Bengali phonology

Bengali phonology is the study of the inventory and patterns of the consonants, vowels, and prosody of the Bengali language.

Consonants and vowels

The phonemic inventory of Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 14 vowels, including the seven nasalized vowels. An approximate phonetic scheme is set out below in IPA.

Although Standard Bengali is largely uniform across West Bengal and Bangladesh, there are a few sounds that are produced variably in different pronunciations of Standard Bengali (in addition to the myriad of phonological variations in non-standard dialects):
*¹ IPA|/f/: ফ can be produced as an voiceless aspirated stop IPA| [pʰ] or a voiceless labial fricative IPA| [ɸ] ~ [f] , depending on the speaker.
*² IPA|/s/ is a phoneme for many speakers of Standard Bengali (সিরকা IPA| [sirka] 'vinegar', অস্থির IPA| [ɔst̪ʰir] 'uneasy', ব্যস IPA| [bas] or IPA| [bæs] 'enough').
**For many speakers, IPA|/s/ and IPA|/ʃ/ are phonemically distinct (আস্তে IPA| [ast̪e] 'softly' vs. আসতে IPA| [aʃt̪e] 'to come'). For others, these are pronounced the same.
**For some speakers, IPA| [s] can be analyzed as an allophone of either IPA|/ʃ/ or IPA|/tʃʰ/ (IPA| [ʃalam] for সালাম IPA| [salam] 'greetings' or বিচ্ছিরি IPA| [bittʃʰiri] for বিশ্রী IPA| [bisri] 'ugly').
**Some words that originally had IPA|/s/ are now pronounced with IPA| [tʃʰ] in Standard Bengali (পছন্দ IPA| [pɔtʃʰond̪o] 'like', from Hindi-Urdu "pasand").
*³ IPA|/z/: জ and য represent a voiced affricate IPA| [dʒ] in Standard Bengali words of native origin, but can also represent IPA| [z] in foreign words and names (জাকাত IPA| [zakat̪] 'zakah charity', আজিজ IPA| [aziz] 'Aziz'). Some speakers replace IPA| [z] with IPA| [dʒ]
**Some words that originally had IPA|/z/ are now pronounced with IPA| [dʒ] in Standard Bengali (সবজি IPA| [ʃobdʒi] 'vegetable', from Persian "sabzi").
*⁴ IPA|/ɽ/: In the form of Standard Bengali spoken in Dhaka, IPA|/ɽ/ and IPA|/r/ are often indistinct phonemically, and thus the pairs পড়ে IPA| [pɔɽe] 'reads'/'falls' vs. পরে IPA| [pɔre] 'wears'/'after', and করা IPA| [kɔra] 'do' vs. কড়া IPA| [kɔɽa] 'strict' can be homophonous.

Romanization

Several conventions exist for writing Indic languages including Bengali in the Latin script, including IAST (based on diacritics), ITRANS (uses upper case letters suited for ASCII keyboards), and the National Library at Calcutta romanization. Bengali words are currently Romanized on Wikipedia using a phonemic transcription, where the pronunciation is represented with no reference to the spelling. The Wikipedia Romanization is given in the table below, with IPA transcriptions as used above.

Consonant clusters

Native Bengali (তদ্ভব "tôdbhôbo") words do not allow initial consonant clusters; [Harvcoltxt|Masica|1991|p=125] the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e. one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম "geram" (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম "gram" (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল "iskul"/"ishkul" (VC.CVC) for স্কুল "skul" (CCVC) "school".

Sanskrit (তৎসম "tôtshômo") words borrowed into Bengali, however, possess a wide range of clusters, expanding the maximum syllable structure to CCCVC. Some of these clusters, such as the "mr" in মৃত্যু "mrittu" "death" or the "sp" in স্পষ্ট "spôshţo" "clear", have become extremely common, and can be considered legal consonant clusters in Bengali. English and other foreign (বিদেশী "bideshi") borrowings add even more cluster types into the Bengali inventory, further increasing the syllable capacity to CCCVCCCC, as commonly-used loanwords such as ট্রেন "ţren" "train" and গ্লাস "glash" "glass" are now even included in leading Bengali dictionaries.

