Any sound that we aren't used to making from childhood is extremely difficult for us to produce. The tongue isn't used to going there, and we can't even hear the difference between that sound and adjacent sounds.
Navin, fascinating read. The 'kanthya' and 'talavya' were taught in school (marathi as first language), but the fitting of य र ल व श ष स ह is very interesting.
About the ones you have left out, ए ऐ ओ औ are essentially combinations of basic vowels - अ + इ = ए, अ + उ = ओ and so on. अं is a simply a convenient way of representing a combine with a nasal consonant. It's pronunciation is dependent on the next alphabet. अः is a specialty of Sanskrit - I wonder if anything similar exists in other languages...
I'm not convinced that ए and ओ are combinations, but I agree with the rest. However, I felt that getting into this detail would increase the length of the article without adding proportionate value, hence chose to dismiss it with a joke.
As for अः after reading up a bunch of stuff on it, I'd still not sure I understand what's going on there.
Quoting from सुगम मराठी व्याकरण लेखन by मो. रा. वाळंबे:
"ए, ऐ, ओ, औ ही दोन -दोन स्वर एकत्र येऊन बनलेले आढळतील. जसे:
ए = अ + इ किंवा ई - उदा. गण + ईश = गणेश
ऐ = आ + इ किंवा ई, अ + ए - उदा. सदा + एव = सदैव
ओ = अ + उ किंवा ऊ - उदा. चंद्र + उदय = चंद्रोदय
औ = आ + उ किंवा ऊ, आ + ओ - उदा. गंगा + ओघ = गंगौघ
दोन स्वर एकत्र येऊन हे स्वर बनले असल्यामुळे यांना 'संयुक्त स्वर' असे म्हणतात."
Note: examples are not part of the original quote, I added them from 'संधी' chapter.
Quoting further,
"'अं' आणि 'अ:' या दोन वर्णांना 'स्वरादी' असे म्हणतात. अनुस्वार आणि विसर्ग यांचा उच्चार करताना या वर्णांच्या आधी स्वर येतो, म्हणून यांना 'स्वरादी' असे म्हणतात. 'स्वरादी' म्हणजे 'स्वर आहे आदी म्हणजे आरंभी ज्याच्या असा' वर्ण."
As far as I understand, a sandhi is not the same as a dipthong. ए = अ + इ is an example of sandhi, because in the phonology of Indian languages, अ + इ occurring one after the other is replaced by ए. Other languages, which do not have this rule will continue to say अइ, and it does not sound like ए. However, ऐ = आ + इ is an example of a dipthong. आ + इ, even if not "replaced" by ऐ still sounds like ऐ.
अं is a simply a convenient way of representing a combine with a nasal consonant. It's pronunciation is dependent on the next alphabet.
This is very important rule and never taught in schools hence leads to many pronunciation mistakes. In addition to that how anuswar is pronounced if proceeded by य, र, ल, व, श, ष, ह, is another story. Many people do not pronounce सिंह, संहिता correctly. Its not sin-ha but siv-ha. Any logic behind this pronunciation?
Wonderful article Navin. Enjoyed it thoroughly. I always say just like there is WYSIWYG, Devanagari gives me a way of Write Exactly Like What It Sounds (WELWIS).
What a coincidence. Just the other day myself and a friend were discussing Marathi Grammar, the way we were taught and how much we remember now. It came down to finding out what in Marathi are called Vrutta which is a specific and well defined way of writing poetry. Wanted to revise some of the basic first principles like matra, gana etc and how to mark them to identify the Vrutta. Finally went and bought a book on Marathi Grammar by Mo Ra Walambe which explained it in details. Yesterday I was able to look at a stanza from one Marathi poem called "Nal and Damayanti" and decipher the Vrutta. And today this article!
The book also gives some 4-5 different ways in which a broken R is written like in words क्रम, अर्क, चोर्‍या and others.
BTW, the book talks about a Devanagari alphabet which exists in Marathi as 'लृ' and the only one word that has been given as an example. Unfortunately I don't know how my keyboard can write that out. I think the word is 'Klupti'
1) this is so super-fun! I often brag about this elegance to non-Indians, but never realized the य row, ष row, and vowels as well fit in this grid. And now realizing "ऋ is a vowel" 🤯
2) knowing this is quite useful too, I think Indians can pick up foreign pronunciations quickly, using this grid. I know from my experience that most Chinese books/teachers teach the pronunciations by grouping sounds like this. Saw one Indian youtube who made grids for multiple foreign languages when he was learning them and now advocates for that pedagogy.
