W. Sidney Allen (1918–2004)

Possibly due to the great importance placed on the correct recitation of the Vedic texts, phonetics in ancient India advanced far further than in contemporary Mediterranean civilization - or anywhere or anywhen else before the nineteenth century. With this book Allen sought to bring his readers to an appropriate appreciation of this fact by writing what amounts to a Sanskrit phonology that constantly refers to the old Indic phonetic treatises and compares their analysis with both modern phonetic theory* and ancient Graeco-Roman philology (which last generally comes across as undeveloped and unsophisticated).

I found it quite interesting.

* It not being 1953 anymore, Allen's descriptions of "modern" phonetics are sometimes quaint.… (mer)