Johanna:
The OP specified ancient Sanskrit as the criterion.
The only pronunciation difference I know of between ancient and modern Sanskrit is ऋ /ṛ/ the vocalic “r” vowel which was pronounced like in “grrr” in ancient Sanskrit but now is pronounced “ri” in Hindi* or “ru” in Kannada. Similarly for ऌ vocalic /l/.
*Back in the 1970s, the days of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert , people used to tease the Hare Krishnas by saying “Harry Kirshner.” Ironically, in ancient Sanskrit Krishna actually was pronounced like “Kirshner.”
The /t[sup]h[/sup]/ in Siddhartha is dental, not retroflex. Although etymologically, the consonant /r/ did trigger retroflexion in Sanskrit, it didn’t in this name. Your professor mispronounced the /s/ too, was he or she Bengali?
Speaking of etymology: The name सिद्धार्थ siddhārtha is a compound of two Sanskrit words: siddha ‘accomplished, successful’ and artha ‘aim, purpose, cause, motive, reason, advantage, use, utility, thing, object, membrum virile (i.e. penis), object of the senses, wealth, property, opulence, money’, etc. Together they mean ‘one who has accomplished an aim or an object, successful, prosperous’.
Sanskrt grrrl Johanna
If it helps, the name is sanskrit but it’s highly unlikely that he had many contemporaries who would’ve used it. Based on the time period and the areas he allegedly taught in, it’s much more likely that he used Magadhi Prakrit… you might be able to find cheshirisms to this effect in the Pali canon, but I don’t know what the sound changes operating between the three would’ve been.
I had to engrave the name Siddharth today…a first name…so it’s NOT pronounced Sid-Hearth?
As in the supreme Buddha for this particular age; 500 BC or so…
I am particularly interested (to the tune of a twenty) on whether or not the terminal vowel should be sounded, even if it’s just a shwa.
As I understand it, the Sanskrit might have omitted the terminal vowel Devanagari character, but the vowel sound would have been understood and sounded, even if it was not actually written after a terminal consonant.
The situation, for those who give a rat’s patootie, is complicated by the fact that modern Sanskrit derivatives such as Hindi sometimes omit both the written vowel and the pronunciation of it. Thus if you ask a speaker of Hindi, she might insist it’s pronounced “Siddharth.”
I’m interested in how a contemporary of Gautama’s would have pronounced it.
Any authoritative input will be appreciated: Should I say Siddhartha or Siddharth ?
Thanks to all.
I received a note from Dr. Shukavak Dasa at sanskrit.org :
*"In Sanskrit the final a is pronounced and in Hindi and other regional languages the final a is not pronounced. The best example is rama and ram. I hope this answers your question.
Regards,
Dr. Shukavak Dasa"*
Since the Dopers agree, I’m all good.