3) To add to the missing sounds in different languages, one surprising thing about English speakers, that many can't distinguish between ड and द, even when they have both sounds in English ( ड in day ←→ द in this ). That's important for me, since many use ड while pronouncing my name सदा 🤦🏻♂️. Also just realized, English ड (as in day) is quite different than Indian ड which curls the tongue. Maybe that's why...
In general, phonetics is a very fascinating topic. Once you understand the basics, so many foreign sounds become more legible.
As for English, there are lots of funny quirks in their phonology. Because of their problem with ड and द so many of them think it is "Ghandi" and not "Gandhi". Also, they can't really distinguish between क and ख or between ग and घ. So what they end up doing is that all "k" gets mapped to something halfway between क and ख (with aspiration), and all "g" gets mapped to ग without aspiration. So now, if we pronounce a pure क without any aspiration, they often hear a ग. I discovered this while trying to give people my last name over the phone. If I don't want them to think it is "gabra" I have to pronounce it as "khabra".
Could you please shed some light on why the rows have been organised the way they are, as in, why do retroflex sounds come after palatal sounds, even though when air comes out of the throat the first place it touches is the roof of the mouth? Please shed some light on the order in which all rows have been placed.
The "place of articulation", i.e. the position of the tongue, roughly moves from the back of the throat (for velar) to the front (the lips, for labial). Now, it might seem that retroflex, where the tongue touches the roof of the mouth, should come before the palatals, where the tongue touches the hard palate. But, we are not going just by the initial touch of the tongue; we also look at the movement of the tongue: in retroflex, the tongue starts before the hard palate but ends up in front. Hence the retroflex comes later.
Thank you Naveen for this great work! Lots of doubt about Hindi Varnmala got cleared.
Still have some doubts regarding ओ औ and ऑ sound. What is the difference between them and how and where to use ऑ not औ in words. I oniw that we use ऑ in borrowed English words but if modern hindi speakers do not pronounce औ as अउ its just simply औ as mouth opened ओ same as ऑ then, why different letters for same sound. I mean औ and ऑ has same sound. Not like Marathi where औ is like अउ so they needed ऑ sound but why for hindi.
ओ औ and ऑ and are 3 different sounds. Hindi speakers use औ in place of ऑ (because ऑ is not a sound native to devanagari and was added later to incorporate western sounds. Here's ChatGPT's explanation of the difference between these sounds. (Basically, औ (the sound in "cow") involves movement of the tongue whereas ऑ does not (the sound in "don")
This is the best explaination I have seen for the script!!
Still, if you see - the visual shapes don't align with the sounds. That makes learning a lot of memorization when the visual shape has no structure. I say this because a row or a column in "The Vovels" picture don't look similar. It would have been nice if similar sounds had been given similar shapes. For example, most alphabets which look similar to 'इ' don't sound similar at all.
Also, what is the importance of getting the sound so exactly right? Do we need all four of these - 'क ख ग घ' ? They are so close in sound!
1. Yes, I agree that the visual shapes make it quite difficult to memorize, especially with all the combinations and ligatures.
2. Regarding "Do we need all four of these - 'क ख ग घ' ? They are so close in sound!": the problem is that they sound similar to you because you grew up not distinguishing between them. For Indians those sounds are very different from each other. Conversely, Indians always wonder whether both v and w are needed because they're so close in sound. It took me 3+ years of living in the US with Americans to realize that to them v and w don't sound similar at all.
Was revisiting this article after I went through a book on Marathi Grammar. Am I missing it or there is no mention of ज्ञ or श्र in this article? Any thoughts on those?
What a wonderful article. Today after reading this I think I truly understood the pronunciation difference between श and ष. I also realised the words starting with ष always have next letter in the same group (I might be wrong here) e.g. षडयंत्र, षट्कोन, षट्कार, षंढ, षड्ज
One more bit of information. Potentially there are two varieties of pronunciation of चछजझ. चमचा vs चक्र. If i am correct ch in chamacha is dantatalava while ch in chakra is talavya. (Chamacha in hindi is again talavya but in Marathi if it is meant spoon, it is pronounced differently) झ in झबले vs झकास follows same differentiation. Any more information on this?
As you say, the difference between the two च sounds appears to be talavya vs dantatalavya, but I'm unable to find any authoritative sources for that. On the other hand, the difference between ज and ज़ is the difference between what is called phonologically a "plosive" vs "affricate". A "plosive" like the hindi ज starts with the vocal tract blocked and then it is opened up to allow free flow of air. An affricate starts with the vocal tract blocked and then it is partially opened up so that there is turbulent airflow because the tongue stays close to the palate.
Another reference कै. मोरेश्वर सखाराम मोने कृत मराठी व्याकरण first published in 1935. quote from book.
मराठीत च्, ज्, झ् ह्यांचे उच्चार दोन प्रकारचे असतात. एक संस्कृत मधील विचार, चरित्र, वांछा, छत्र, जन, झंझावात यांतील उच्चाराप्रमाणे नुसता तालव्य, उदा. चपळ, चंबू, चिमटा, चेटूक, जितका, जेवणे, झेलणे, झिपरी, इ०;
आणि दुसरा चमचा, चोर, चारा, जड, जाणे, जावई, झाड, झगडा यांतील उच्चारा प्रमाणे दांत व तालु ह्यांच्या साह्याने; म्हणून ह्या दुसय् प्रकारच्या उच्चाराच्या च् , ज, झ् ह्यांस दंततालव्य असे म्हणतात.
Also, I am having hard time pronouncing ऋषभ right, based on this new knowledge 😂
Any sound that we aren't used to making from childhood is extremely difficult for us to produce. The tongue isn't used to going there, and we can't even hear the difference between that sound and adjacent sounds.
Navin, fascinating read. The 'kanthya' and 'talavya' were taught in school (marathi as first language), but the fitting of य र ल व श ष स ह is very interesting.
About the ones you have left out, ए ऐ ओ औ are essentially combinations of basic vowels - अ + इ = ए, अ + उ = ओ and so on. अं is a simply a convenient way of representing a combine with a nasal consonant. It's pronunciation is dependent on the next alphabet. अः is a specialty of Sanskrit - I wonder if anything similar exists in other languages...
I'm not convinced that ए and ओ are combinations, but I agree with the rest. However, I felt that getting into this detail would increase the length of the article without adding proportionate value, hence chose to dismiss it with a joke.
As for अः after reading up a bunch of stuff on it, I'd still not sure I understand what's going on there.
Sorry for the extended post.
Quoting from सुगम मराठी व्याकरण लेखन by मो. रा. वाळंबे:
"ए, ऐ, ओ, औ ही दोन -दोन स्वर एकत्र येऊन बनलेले आढळतील. जसे:
ए = अ + इ किंवा ई - उदा. गण + ईश = गणेश
ऐ = आ + इ किंवा ई, अ + ए - उदा. सदा + एव = सदैव
ओ = अ + उ किंवा ऊ - उदा. चंद्र + उदय = चंद्रोदय
औ = आ + उ किंवा ऊ, आ + ओ - उदा. गंगा + ओघ = गंगौघ
दोन स्वर एकत्र येऊन हे स्वर बनले असल्यामुळे यांना 'संयुक्त स्वर' असे म्हणतात."
Note: examples are not part of the original quote, I added them from 'संधी' chapter.
Quoting further,
"'अं' आणि 'अ:' या दोन वर्णांना 'स्वरादी' असे म्हणतात. अनुस्वार आणि विसर्ग यांचा उच्चार करताना या वर्णांच्या आधी स्वर येतो, म्हणून यांना 'स्वरादी' असे म्हणतात. 'स्वरादी' म्हणजे 'स्वर आहे आदी म्हणजे आरंभी ज्याच्या असा' वर्ण."
Sameer,
As far as I understand, a sandhi is not the same as a dipthong. ए = अ + इ is an example of sandhi, because in the phonology of Indian languages, अ + इ occurring one after the other is replaced by ए. Other languages, which do not have this rule will continue to say अइ, and it does not sound like ए. However, ऐ = आ + इ is an example of a dipthong. आ + इ, even if not "replaced" by ऐ still sounds like ऐ.
अं is a simply a convenient way of representing a combine with a nasal consonant. It's pronunciation is dependent on the next alphabet.
This is very important rule and never taught in schools hence leads to many pronunciation mistakes. In addition to that how anuswar is pronounced if proceeded by य, र, ल, व, श, ष, ह, is another story. Many people do not pronounce सिंह, संहिता correctly. Its not sin-ha but siv-ha. Any logic behind this pronunciation?
Vineet, let me check that.
Navin, my apologies for the incorrect 'it's' :-)
Wonderful article Navin. Enjoyed it thoroughly. I always say just like there is WYSIWYG, Devanagari gives me a way of Write Exactly Like What It Sounds (WELWIS).
What a coincidence. Just the other day myself and a friend were discussing Marathi Grammar, the way we were taught and how much we remember now. It came down to finding out what in Marathi are called Vrutta which is a specific and well defined way of writing poetry. Wanted to revise some of the basic first principles like matra, gana etc and how to mark them to identify the Vrutta. Finally went and bought a book on Marathi Grammar by Mo Ra Walambe which explained it in details. Yesterday I was able to look at a stanza from one Marathi poem called "Nal and Damayanti" and decipher the Vrutta. And today this article!
The book also gives some 4-5 different ways in which a broken R is written like in words क्रम, अर्क, चोर्‍या and others.
BTW, the book talks about a Devanagari alphabet which exists in Marathi as 'लृ' and the only one word that has been given as an example. Unfortunately I don't know how my keyboard can write that out. I think the word is 'Klupti'
Sounds like a very interesting, and deep book.
1) this is so super-fun! I often brag about this elegance to non-Indians, but never realized the य row, ष row, and vowels as well fit in this grid. And now realizing "ऋ is a vowel" 🤯
2) knowing this is quite useful too, I think Indians can pick up foreign pronunciations quickly, using this grid. I know from my experience that most Chinese books/teachers teach the pronunciations by grouping sounds like this. Saw one Indian youtube who made grids for multiple foreign languages when he was learning them and now advocates for that pedagogy.
3) To add to the missing sounds in different languages, one surprising thing about English speakers, that many can't distinguish between ड and द, even when they have both sounds in English ( ड in day ←→ द in this ). That's important for me, since many use ड while pronouncing my name सदा 🤦🏻♂️. Also just realized, English ड (as in day) is quite different than Indian ड which curls the tongue. Maybe that's why...
In general, phonetics is a very fascinating topic. Once you understand the basics, so many foreign sounds become more legible.
As for English, there are lots of funny quirks in their phonology. Because of their problem with ड and द so many of them think it is "Ghandi" and not "Gandhi". Also, they can't really distinguish between क and ख or between ग and घ. So what they end up doing is that all "k" gets mapped to something halfway between क and ख (with aspiration), and all "g" gets mapped to ग without aspiration. So now, if we pronounce a pure क without any aspiration, they often hear a ग. I discovered this while trying to give people my last name over the phone. If I don't want them to think it is "gabra" I have to pronounce it as "khabra".
Thank you, this was absolutely fascinating to read, and cleared up so many doubts I had.
Could you please shed some light on why the rows have been organised the way they are, as in, why do retroflex sounds come after palatal sounds, even though when air comes out of the throat the first place it touches is the roof of the mouth? Please shed some light on the order in which all rows have been placed.
The "place of articulation", i.e. the position of the tongue, roughly moves from the back of the throat (for velar) to the front (the lips, for labial). Now, it might seem that retroflex, where the tongue touches the roof of the mouth, should come before the palatals, where the tongue touches the hard palate. But, we are not going just by the initial touch of the tongue; we also look at the movement of the tongue: in retroflex, the tongue starts before the hard palate but ends up in front. Hence the retroflex comes later.
One more query, what nasal sounds to be used for य र ल व श ष स ह and where to use and not to use anuswar with these varns.
Thank you.
Sorry. I don't know the answer to this.
Thank you Naveen for this great work! Lots of doubt about Hindi Varnmala got cleared.
Still have some doubts regarding ओ औ and ऑ sound. What is the difference between them and how and where to use ऑ not औ in words. I oniw that we use ऑ in borrowed English words but if modern hindi speakers do not pronounce औ as अउ its just simply औ as mouth opened ओ same as ऑ then, why different letters for same sound. I mean औ and ऑ has same sound. Not like Marathi where औ is like अउ so they needed ऑ sound but why for hindi.