Final consonant clusters are rare in Bengali. [Harvcoltxt|Masica|1991|p=126] Most final consonant clusters were borrowed into Bengali from English, as in লিফ্‌ট "lifţ" "lift, elevator" and ব্যাংক "bêņk" "bank". However, final clusters do exist in some native Bengali words, although rarely in standard pronunciation. One example of a final cluster in a standard Bengali word would be গঞ্জ "gônj", which is found in names of hundreds of cities and towns across Bengal, including নবাবগঞ্জ "Nôbabgônj" and মানিকগঞ্জ "Manikgônj". Some nonstandard varieties of Bengali make use of final clusters quite often. For example, in some Purbo (eastern) dialects, final consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and its corresponding oral stop are common, as in চান্দ "chand" "moon". The Standard Bengali equivalent of "chand" would be চাঁদ "chãd", with a nasalized vowel instead of the final cluster.

Diphthongs

Magadhan languages such as Bengali are known for their wide variety of diphthongs, or combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable. [Harvcoltxt|Masica|1991|p=116] Several vowel combinations can be considered true monosyllabic diphthongs, made up of the main vowel (the nucleus) and the trailing vowel (the off-glide). Almost all other vowel combinations are possible, but only across two adjacent syllables, such as the disyllabic vowel combination IPA| [u.a] in কুয়া "kua" "well". As many as 25 vowel combinations can be found, but some of the more recent combinations have not passed through the stage between two syllables and a diphthongal monosyllable. [Harvcoltxt|Chatterji|1926|p=415-416]

Prosody

tress

In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as সহযোগিতা "shô-ho-jo-gi-ta" "cooperation", where the boldface represents primary and secondary stress. The first syllable carries the greatest stress, with the third carrying a somewhat weaker stress, and all following odd-numbered syllables carrying very weak stress. However, in words borrowed from Sanskrit, the root syllable has stress, out of harmony with the situation with native Bengali words.Harvcoltxt|Chatterji|1921|p=19-20]

Adding prefixes to a word typically shifts the stress to the left; for example, while the word সভ্য "shob-bho" "civilized" carries the primary stress on the first syllable [shob] , adding the negative prefix [ô-] creates অসভ্য "ô-shob-bho" "uncivilized", where the primary stress is now on the newly-added first syllable অ "ô". In any case, Word-stress does not alter the meaning of a word, and is always subsidiary to sentence-stress.Harv|Chatterji|1921|p=19-20]

Intonation

For Bengali words, intonation or pitch of voice have minor significance, apart from a few isolated cases. However in sentences intonation does play a significant role. [Harvcoltxt|Chatterji|1921|p=20] In a simple declarative sentence, most words and/or phrases in Bengali carry a rising tone,Harvcoltxt|Hayes|Lahiri|1991|p=56] with the exception of the last word in the sentence, which only carries a low tone. This intonational pattern creates a musical tone to the typical Bengali sentence, with low and high tones alternating until the final drop in pitch to mark the end of the sentence.

In sentences involving focused words and/or phrases, the rising tones only last until the focused word; all following words carry a low tone.Harvcoltxt|Hayes|Lahiri|1991|p=56] This intonation pattern extends to wh-questions, as wh-words are normally considered to be focused. In yes-no questions, the rising tones may be more exaggerated, and most importantly, the final syllable of the final word in the sentence takes a high falling tone instead of a flat low tone.Harvcoltxt|Hayes|Lahiri|1991|p=57-58]

Vowel length

Vowel length is not contrastive in Bengali; all else equal, there is no meaningful distinction between a "short vowel" and a "long vowel",Harvcoltxt|Bhattacharya|2000|p=6] unlike the situation in many other Indic languages. However, when morpheme boundaries come into play, vowel length can sometimes distinguish otherwise homophonous words. This is because open monosyllables (i.e. words that are made up of only one syllable, with that syllable ending in the main vowel and not a consonant) have somewhat longer vowels than other syllable types.Harvcoltxt|Ferguson|Chowdhury|1960|p=16-18] For example, the vowel in "cha:" "tea" is somewhat longer than the first vowel in "chaţa" "licking", as "cha:" is a word with only one syllable, and no final consonant. (The long vowel is marked with a colon : in these examples.) The suffix "ţa" "the" can be added to "cha:" to form "cha:ţa" "the tea". Even when another morpheme is attached to "cha:", the long vowel is preserved. Knowing this fact, some interesting cases of apparent vowel length distinction can be found. In general Bengali vowels tend to stay away from extreme vowel articulation.Harv|Ferguson|Chowdhury|1960|p=16-18]

