The Music of Hindostan c13.s1.1

c13.s1.1

Those who spoke and speak Sanskrit have shown the delicate appreciation they had of minute phonetic changes. They have introduced modifications of the word to suit every emergency of context, and have recorded these with a precision to which Europe is a stranger. We may acquaint ourselves theoretically with the characteristics of the language, but it requires an effort to feel their effect and therefore to realize the force of the music which suits it. What we find difficult is to make a syllable long without putting a stress on it, or to put a stress at will on any short syllable; we do not easily imagine the effect of a language which is quantitative and not (or only slightly) accentual. In setting such a word as *Ălăkălăllă*, an Englishman would certainly put the fourth syllable on the musical accent, because he would think at once of *Abracadábra*, confusing duration with stress. It has been set in an Indian song: