Template:Self-reference Template:IPA notice
Hindustani is the lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan, and through its two standardized registers, Hindi and Urdu, a co-official language of India and co-official and national language of Pakistan respectively. Phonological differences between the two standards are minimal.
Vowels
Hindustani natively possesses a symmetrical ten-vowel system.[1] The vowels Template:IPA are always short in length, while the vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA are usually considered long, in addition to an eleventh vowel Template:IPA which is found in English loanwords. The distinction between short and long vowels is often described as tenseness, with short vowels being lax, and long vowels being tense.Template:Sfn Vowels are somewhat longer before voiced stops than before voiceless stops.[2] Additionally, Template:IPA and Template:IPA occur as conditional allophones of Template:IPA.
Vowel Template:IPA
Template:IPA is often realized more open than mid Template:IPAblink, i.e. as near-open Template:IPAblink.[2] It is subject to schwa deletion word-medially in certain contexts.
Vowel Template:IPA
The open central vowel is transcribed in IPA by either Template:IPA or Template:IPA.
In Urdu, there is further short Template:IPA (spelled Template:Lang, as in Template:Lang kamra Template:IPA) in word-final position, which contrasts with Template:IPA (spelled Template:Lang, as in Template:Nq laṛkā Template:IPA). This contrast is often not realized by Urdu speakers, and always neutralized in Hindi (where both sounds uniformly correspond to Template:IPA).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp
Vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA
Among the close vowels, what in Sanskrit are thought to have been primarily distinctions of vowel length (that is Template:IPA and Template:IPA), have become in Hindustani distinctions of quality, or length accompanied by quality (that is, Template:IPA and Template:IPA).[3] The opposition of length in the close vowels has been neutralized in word-final position, only allowing long close vowels in final position. As a result, Sanskrit loans which originally have a short close vowel are realized with a long close vowel, e.g. Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'energy') and Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'item') are Template:IPA and Template:IPA, not *Template:IPA and *Template:IPA.[4]
Vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA
The vowel represented graphically as Template:Lang – Template:Lang (romanized as Template:Transliteration) has been variously transcribed as Template:IPA or Template:IPA.[5] Among sources for this article, Template:Harvcoltxt, pictured to the right, uses Template:IPA, while Template:Harvcoltxt and Template:Harvcoltxt use Template:IPA. Furthermore, an eleventh vowel Template:IPA is found in English loanwords, such as Template:IPA ('bat').[6] Hereafter, Template:Lang – Template:Lang (romanized as Template:Transliteration) will be represented as Template:IPA to distinguish it from Template:IPA, the latter.
In addition, Template:IPA occurs as a conditioned allophone of Template:IPA (schwa) within the sequence Template:IPA (Template:IPA before the next syllable or word-finally due to schwa deletion).[4] This change is part of the prestige dialect of Delhi, but may not occur for every speaker. Here are some examples of this process:
| Hindi/Urdu | Transliteration | Phonemic | Phonetic |
|---|---|---|---|
| कहना / Template:Nq "to say" | kahnā | Template:IPA | Template:IPA |
| शहर / Template:Nq "city" | śahar | Template:IPA | Template:IPA |
| ठहरना / Template:Nq "to wait" | ṭhaharnā | Template:IPA | Template:IPA |
However, the fronting of schwa does not occur in words with a schwa only on one side of the Template:IPA such as Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'a story') or Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'outside').
Vowels Template:IPA, Template:IPA
The vowel Template:IPA occurs in proximity to Template:IPA if the Template:IPA is surrounded on one of the sides by a schwa and on other side by a round vowel (due to Hindustani phonotactics, this generally only occurs in the sequences Template:IPA or Template:IPA). It differs from the vowel Template:IPA in that it is a short vowel. For example, in Template:Transliteration Template:IPA the Template:IPA is surrounded on one side by a schwa and a round vowel on the other side. One or both of the schwas will become Template:IPA giving the pronunciation Template:IPA.
