Pronunciation
This audio is the correct pronunciation of my name. If the audio is not working, just try refreshing the page.
əkʂɑːⁿɕ: Chunking it down into simple syllables, it’s pronounced roughly like UCK (as in Duck) - SHAAN - SH.
Etymology
Akshānsh (Devanāgarī: अक्षांश) is an amalgamation of two Sanskrit words.
अक्ष् (Akṣ) + अंश (áṃśa)
अक्ष् means to be present throughout OR to pervade
अंश means part / portion [usually of something grandiose]
On combining these two [base] words, we get the meaning behind my name. It means something that permeates through every fundamental part [of the universe].
Meaning
I’m going to keep this concise and to the point. My name is a synonym for a very prevalent concept in Ancient Vedic Philosophy - Brahman (Sanskrit: ब्रह्मन्). Brahman (not to be confused with Brāhmin, Brāhmana, Brahmā, or Brahmānd) is an all-encompassing abstract, formless, and transcendent reality that underlies and permeates every little part of the universe. Wait a second, these words sound familiar, right? If not, refer to the Etymology section 👆🏽. Brahman is beyond the limitations of time, space, and causation. It is seen as the source and essence of all things, and therefore, there is a fundamental unity underlying the apparent diversity in the world. This unity is expressed in the famous Vedic aphorism, “Tat Tvam Asi,” meaning “Thou art That,” emphasizing the identity of the individual self (Ātman) with Brahman.
The closest analogy to the concept of Brahman in Western Philosophy is the concept of “The One” by Plotinus, a key figure in the Neoplatonism school of ancient Greek philosophy. The One is an ultimate, transcendent, and unknowable source of all reality. Similar to Brahman, the One is beyond description, infinite, and the source of all existence. However, the emphasis on absolute unknowability sets it apart from some interpretations of Brahman.
I have barely even scratched the surface of this vast topic. Brahman is a crucial concept in Vedic and Hindu texts. It is discussed in the Vedas, the Upanishads, and even the Bhagwad Gitā. Ancient Vedic philosophy was ahead of its time. It had diverse schools of thought, each with its unique interpretation of metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. These texts also significantly influenced and shaped the Western Philosophy, as we know it today, but perhaps that is a topic for another day.
Writing Style
Although my name is ‘Akshansh’ as per the official government records (or any official document for that matter), I prefer to use ‘Akshānsh’ (with a macron on the second ‘a’; see IAST) wherever possible. It’s not a stylistic choice per se. There are a good number of arguments for why I prefer the IAST version more.
Firstly, using macron clearly differentiates the two different phonetic variations of the vowel ‘a’. When written without the macron, it’s pretty ambiguous. It can mean both - an open-front unrounded vowel (‘आ,’ e.g., Taj) or a near-low central vowel (‘अ,’ e.g., Mahal). Here, we see the limitation of English in differentiating both of these; it’s just not a built-in feature of English. Using a simple ‘a’ at both places can make it open to interpretation for the reader, especially if their native language is not Hindi. I’ve seen multiple people struggle with saying my name for the first time. There is always this moment of awkward pause and stutter, speaking it for the first time. Adding this small change makes it obvious that both of these vowels are to be pronounced differently. Even someone without the knowledge of the IAST standard can figure out that only one way seems more phonetically correct than the other. An alternative can be using ‘aa’ instead of ‘ā’ but let’s be honest that looks distasteful and also why would I add an additional letter to my name? (in which case I’ll also not be able to write a 2000 words article showing off my esoteric knowledge 🤓☝🏼- which no one is going to read anyways 🫠)
Secondly, I’m a massive advocate of lossless transliteration. Often, in transliterating abugida scripts like Devanāgarī (typical script for both Hindi and Sanskrit) to other scripts, especially alphabetic scripts like Latin, there is huge loss of phonetic information unless some standard like IAST is not used. The primary reason in this particular case being the limitations in the phonetic coverage offered by the basic Latin script (by basic, I mean without diacritics and ligatures like when the Latin script is used for the modern English language). The extended Latin script, however, ensures the coverage of almost all the phonetic variations known to mankind. In fact it is so versatile that it is the single most widely adopted script globally. About 70% of the global population uses the Latin script to write. Even many cultures that previously used to use native scripts for their languages migrated to using Latin script after realizing its latent potential. For instance, in retrospect, I recall adopting the Latin script for writing the Turkish language by Atatürk. It simultaneously achieved two of the most significant strategic advantages - preserving the old Ottoman script’s unique features and exposing the newly independent population of Turkey to Western ideologies, opening gates to rapid global acceptance and globalization. To this day, many people debate about his reforms, this one in particular. In my personal opinion, it was a balanced and rational move. It paid off since, today, Latin script has become a standard for everything ranging from coding languages and website domain standards to keyboard layouts and seven-segment displays. Take any written language throughout human history; chances are some direct or indirect transliteration standard to Latin script exists due to its versatility. Even here in India, where most of the spoken languages are typically written in Indic scripts, more often than not, we transliterate to English during casual texting or in posters and banners. In fact it is so popular here that most of the translation tools can detect this sort of “anglicized” Hindi (often called Hinglish) out of the box (refer to the image below).
