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Re: Pronunciation of Teja
I say it's said like this because I requested my spiritual name at 3ho.com and I received it as Teja Pavan ...And the website pronounced it this way as well as my yoga teacher.
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That combination probably comes from Sanskrit. The root tij means to prick or sharpen (related to English stick), and teja means sharpness, and by extension, power. The t- is a voiced dental plosive, the -e- is a voiced long close-mid front vowel (started as an a+i dipthong in ancient language, but lost that quality pretty fast), the -j- is a voiced palatal affricate, and the -a is a schwa, which can be made into a long open -a to make it feminine. Incidentally pavana, purifier, is from pU, related to english fire, meaning to purify. It is the usual name for the wind spirits. The -a dropped out in modern north Indian languages.
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Do you mean a voiced alveolo-palatal or postalveolar affricate? The voiced palatal affricate is rare, and not usually represented by j (g, gg or gj is typical as the stop component is an allophone of g before front vowels, e.g. geese).
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Voiced post-alveolar affricate
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Sorry, "t- is an unvoiced dental plosive"
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