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A general feature of Indian languages in the Sanskrit family is that the script in fact represents syllables rather than letters, as it may appear at first glance. Thus the symbol for "r" is, by default, the sound "ra". The "a" in that sound is not especially strong, and at the end of a word it doesn't amount to much; the difference between "-ra" and "-r" is not generally very important to the ear, and it seems anyway to vary between speakers and perhaps dialects. In the special case when a word *definitely* doesn't have *any* trace of "-a" at the end, there is a special marking called a "halant" which forms a little tail on the last letter, signifying that the sound is to stop abruptly on the consonant; otherwise, there's something like half an "-a" sound at the end. Another thing is that when anglicised, whether into Indian English or other variants, it's always without an "a" at the end, as you'll see in the image captions in the article. So there it is. This isn't a matter one would want to spill ink over in every article that mentions a Sanskrit word, and I really don't think we should mention it in this article specially. All the best,Chiswick Chap (talk)18:13, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Another thing is that when anglicised, whether into Indian English or other variants, it's always without an "a" at the end" - This is demonstrably false. Wikipedia has articles titled Yoga and Karma despite these being literally rendered from Sanskrit as Yog or Karm. The real reason the a is often not listed is because of schwa-deletion, a modern feature in Indo-Aryan languages, which does not apply to Sanskrit. It applies to Hindi, and it's likely the authors who wrote these books used the Hindi rather than the real, Sanskrit spelling. There is no reason why the article is not titled Surya Namaskara, or Namaskaram, as it is sometimes rendered in Sanskrit.Chronikhiles (talk)06:10, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoughts. We are obliged as a global encyclopedia to follow usage rather than to create it from first principles such as personal knowledge of Sanskrit or Hindi – that is called "original research" (WP:OR) here on Wikipedia; there is for example no precedent for using the "-am" ending in transnational modern yoga, so there is indeed strong reason why the article is not called that. Actually there's no reason why the title should follow Sanskrit at all, as the name can only be traced to the early 20th century, so it is just as likely that the name is influenced by Hindi, but without documentary evidence there is no point speculating. Focusing on the case of "Surya Namaskar" rather than further afield, the fact is that both the early Indian authors writing in English such asBhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, and the Indian-origin British authors of books such as the Mehtas in theirYoga the Iyengar Way spell it without a terminal "a". Actually the early yoga manualThe Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga bySwami Vishnudevananda spells it "Soorya Namaskar". The American author and yoginiCyndi Lee writes "Surya Namaskar" in herYoga Body, Buddha Mind. Scholarly usage with knowledge of Sanskrit as withMark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg inGurus of Modern Yoga is the same.Chiswick Chap (talk)09:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