Some Eastern dialects keep Template:IPA as diphthongs, pronouncing them as Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
Nasalization of vowels
As in French and Portuguese, there are nasalized vowels in Hindustani. There is disagreement over the issue of the nature of nasalization (barring English-loaned Template:IPA which is never nasalized[6]). Template:Harvcoltxt presents four differing viewpoints:
- there are no Template:IPA and Template:IPA, possibly because of the effect of nasalization on vowel quality;
- there is phonemic nasalization of all vowels;
- all vowel nasalization is predictable (i.e. allophonic);
- Nasalized long vowel phonemes (Template:IPA) occur word-finally and before voiceless stops; instances of nasalized short vowels (Template:IPA) and of nasalized long vowels before voiced stops (the latter, presumably because of a deleted nasal consonant) are allophonic.
Masica[7] supports this last view.
Vowel orthography with diacritics and English approximations
The principal vowel phonemes may be organised as follows to demonstrate the orthographic conventions for vowels.
Consonants
Template:Listen Hindustani has a core set of 28 consonants inherited from earlier Indo-Aryan. Supplementing these are two consonants that are internal developments in specific word-medial contexts,[15] and seven consonants originally found in loan words, whose expression is dependent on factors such as status (class, education, etc.) and cultural register (Modern Standard Hindi vs Urdu).
Most native consonants may occur geminate (doubled in length; exceptions are Template:IPA). Geminate consonants are always medial and preceded by one of the interior vowels (that is, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA). They all occur monomorphemically except Template:IPA, which occurs only in a few Sanskrit loans where a morpheme boundary could be posited in between, e.g. Template:IPA for Template:Transliteration Template:IPA ('without shame').[6]
For the English speaker, a notable feature of the Hindustani consonants is that there is a four-way distinction of phonation among plosives, rather than the two-way distinction found in English. The phonations are:
- tenuis, as Template:IPA, which is like Template:Angbr in English spin
- voiced, as Template:IPA, which is like Template:Angbr in English bin
- aspirated, as Template:IPA, which is like Template:Angbr in English pin, and
- murmured, as Template:IPA.
The last is commonly called "voiced aspirate", though Template:Harvcoltxt notes that,
"Evidence from experimental phonetics, however, has demonstrated that the two types of sounds involve two distinct types of voicing and release mechanisms. The series of so-called voice aspirates should now properly be considered to involve the voicing mechanism of murmur, in which the air flow passes through an aperture between the arytenoid cartilages, as opposed to passing between the ligamental vocal bands."
The murmured consonants are believed to be a reflex of murmured consonants in Proto-Indo-European, a phonation that is absent in all branches of the Indo-European family except Indo-Aryan and Armenian.
- Notes
- ¹Only present in Sanskrit loanwords, predominant in Hindi.
- ²Only present in Arabic and Persian loanwords, predominant in Urdu.
- ³ Post-alveolar Template:IPA is regarded as a substitution to retroflex Template:IPA in colliquial pronunciation of Hindi. In Urdu, on the other hand, Template:IPA is a phoneme coming from Arabic and Persian loanwords.
- ⁴A non-standard phoneme only found in a few words, or in a few dialects. Otherwise an allophone of Template:IPA before palatals.
- Marginal and non-universal phonemes are in parentheses.
- Template:IPA is lateral Template:IPAblink for some speakers.[16]⟨The Template:IPA sound is lateral in Dravidian languages, see the Voiced retroflex lateral flap⟩
- Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA are post-velar.[17]
- Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA are mostly replaced by Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA respectively in Hindi, except in the careful speech of educated speakers.[18][19]Template:Sfn Template:IPA is found in Urdu and is rarer in Hindi, often being replaced with Template:IPA (or further by Template:IPA) in the latter; an example of a word containing this sound is Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'dragon').[20][21][22]
- /ŋ/ mostly only occurs in clusters before velars as in aṅkit but there are also words like tinkā, ākramaṇkārī, mumkin making it phonemic. Sanskritic loans with ṅ occurring elsewhere is made ṅg as in Sanskrit vāṅmaya being pronounced /ʋaːŋ(ɡ)mɛː/.
