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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
The pronunciation of a coming after certain initial consonants as e, is the most important of the vowel changes met with in the Indo-Aryan loanwords of Malayāḷam, and also perhaps the most interesting from a phonological point of view.
The first to note and record the change was Gundert. He observed that a occurring after the voiced sounds g, j, d, d, y, and r is heard as e in the pronunciation of the Malayāḷis (A Grammar of the Malayalam Language, 2nd ed., p. 8). Gundert's observation is obviously imperfect inasmuch as the change is regularly manifested after b and l also, over and above the sounds specified by him.
page 559 note 1 malayāḷam speakers who are also natives of Kēraḷa.
page 559 note 2 ḍambha is Prākrit, the corresponding Sanskrit word being dambha-.
page 562 note 1 In Malayāḷam. r and l are pronounced with the tongue placed in a palatal position. be noted that there are two kinds of r in Malayāḷam, one palatal (ŕ) and the other alveolar (r), and that the alveolar r occurs only very rarely in the Indo-Aryan borrowings.