Hi Sahil,
ओ औ and ऑ and are 3 different sounds. Hindi speakers use औ in place of ऑ (because ऑ is not a sound native to devanagari and was added later to incorporate western sounds. Here's ChatGPT's explanation of the difference between these sounds. (Basically, औ (the sound in "cow") involves movement of the tongue whereas ऑ does not (the sound in "don")
https://chatgpt.com/share/66e80e44-7d1c-8003-b7c2-f3ffe9bb84fd
Can’t we just simply write हौकी instead हॉकी as they both sounds same to me. Or am i missing something.
This is the best explaination I have seen for the script!!
Still, if you see - the visual shapes don't align with the sounds. That makes learning a lot of memorization when the visual shape has no structure. I say this because a row or a column in "The Vovels" picture don't look similar. It would have been nice if similar sounds had been given similar shapes. For example, most alphabets which look similar to 'इ' don't sound similar at all.
Also, what is the importance of getting the sound so exactly right? Do we need all four of these - 'क ख ग घ' ? They are so close in sound!
Thanks, @theodore.
1. Yes, I agree that the visual shapes make it quite difficult to memorize, especially with all the combinations and ligatures.
2. Regarding "Do we need all four of these - 'क ख ग घ' ? They are so close in sound!": the problem is that they sound similar to you because you grew up not distinguishing between them. For Indians those sounds are very different from each other. Conversely, Indians always wonder whether both v and w are needed because they're so close in sound. It took me 3+ years of living in the US with Americans to realize that to them v and w don't sound similar at all.
Was revisiting this article after I went through a book on Marathi Grammar. Am I missing it or there is no mention of ज्ञ or श्र in this article? Any thoughts on those?
What a wonderful article. Today after reading this I think I truly understood the pronunciation difference between श and ष. I also realised the words starting with ष always have next letter in the same group (I might be wrong here) e.g. षडयंत्र, षट्कोन, षट्कार, षंढ, षड्ज
You're right. It is often true elsewhere in the word also, and applies to other letters also, like the use of न vs ण and so on.
One more bit of information. Potentially there are two varieties of pronunciation of चछजझ. चमचा vs चक्र. If i am correct ch in chamacha is dantatalava while ch in chakra is talavya. (Chamacha in hindi is again talavya but in Marathi if it is meant spoon, it is pronounced differently) झ in झबले vs झकास follows same differentiation. Any more information on this?
As you say, the difference between the two च sounds appears to be talavya vs dantatalavya, but I'm unable to find any authoritative sources for that. On the other hand, the difference between ज and ज़ is the difference between what is called phonologically a "plosive" vs "affricate". A "plosive" like the hindi ज starts with the vocal tract blocked and then it is opened up to allow free flow of air. An affricate starts with the vocal tract blocked and then it is partially opened up so that there is turbulent airflow because the tongue stays close to the palate.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plosive_consonant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affricate_consonant
Check this one https://sg.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/93861/8/08_chapter%203.pdf Unfortunately its image pdf of typewritten pages so not searchable. Please check pages 28 to 33. This seems to be specialty of Marathi, Telugu and Kannada spoken in North Karnataka
Another reference कै. मोरेश्वर सखाराम मोने कृत मराठी व्याकरण first published in 1935. quote from book.
मराठीत च्, ज्, झ् ह्यांचे उच्चार दोन प्रकारचे असतात. एक संस्कृत मधील विचार, चरित्र, वांछा, छत्र, जन, झंझावात यांतील उच्चाराप्रमाणे नुसता तालव्य, उदा. चपळ, चंबू, चिमटा, चेटूक, जितका, जेवणे, झेलणे, झिपरी, इ०;
आणि दुसरा चमचा, चोर, चारा, जड, जाणे, जावई, झाड, झगडा यांतील उच्चारा प्रमाणे दांत व तालु ह्यांच्या साह्याने; म्हणून ह्या दुसय् प्रकारच्या उच्चाराच्या च् , ज, झ् ह्यांस दंततालव्य असे म्हणतात.
I have hard copy of this book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9gBpVnnXo see this video for more info
Very nice . Explanation is too good