Hyderabad: Googlers are often puzzled to find Shiva in Persian meaning charming, as in a charming girl. The name of Lord Shiva has nothing to do with that. The S in the name Siva is written with a diacritical mark (') on top of it. As it is not possible to render the accurate pronouncation in English, it is written as Shiva.
The accurate pronouncation is a palatal form of S (tongue touching pal-ate) instead of retroflexive (tongue touching the roof of the mouth) that is generally used by most in India. “If it is used in a lengthened (retroflexive) form it has a different meaning in the Sanskrit language,” said Prof. A. Ramulu of Sanskrit at Osmania University.
The depiction of Shiva in the English language is not as what it is in Sanskrit. While the word Siva (without a diacritical mark used for Lord Siva) is also found in the Persian and is a name given to the girls in Iran.
Prof. R.S. Sarraju of UoH, who teaches Hindi, explained, “Languages and the pronunciation are different. There is major confusion when transliterating them into English. What you see in the Persian will also be seen in Sanskrit but only when transliterated into English.”
The languages and pronunciations have travelled across the countries and there have been modifications according to cultures, but the origin of Lord Shiva word is in Sanskrit, they said.