Furthermore, using a form of reduplication called "echo reduplication", the long vowel in "cha:" can be copied into the reduplicant "ţa:", giving "cha:ţa:" "tea and all that comes with it". Thus, in addition to "cha:ţa" "the tea" (long first vowel) and "chaţa" "licking" (no long vowels), we have "cha:ţa:" "tea and all that comes with it" (both long vowels).

Regional phonological variations

The phonological alternations of Bengali vary greatly due to the dialectal differences between the speech of Bengalis living on the পশ্চিম "Poshchim" (western) side and পূর্ব "Purbo" (eastern) side of the Padma River.

Fricatives

In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern Bangladesh (Barisal, Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet divisions), many of the stops and affricates heard in Kolkata Bengali are pronounced as fricatives. Poshchim Bangla (Western Bengali) palato-alveolar affricates চ IPA| [tʃ] , ছ IPA| [tʃʰ] , জ IPA| [dʒ] , and ঝ IPA| [dʒʱ] correspond to Purbo Bangla (Eastern Bengali)Unicode| চʻ IPA| [ts] , ছ় IPA| [s] , Unicode|জʻ IPA| [dz] ~IPA| [z] , and ঝ় IPA| [z] . A similar pronunciation is also found in Assamese, a related language across the border in India.

The aspirated velar stop খ IPA| [kʰ] and the aspirated labial stop ফ IPA| [pʰ] of Poshchim Bangla correspond to খ় IPA| [x] and ফ় IPA| [f] in many dialects of Purbo Bangla. These pronunciations are most extreme in the Sylheti dialect of far northeastern Bangladesh -- the dialect of Bengali most common in the United Kingdom. Sylheti is also considered by some to be a separate language.

Many Purbo Bangla dialects share phonological features with Assamese, including the debuccalization of শ IPA| [ʃ] to হ }IPA| [h] or খ় IPA| [x] .

Tibeto-Burman influence

The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on the phonology of Purbo Bangla is seen through the lack of nasalized vowels, a more fronted place of articulation for the apico-postalveolar stops ট [IPA|ʈ] , ঠ [IPA|ʈʰ] , ড [IPA|ɖ] , and ঢ [IPA|ɖʱ] , and the lack of distinction between র [IPA|ɹ] and ড়/ঢ় [IPA|ɽ] . Unlike most Indic languages, some Purbo Bangla dialects do not include the breathy voiced stops ঘ [IPA|gʱ] , ঝ [IPA|dʒʱ] , ঢ [IPA|ɖʱ] , ধ [IPA|d̪ʱ] , and ভ [IPA|bʱ] . Some variants of Bengali, particularly Chittagonian and Chakma Bengali, have contrastive tone; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words.

ee also

Notes

References

* citation
last1= Masica
first1 = C
year= 1991
title = The Indo-Aryan Languages
publisher = Cambridge Univ. Press.
* citation
last1= Chatterji
first1 = SK
year= 1926
title = The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language
publisher = Calcutta Univ. Press .
* citation
last1= Chatterji
first1 = SK
year= 1921
title = Bengali Phonetics
journal = Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
* citation
last1= Hayes
first1 = B
last2= Lahiri
first2 = A
year= 1991
title = Bengali intonational phonology
journal = Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
publisher = Springer Science.
* citation
last1= Bhattacharya
first1 = T
year= 2000
chapter = Bangla (Bengali)
title = Encyclopedia of World's Languages: Past and Present (Facts About the World's Languages)
publisher = WW Wilson, New York
editor = Gary, J. and Rubino. C.
URL = http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uclyara/bong_us.pdf
ISBN = 0824209702.
* citation
last1= Ferguson
first1 = CA
last2= Chowdhury
first2 = M
year= 1960
title = The Phonemes of Bengali
journal = Language, 36(1), Part 1.