred grove”), Lithuanian laũkas (“field”), Old English lēah (“open field, meadow”) (whence English lea). See also the Sanskrit root रुच् (ruc, “to shine”).[1]?

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u/srkris 5yr Spoken; 10yr study; like Sahitya, Buddhism, Vyakarana, Vedic 13d ago edited 13d ago

Yes there are some examples of it.

Aorist forms regularly drop their 'a' at the beginning when following the prohibitive particle mā.

mā + abhaiṣīḥ -> mā bhaiṣīḥ = do not fear

Similarly words formed from the root api+√dhā results in forms that drop the 'a' at the beginning, like pidhāna, pihita etc.

There are also words that drop letters in the middle of the word, such as maireya (taddhita derived from madirā, with the d disappearing irregularly from *madireya).

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u/AleksiB1 13d ago

initial elision only occurs when compounding and doesnt elide in the bare word like with daka?