Marathi phonology
Encyclopedia
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.
s 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
.
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 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 , while in day-to-day Marathi and Gujarati it is . In other Indic languages it is closer to ). 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.
.
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 . For instance, कुळ () for the Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam or clan) and कमळ () 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.
. Therefore, तयाचे will be'təyāce' , not 'tyāce' . To form 'tyāce' , you will have to add त् + याचे, giving त्याचे.
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
inventory of the Marathi language
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
is similar to that of many other Indo-Āryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
. An IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
(Alveolo-) palatal |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
plain | m | n̪ | ɳ | ||||
| murmured | mʱ | n̪ʱ | ɳʱ | |||||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless | p | t̪ | ts | ʈ | tʃ | k | |
| aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
pʰ | t̪ʰ | tsʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | dz | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| murmured | bʱ | d̪ʱ | dzʱ | ɖʱ | dʒʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s | ʃ | h | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
plain | ʋ | l | ɭ | j | |||
| murmured | ʋʱ | lʱ | ||||||
| Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet... |
plain | ɾ | ||||||
| murmured | ɾʱ | |||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
Vowels
Like other alphasyllabaries, Devanagari writes out syllables by adding vowel diacriticDiacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s 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
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
.
| 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 | |||||||||||||
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 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 , while in day-to-day Marathi and Gujarati it is . In other Indic languages it is closer to ). 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 schwaSchwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
.
| क | ख | ग | घ | ङ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ka /kə/ |
kha /kʰə/ |
ga /ɡə/ |
gha /ɡʱə/ |
/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 | ||
| /ʈə/ |
/ʈʰə/ |
/ɖə/ |
/ɖʱə/ |
/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/ |
/ɽə/ |
la /lə/ |
va /və/ or /wə/ |
śa /ʃə/ |
|
| ष | स | ह | ळ | क्ष | ज्ञ | |
| /ʂə/ |
sa /sə/ |
ha /hə/ |
/ɭə/ |
/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 . For instance, कुळ () for the Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam or clan) and कमळ () 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 schwaSchwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
. Therefore, तयाचे will be