Marathi phonology
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The phoneme inventory of the Marathi language is similar to that of many other Indo-Aryan languages. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
Vowels
Vowels in native words are:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | Template:IPA link | Template:IPA link | |
| Mid | Template:IPA link | Template:IPA link | Template:IPA link |
| Low | Template:IPA link |
There is almost no phonemic length distinction, even though it is indicated in the script. Some educated speakers try to maintain a length distinction in learned borrowings (tatsamas) from Sanskrit.[1]
There are no nasal vowels, although some speakers of Puneri and Kokni dialects maintain nasalization of vowels that was present in old Marathi and continues to be orthographically present in modern Marathi.[2]
Marathi furthermore contrasts Script error: No such module "IPA". with Script error: No such module "IPA"..
There are two more vowels in Marathi to denote the pronunciations of English words such as of Script error: No such module "IPA". in act and Script error: No such module "IPA". in all. These are written as Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr.
The default vowel has two allophones apart from Template:IPA link. The most prevalent allophone is Template:IPA link, which results in Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) being more commonly pronounced as Script error: No such module "IPA". rather than Script error: No such module "IPA".. Another rare allophone is Template:IPA link, which occurs in words such as Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".): Script error: No such module "IPA"..[3]
Marathi retains several features of Sanskrit that have been lost in other Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in terms of pronunciation of vowels and consonants. For instance, Marathi retains the original diphthong qualities of Template:Angbr Script error: No such module "IPA"., and Template:Angbr Script error: No such module "IPA". which became monophthongs in Hindi. However, similar to speakers of Western Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages, Marathi speakers tend to pronounce syllabic consonant ऋ Script error: No such module "lang". as Script error: No such module "IPA"., unlike Northern Indo-Aryan languages which changed it to Script error: No such module "IPA". (e.g. the original Sanskrit pronunciation of the language's name was Script error: No such module "lang"., while in day-to-day Marathi it is Script error: No such module "lang".. In other Indic languages, it is closer to Script error: No such module "lang".). Spoken Marathi allows for conservative stress patterns in words like शब्द (Script error: No such module "lang".) with an emphasis on the ending vowel sound, a feature that has been lost in Hindi due to Schwa deletion.
Consonants
- Marathi used to have a Script error: No such module "IPA". but it merged with Script error: No such module "IPA"..[4]
- Some speakers pronounce Script error: No such module "IPA". as fricatives but the aspiration is maintained in Script error: No such module "IPA"..[4]
A defining feature of the Marathi language is the split of Indo-Aryan Script error: No such module "Lang". Script error: No such module "IPA". into a retroflex lateral flap Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) and alveolar Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".). It shares this feature with Punjabi. For instance, Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) for the Sanskrit Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang"., 'clan') and Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) for Sanskrit Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang". 'lotus'). Marathi got Script error: No such module "Lang". possibly due to long contact from Dravidian languages; there are some Script error: No such module "lang". words loaned from Kannada like Script error: No such module "lang". from Script error: No such module "lang". but most of the words are native. Vedic Sanskrit did have Script error: No such module "IPA". as well, but they merged with Script error: No such module "IPA". by the time of classical Sanskrit.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
References
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- Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Sardesai, V.N. Some Problems in the Nasalization of Marathi, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
- Ghatage, M.M. Pronunciation Problems of the Marathi Speakers, Language in India.
External links
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