The

pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...

, or Vedic accent for brevity, is traditionally divided by

Sanskrit grammar The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), culminati ...

ians into three qualities, ''udātta'' उदात्त "raised" (

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...

, high pitch), ''anudātta'' अनुदात्त "not raised" (from अ(न्)- ( negative prefix) + उदात्त) (unstressed, or low pitch,

grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages usin ...

) and ''svarita'' स्वरित "sounded" (high falling pitch, corresponds to the Greek

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around" ...

accent). It is most similar to the

pitch-accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...

system of modern-day Japanese.

Accents

In Vedic Sanskrit, most of the words have one accented syllable, which is traditionally called ''udātta'' ("raised") and written with an acute mark in the transcription. The position of that accent in inherited words generally reflects the position of

Proto-Indo-European accent Proto-Indo-European accent refers to the accentual ( stress) system of the Proto-Indo-European language. Description Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is usually reconstructed as having had variable lexical stress: the placement of the stress in a word ...

, which means it was ''free'' and so not phonologically predictable from the shape of the word. Some words (

finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...

s of

main clause An independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a ''simple sentence''. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or ...

s, vocatives that do not occur sentence initially, and certain pronouns and particles) do not have an accented syllable, consisting entirely of unaccented syllables. Unaccented syllables are called ''anudātta'' ("not raised") and are not marked in the transcription. Phonetically, accented Rigvedic syllable was characterized by height (rather than prominence) as a "high tone", immediately falling in the next syllable. The falling tone in the post-tonic syllable is called ''svarita'' ("sounded"). For example, in the first pada of the

Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts ('' śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only on ...

, the transliteration :' अग्निम् ईळे पुरोहितं (classical: अग्निम् ईडे पुरोहितं) :"

Agni Agni (English: , sa, अग्नि, translit=Agni) is a Sanskrit word meaning fire and connotes the Vedic fire deity of Hinduism. He is also the guardian deity of the southeast direction and is typically found in southeast corners of Hi ...

I praise, the

high priest The term "high priest" usually refers either to an individual who holds the office of ruler-priest, or to one who is the head of a religious caste. Ancient Egypt In ancient Egypt, a high priest was the chief priest of any of the many gods rev ...

." means that the eight syllables have an intonation of :A-U-S-A-A-U-S-A (where A=anudātta, U=udātta, S=svarita), or iconically, : ' ईळे (classical: ईडे) is a finite verb and thus has no ''udātta'', but its first

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

is ''svarita'' because the previous syllable is ''udātta''.

Vedic meter Vedic metre refers to the poetic metre in the Vedic literature. The study of Vedic metre, along with post-Vedic metre, is part of Chandas, one of the six Vedanga disciplines. Overview In addition to these seven, there are fourteen less frequent ...

is independent of Vedic accent and exclusively determined by syllable weight, so that metrically, the pada reads as : (the second half-pada is iambic). When the

Vedas upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

were composed, ''svarita'' was not phonologically relevant. However, linguistic changes in

oral The word oral may refer to: Relating to the mouth * Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid ** Oral administration of medicines ** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or or ...

transmission of the

samhita Saṃhitā literally means "put together, joined, union", a "collection", and "a methodically, rule-based combination of text or verses".grave mark . Such ''svarita'' may follow an ''anudātta''. For example, in RV 1.10.8c, :' जेषः सुवर्वतीर् अप :U-S-U-S-A-A-A-U : became :' :U-S-S-A-A-A-U : Independent svarita is caused by

sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...

of adjacent vowels. There are four variants of it: *' (= "

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