by তন্ময় ভট (guest)
5/1/2005, 5:44 PM
The Sanskrit name kiran (dust or ray, from kRR, meaning to pour or scatter, with cognates in Greek; the rays of the sun was mythologized as the reigns holding the horses to the chariot on which he rides; only the meaning ray survives today) would have a small i as in hit rather than the long one in heat. I have heard it pronounced with a long I only by non-Indians. In Vedic, the stress was on the a; stress as a morphological feature disappeared in later language.
The n would be retroflex in Sanskrit and those modern Indian languages that distinguish it from dental. The a would be a short sound, like in English run, and not long like in barn, though its exact pronounciation varies in the various languages.