General Rules

Introduction

There are several rules that control the nature of the doubled sound. Different forms will have some subtleties to them, but let's go over the general rules now. For the sake of illustration, some of the examples below may use verb roots that you have not seen before. Do not worry; we will study these roots later on.

General rules for forming the doubled sound

Long vowels become short.

• दा → ददा

  dā → dadā

The intuition for this change is that the doubled sound should be noticeable without taking too much effort.

Aspirated letters become unaspirated.

• धा → दधा

  dhā → dadhā

See above. It is not difficult to pronounce two aspirated letters in a row, but it is easier to leave the first one unaspirated.

Letters from kavarga shift to cavarga. h becomes j.

• घुष् → जुघुष्

  ghuṣ → jughuṣ

• हु → जुहु

  hu → juhu

This change ultimately occurs for historical reasons. But it has the nice side-effect of making the result easy to pronounce.

If the root starts with two consonants, only the first one appears. But if the first consonant is an "s"-sound and the second consonant is unvoiced, then only the second sound appears.

• क्री → चिक्री

  krī → cikrī

• स्था → तस्था

  sthā → tasthā

• स्मृ → सस्मृ

  smṛ → sasmṛ

e becomes i. ai and o become a.

• सेव् → सिषेव्

  sev → siṣev

• गै → जगै

  gai → jagai

This change makes the doubled sound easier to pronounce.