Stops in final position are not released, although they continue to maintain the four-way phonation distinction in final position. Template:IPA varies freely with Template:IPA, and can also be pronounced Template:IPA. Template:IPA is usually flapped or trilled.[23] In intervocalic position, it may have a single contact and be described as a flap Template:IPAblink,[24] but it may also be a clear trill, especially in word-initial and syllable-final positions, and geminate Template:IPA is always a trill in Arabic and Persian loanwords, e.g. Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'little') versus well-trilled Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'particle').[2] The palatal and velar nasals Template:IPA occur only in consonant clusters, where each nasal is followed by a homorganic stop, as an allophone of a nasal vowel followed by a stop, and in Sanskrit loanwords.[15][2] However /n/ + velar clusters also occur, eg. /ʊn.kaː/ making /ŋ/ phonemic. There are native murmured sonorants, Template:IPA, eg. nanhā, lhesnā, kulhāṛī, tumhārā (< ślakṣṇa, śleṣayati, kuṭhāra, yuṣme-) there are cases where mbh becomes mh as in sam(b)hālna, also from tatsamas e.g. arhat, but these are considered to be consonant clusters with Template:IPA in the analysis adopted by Template:Harvcoltxt.
The fricative Template:IPA in Hindustani is typically voiced (as Template:IPA), especially when surrounded by vowels, but there is no phonemic difference between this voiced fricative and its voiceless counterpart Template:IPA.
Hindustani also has a phonemic difference between the dental plosives and the so-called retroflex plosives. The dental plosives in Hindustani are laminal denti-alveolar as in Spanish, and the tongue-tip must be well in contact with the back of the upper front teeth. The retroflex series is not purely retroflex; it actually has an apico-postalveolar (also described as apico-pre-palatal) articulation, and sometimes in words such as Template:Transliteration Template:IPA (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'broken') it even becomes alveolar.[25]
In some Indo-Aryan languages, the plosives Template:IPA and the flaps Template:IPA are allophones in complementary distribution, with the former occurring in initial, geminate and postnasal positions and the latter occurring in intervocalic and final positions. However, in Standard Hindi they contrast in similar positions, as in Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'bird') vs Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang – Template:Lang 'fearless').[26]
Allophony of Template:IPA and Template:IPA
Hindustani does not distinguish between Template:IPA and Template:IPA, specifically Hindi. These are distinct phonemes in English, but conditional allophones of the phoneme Template:IPA in Hindustani (written Template:Angbr in Hindi or Template:Angbr in Urdu), meaning that contextual rules determine when it is pronounced as Template:IPA and when it is pronounced as Template:IPA. Template:IPA is pronounced Template:IPA in onglide position, i.e. between an onset consonant and a following vowel, as in Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang Template:Lang, 'island'), and Template:IPA elsewhere, as in Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang Template:Lang, 'vow'). Native Hindi speakers are usually unaware of the allophonic distinctions, though these are apparent to native English speakers.[27]
When Template:IPA is preceded by a consonant which itself is preceded by a vowel (i.e. in the environment VC_), the allophony is non-conditional, i.e. the speaker can choose Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or an intermediate sound based on personal habit and preference, and still be perfectly intelligible. This is due to ambiguity in the syllabification of such words. For example, advait (Template:Lang Template:Lang) which is underlyingly Template:IPA, may be syllabified as Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA. Accordingly, the word can be pronounced equally correctly as Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA.[27]
In final clusters, Template:IPA is Template:IPA when preceded by a more sonorous consonant and Template:IPA otherwise. For example, Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang Template:Lang, 'pair') is pronounced Template:IPA, but Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang Template:Lang, 'pride') is pronounced Template:IPA.[27]
External borrowing
Sanskrit borrowing has reintroduced Template:IPA and Template:IPA into formal Modern Standard Hindi. They occur primarily in Sanskrit loanwords and proper nouns. In casual speech, they are usually replaced with Template:IPA and Template:IPA.[6] Template:IPA does not occur word-initially and has a nasalized flap Template:IPA as a common allophone.[15]
Loanwords from Persian (including some words which Persian itself borrowed from Arabic or Turkic) introduced six consonants, Template:IPA. Being Persian in origin, these are seen as a defining feature of Urdu, although these sounds officially exist in Hindi and modified Devanagari characters are available to represent them.[28][29] Among these, Template:IPA, also found in English and Portuguese loanwords, are now considered well-established in Hindi; indeed, Template:IPA appears to be encroaching upon and replacing Template:IPA even in native (non-Persian, non-English, non-Portuguese) Hindi words as well as many other Indian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi, as happened in Greek with phi.[15] This Template:IPA to Template:IPA shift also occasionally occurs in Urdu.[30] While [z] is a foreign sound, it is also natively found as an allophone of /s/ beside voiced consonants, eg, rasgullā, nasbandī. Similarly v can get devoiced before voiceless consonants, eg. bevkūf.