Coming to the specifics of transliterating [only] using the [basic] English alphabet, there are 26 letters in the English alphabet compared to 48 in Hindi. Those are just based on pronunciation; it grows to 52 letters when written! How can you even do a one-to-one map when there are double the many letters. I mean, sure, one can argue that most of the characters (especially consonants) can be combined to make other characters, like combining ‘k’ and ‘h’ for ‘ख’ (’kh’ sound), but what about differentiating ‘द’ from ‘ड’ or ‘श’ from ‘ष’ while transliterating using English alphabets, without losing the phonetic context? Adding to this, you remember how I just told you that you can combine ‘k’ and ‘h’ to account for ‘ख’, that was partially correct since I didn’t mention an alternate version of the letter (and no it is not accounted in the 52 letters). When we take the nuqtā version of the consonant (’ख़’) into account, it’s also pronounced as ‘kh’ (the difference is so subtle!), which even adds more to the complexity. 26 letters just ain’t enough for this. There are about eight other consonants that have their nuqta counterpart. These letters were not originally a part of the Hindi language; they were added quite later when words from the Persian, Arabic and Urdu influence were adapted into Hindi to make the modern Hindi (also colloquially known as Hindustani) that we speak today. These were just a few of the simple examples I was giving off the top of my head; taking all the pitfalls into account would take me hours to cover. Most people don’t care about the exact pronunciation in day-to-day casual texting, and that’s completely fine. For them, 26 letters are more than sufficient to express themselves. However, in official documents, maps, road signs, textbooks, etc., some standards should ensure uniformity and lossless relay of information to preserve cultural identity. I think standards like IAST, the Hunterian system, and especially ISO 15919 do an excellent job of achieving this.
Misnomer
If you were to translate my name using any popular translation service from Hindi, you’d most likely get ‘latitude’ as the translated text. Latitude, or lines of latitude for those who don’t know, are the imaginary geographical lines that specify the north-south position on a globe. How’s that possible, you might ask. I mean, I just told you guys what my name means, and now this? That’s because Sanskrit-derived words don’t work like English words.
Let me explain. Sanskrit-derived words have an inherent poetic undertone due to the polysemous nature of language, which allows multiple interpretations and meanings. Words in Sanskrit have a figurative/fuzzy meaning as opposed to the rigid literal meaning we see in most Western languages. A single word, composed of two or more base words, can imply many different things depending on the context in which it is used. Each base word represents a fuzzy fundamental concept. Combining two or more of these base words and thus combining the simple concepts described by those words, we get compound words that describe complex concepts/ideas. It’s like connecting Lego blocks to build complex structures.
Now, if we think in the context of geography, the etymological breakdown of my name makes complete sense as to why it should mean ‘Latitude’. Lines of latitude are a part of something big (Earth in this case) and are present throughout it (Every location has a latitude coordinate associated with it). So, yeah, that’s one of the many meanings, and since it happens to be the most widely used one, it is often thought of as the default meaning of the word, which is simply not true. If you observe carefully, you’ll find that in most of the geographical texts, it is explicitly mentioned ‘akshānsh rekhāein’ (Hindi: Lines of latitude) rather than simply ‘akshānsh’, and even if it’s not, it is just a common case of colloquial omission.