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User:Robbiemuffin/Devanagari vowels

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Vowels

[edit]

The vowels and their arrangement are:[1]

Independent form Romanized As diacritic with प Pronunciation Independent form Romanized As diacritic with प Pronunciation
kaṇṭhya
(Guttural)
a [ɐ] sample ā पा [ɑː] sample [nb 1]
tālavya
(Palatal)
i पि [i] sample ī पी [] sample [nb 1]
oṣṭhya
(Labial)
u पु [u] sample ū पू [] sample [nb 1]
mūrḍhanya
(Retroflex)
पृ [ɹ̩] sample [nb 2] पॄ [ɹ̩ː] sample [nb 2] [nb 1]
dantya
(Dental)
पॢ [] sample [nb 2] पॣ [l̩ː] sample [nb 2] [nb 1]
kaṇṭhatālavya
(Palato-Guttural)
e पे [] sample [nb 1] ai पै [aːi] [nb 3] [nb 1]
kaṇṭhoṣṭhya
(Labio-Guttural)
o पो [] sample [nb 1] au पौ [aːu] [nb 3] [nb 1]
  • Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal diacritics, the final nasal anusvāra and the final fricative visarga (called अं aṃ and अः aḥ). Masica (1991:146) notes of the anusvāra in Sankrit that "there is some controversy as to whether it represents a homorganic nasal consonant [...], a nasalized vowel, a nasalized semivowel, or all these according to context". The visarga represents post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative [h], in Sanskrit an allophone of s, or less commonly r, usually in word-final position. Some traditions of recitation append an echo of the vowel after the breath:[2] इः [ihi]. Masica (1991:146) considers the visarga along with letters ṅa and ña for the "largely predictable" velar and palatal nasals to be examples of "phonetic overkill in the system".
  • Another diacritic is the candrabindu/anunāsika . Salomon (2003:76–77) describes it as a "more emphatic form" of the anusvāra, "sometimes [...] used to mark a true [vowel] nasalization". In a New Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is formal: the candrabindu indicates vowel nasalization[3] while the anusvār indicates a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant:[4] e.g. हँसी [ɦə̃si] "laughter", गंगा [ɡəŋɡɑ] "the Ganges". When an akshara has a vowel diacritic above the top line, that leaves no room for the candra ("moon") stroke candrabindu, which is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot:[5] हूँ [ɦũ] "am", but हैं [ɦɛ̃] "are". Some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations.[6]
  • The avagraha (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: एकोऽयम् ekoyam (< ekas + ayam) "this one". An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double avagraha: सदाऽऽत्मा sadātmā (< sadā + ātmā) "always, the self".[7] In Hindi, Snell (2000:77) states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout": आईऽऽऽ! āīīī!. In Magahi, which has "quite a number of verbal forms [that] end in that inherent vowel" Verma (2003:501), the avagraha is used to mark the non-elision of word-final inherent a, which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: बइठऽ baiṭha "sit" versus *बइठ baiṭh
  • The syllabic consonants , , and are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the varṇamālā of other languages. The sound represented by has also been lost in the modern languages, and its pronunciation now ranges from [ɾɪ] (Hindi) to [ɾu] (Marathi).
  • is not an actual phoneme of Sanskrit, but rather a graphic convention included among the vowels in order to maintain the symmetry of short–long pairs of letters.[8]
  • There are non-regular formations of रु ru and रू .

notes

[edit]
1. ^ Length (phonetics)
2. ^ Syllabic consonant
3. ^ diphthong

references

[edit]
  1. ^ Wikner (1996:13, 14)
  2. ^ Wikner (1996:6)
  3. ^ Snell (2000:44–45)
  4. ^ Snell (2000:64)
  5. ^ Snell (2000:45)
  6. ^ Snell (2000:46)
  7. ^ Salomon (2003:77)
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Salomon2003p75 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).