The other three Persian loans, Template:IPA, are still considered to fall under the domain of Urdu, and are also used by some Hindi speakers; however, other Hindi speakers may assimilate these sounds to Template:IPA respectively.[19][28][31] The sibilant Template:IPA is found in loanwords from all sources (Arabic, English, Portuguese, Persian, Sanskrit) and is well-established.[6] Some Hindi speakers (especially those from rural areas) pronounce the Template:IPA sounds as Template:IPA, though these same speakers, having a Sanskritic education, may hyperformally uphold Template:IPA and Template:IPA.[32][18] In contrast, for native speakers of Urdu, the maintenance of Template:IPA is not commensurate with education and sophistication, but is characteristic of all social levels.[31] The sibilant Template:IPA, found in loanwords from Persian, Portuguese, and English, is very rare and is considered to fall under the domain of Urdu; although it is officially present in Hindi, many speakers of Hindi assimilate it to Template:IPA or Template:IPA.[20][18]
Being the main sources from which Hindustani draws its higher, learned terms, English, Sanskrit, Arabic, and to a lesser extent Persian provide loanwords with a rich array of consonant clusters. The introduction of these clusters into the language contravenes a historical tendency within its native core vocabulary to eliminate clusters through processes such as cluster reduction and epenthesis.[33] Template:Harvcoltxt lists distinctively Sanskrit/Hindi biconsonantal clusters of initial Template:IPA and final Template:IPA, and distinctively Perso-Arabic/Urdu biconsonantal clusters of final Template:IPA.
Suprasegmental features
Hindustani has a stress accent, but it is not as important as in English. To predict stress placement, the concept of syllable weight is needed:
- A light syllable (one mora) ends in a short vowel Template:IPA: V
- A heavy syllable (two moras) ends in a long vowel Template:IPA or in a short vowel and a consonant: VV, VC
- An extra-heavy syllable (three moras) ends in a long vowel and a consonant, or a short vowel and two consonants: VVC, VCC
Stress is on the heaviest syllable of the word, and in the event of a tie, on the last such syllable. If all syllables are light, the penultimate is stressed. However, the final mora of the word is ignored when making this assignment (Hussein 1997) [or, equivalently, the final syllable is stressed either if it is extra-heavy, and there is no other extra-heavy syllable in the word or if it is heavy, and there is no other heavy or extra-heavy syllable in the word]. For example, with the ignored mora in parentheses:[34]
| Hindi spelling | Urdu spelling | Romanization | Pronunciation | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| रेज़गारी | Template:Nq | rezgārī | [ˈreːz.ɡaː.ri(ː)] | small change, coins |
| समिति | Template:Nq | samiti | [sə.ˈmɪ.t(ɪ)] | committee |
| क़िस्मत | Template:Nq | qismat | [ˈqɪs.mə(t)] | fate |
| रोज़ाना | Template:Nq | rozānā | [roː.ˈzaː.na(ː)] | daily |
| किधर | Template:Nq | kidhar | [kɪ.ˈdʱə(r)] | where, where to |
| जनाब | Template:Nq | janāb | [dʒə.ˈnaː(b)] | sir, mister |
| असबाब | Template:Nq | asbāb | [əs.ˈbaː(b)] | goods, property |
| मुसलमान | Template:Nq | musalmān | [mʊ.səl.ˈmaː(n)] | Muslim |
| परवरदिगार | Template:Nq | parvardigār | [pər.ʋər.dɪ.ˈɡaː(r)] | epithet of God |
Content words in Hindustani normally begin on a low pitch, followed by a rise in pitch.[35][36] Strictly speaking, Hindustani, like most other Indian languages, is rather a syllable-timed language. The schwa Template:IPA has a strong tendency to vanish into nothing (syncopated) if its syllable is unaccented.
