- Marathi phonology
-
The phoneme inventory of the Marathi language is similar to that of many other Indo-Āryan languages. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
Consonants[1] Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex (Alveolo-)
palatalVelar Glottal Nasal plain m n̪ ɳ murmured mʱ n̪ʱ ɳʱ Stop voiceless p t̪ ts ʈ tʃ k aspirated pʰ t̪ʰ tsʰ ʈʰ tʃʰ kʰ voiced b d̪ dz ɖ dʒ ɡ murmured bʱ d̪ʱ dzʱ ɖʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ Fricative s ʃ h Approximant plain ʋ l ɭ j murmured ʋʱ lʱ Rhotic plain ɾ murmured ɾʱ Vowels Front Central Back High i u Mid e ə o Low a Contents
Vowels
Like other alphasyllabaries, Devanagari writes out syllables by adding vowel diacritics to consonant bases. The table below includes all the vowel symbols used in Marathi, along with a transliteration of each sound into the Roman alphabet and IPA.
Devanagari अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ए ऐ ओ औ अं अः Transliterated a āa i ī u ū ṛ e ai o au aṃ aḥ IPA /ə/ /a/ /i/ /u/ /ru/ /e/ /əi/ /o/ /əu/ /əⁿ/ /əh/ Pronunciation There are two more vowels in Marathi to denote the pronunciations of English words such as of 'a' in act and 'a' in all. These are written as 'अॅ' and 'ऑ'. The IPA signs for these are /æ/ and /ɔ/, respectively.
Marathi retains several features of Sanskrit that have been lost in north-Indian Sanskrit-based languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in terms of pronunciation of vowels and consonants. For instance, Marathi retains the original Sanskrit pronunciation of अं /əⁿ/, ऐ /əi/, and औ /əu/. However, as was done in Gujarati, Marathi speakers tend to pronounce ऋ ṛ somewhat similar to /ru/, unlike most other Indic languages which changed it to /ri/ (e.g. the original Sanskrit pronunciation of the language's name was saṃskṛtam, while in day-to-day Marathi and Gujarati it is saṃskrut. In other Indic languages it is closer to sanskrit). Also, the Marathi pronunciation of ज्ञ (jña) very closely resembles Sanskrit pronunciation, compared to gya in Hindi. Interestingly, spoken Marathi allows for original Sanskrit pronunciations of words like राम (rama) with an emphasis on the ending vowel sound, a feature that has been lost in Hindi.
Consonants
The table below includes all the consonant bases onto which vowel diacritics are placed. The lack of a vowel diacritic can either indicate the lack of a vowel, or the existence of the default, or "inherent", vowel, which in the case of Marathi is the schwa.
क ख ग घ ङ ka
/kə/kha
/kʰə/ga
/ɡə/gha
/ɡʱə/ṅa
/ŋə/च छ ज झ ञ ca
/tʃə/ or /tsə/cha
/tsʰə/ja
/ɟʝə/ or /zə/jha
/ɟʝʱə/ or /zʱə/ña
/ɲə/ट ठ ड ढ ण ṭa
/ʈə/ṭha
/ʈʰə/ḍa
/ɖə/ḍha
/ɖʱə/ṇa
/ɳə/त थ द ध न ta
/t̪ə/tha
/t̪ʰə/da
/d̪ə/dha
/d̪ʱə/na
/n̪ə/प फ ब भ म pa
/pə/pha
/pʰə/ or /fə/ba
/bə/bha
/bʱə/ma
/mə/य र ऱ ल व श ya
/jə/ra
/rə/ṟa
/ɽə/la
/lə/va
/və/ or /wə/śa
/ʃə/ष स ह ळ क्ष ज्ञ ṣa
/ʂə/sa
/sə/ha
/hə/ḷa
/ɭə/kṣa
/kʃə/jña
/ɟʝɲə/A defining feature of the Marathi language is the frequent substitution of the consonant ल (la) in Sanskrit words with the retroflex lateral approximant ळ (ḷa). For instance, कुळ (kuḷa) for the Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam or clan) and कमळ (kamaḷ) for Sanskrit कमलम् (kamalam or lotus). ळ is probably an import in marathi from dravidian languages. its pronunciation is similar to zh is Tamil. Not being a native consonant of indo-Iranian family, pronunciation of such Marathi words becomes tongue-twister for native speakers of North Indian languages such as Hindi and Bengali in which ळ is absent. Moreover, the unique pronunciations of the consonants च and झ in Marathi make it a difficult language to learn even for speakers of other Sanskrit-based languages like Gujarati and Hindi.
Example of consonant-vowel combination
The combination of the vowels with the k-series
Script Pronunciation (IPA) क /kə/ का /ka/ कि /ki/ की कु /ku/ कू कृ /kru/ के /ke/ कै /kəi̯/ को /ko/ कौ /kəu̯/ कं /kəᵐ/ कः /kəh/ Consonant clusters
In Marathi, the consonants by default come with a schwa. Therefore, तयाचे will be 'təyāce', not 'tyāce'. To form 'tyāce', you will have to add त् + याचे, giving त्याचे.
Consonant clusters in speech
References
- ^ Colin Masica, 1993, The Indo-Aryan Languages
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Categories:- Marathi language
- Language phonologies
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