See also
References
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Diacritics in Urdu are normally not written and usually implied and interpreted based on the context of the sentence
- ↑ Hindi does not have a diacritic to represent Template:IPA as it is the inherent vowel of the Devanagari script. However, there does exist a diacritic, ्, for suppressing Template:IPA, though it is not often used or needed in modern Hindi orthography.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Hindi has individual letters for each of the aspirated consonants, whereas Urdu has a specific letter to represent aspiration after any consonant
- ↑ As this is a diacritic affecting the preceding vowel, it cannot be the initial character of a word.
- ↑ In Urdu the initial form (letter) for representing a nasalised wordTemplate:Clarify is: ن٘ (nūn + small nūn ghunna diacritic)
- ↑ As this symbol can represent any nasal consonant phoneme depending on which consonant it is followed by, the particular IPA character used to represent this sound depends on the context.
- ↑ This character does not have an initial form and is not used for initial nasals in Hindi
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity: A Case Study{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Springer Science & Business Media(24 March 2012). ISBN 978-1-4614-1137-6
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Say It in Hindi{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Dover Publications(1981). ISBN 9780486137919
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 A Guru's Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. University of Illinois Press(20 December 2019). ISBN 978-0-252-05172-2
- ↑ 2013 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA held jointly with 2013 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation (O-COCOSDA/CASLRE){{#if:|, {{{last}}}}(2013). ISBN 978-1-4799-2378-6
- ↑ Meaning of azhdaha in English. Rekhta Dictionary(2023). Retrieved 12 December 2023.
- ↑ Nazir Hassan (1980) Urdu phonetic reader, Omkar Nath Koul (1994) Hindi Phonetic Reader, Indian Institute of Language Studies; Foreign Service Institute (1957) Hindi: Basic Course
- ↑ "r is a tip dental trill, and often has but one flap", Thomas Cummings (1915) An Urdu Manual of the Phonetic, Inductive Or Direct Method
- ↑ Tiwari, Bholanath ([1966] 2004) Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration), Kitāb Mahal, Allahabad, Template:ISBN.
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford Press(1996). ISBN 978-1-901471-02-1
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Motilal Banarsidass(1989). ISBN 9788120805088
- ↑ Hindi Urdu Machine Transliteration using Finite-state Transducers. Association for Computational Linguistics. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
- ↑ The Indo-Aryan Languages{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Routledge(26 July 2007). ISBN 9781135797119
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.(1989). ISBN 978-81-208-0508-8
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ Template:Harvcoltxt
- ↑ http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/linguistics/theses/2001Dyrud.PDF Dyrud, Lars O. (2001) Hindi-Urdu: Stress Accent or Non-Stress Accent? (University of North Dakota, master's thesis)
- ↑ Word boundary detection using pitch variations. Retrieved 2007-10-18. Ramana Rao, G.V. and Srichand, J. (1996) Word Boundary Detection Using Pitch Variations. (IIT Madras, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering)
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Template:Hindi topics Template:Urdu topics Template:Language phonologies