lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s. The distinction between short and long vowels is often described as

tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either mo ...

, with short vowels being lax, and long vowels being tense. Hindi vowel chart

Vowel

is often realized more open than mid , i.e. as near-open .

Vowel

The open central vowel is transcribed in IPA by either or . In Urdu, there is further short (spelled , as in ''kamra'' ) in word-final position, which contrasts with (spelled , as in ''laṛkā'' ). This contrast is often not realized by Urdu speakers, and always neutralized in Hindi (where both sounds uniformly correspond to ).

Vowels , ,

Among the

close vowel A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of th ...

s, what in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

are thought to have been primarily distinctions of

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...

(that is and ), have become in Hindustani distinctions of

quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property *Quality (physics), in response theory *Energy quality, used in various science discipli ...

, or length accompanied by quality (that is, and ). The opposition of length in the close vowels has been neutralized in word-final position, only allowing long close vowels in final position. As a result, Sanskrit loans which originally have a short close vowel are realized with a long close vowel, e.g. ( – 'energy') and ( – 'item') are and , not * and *.

Vowels ,

The vowel represented graphically as – (romanized as ) has been variously transcribed as or . Among sources for this article, , pictured to the right, uses , while and use . Furthermore, an eleventh vowel is found in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s, such as ('

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

'). Hereafter, – (romanized as ) will be represented as to distinguish it from , the latter. Despite this, the Hindustani vowel system is quite similar to that of English, in contrast to the consonants. In addition, occurs as a conditioned

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

of (

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

) in proximity to , if and only if the is surrounded on both sides by two underlying, orthographic schwas. This change is part of the prestige dialect of Delhi, but may not occur for every speaker. Here are some examples of this process: However, the fronting of schwa does not occur in words with a schwa only on one side of the such as ( – 'a story') or ( – 'outside').

Vowels ,

The vowel occurs in proximity to if the is surrounded by one of the sides by a schwa and on other side by a round vowel. It differs from the vowel in that it is a short vowel. For example, in the is surrounded on one side by a schwa and a round vowel on the other side. One or both of the schwas will become giving the pronunciation . Some Eastern dialects kept as diphthongs, pronouncing them as ɪ~əɪ, aʊ~əʊ

Nasalization of vowels

As in French and Portuguese, there are nasalized vowels in Hindustani. There is disagreement over the issue of the nature of

nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internationa ...

(barring English-loaned which is never nasalized). presents four differing viewpoints: # there are no and , possibly because of the effect of nasalization on vowel quality; # there is phonemic nasalization of all vowels; # all vowel nasalization is predictable (i.e. allophonic); # Nasalized long vowel phonemes () occur word-finally and before voiceless stops; instances of nasalized short vowels () and of nasalized long vowels before voiced stops (the latter, presumably because of a deleted

nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...

) are allophonic. Masica supports this last view.

Consonants

Hindustani has a core set of 28

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

s inherited from earlier Indo-Aryan. Supplementing these are two consonants that are internal developments in specific word-medial contexts, and seven consonants originally found in loan words, whose expression is dependent on factors such as status (class, education, etc.) and cultural register (Modern Standard Hindi vs Urdu). Most native consonants may occur

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...

(doubled in length; exceptions are ). Geminate consonants are always medial and preceded by one of the interior vowels (that is, , , or ). They all occur monomorphemically except , which occurs only in a few Sanskrit loans where a

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...

boundary could be posited in between, e.g. for ('without shame'). For the English speaker, a notable feature of the Hindustani consonants is that there is a four-way distinction of

phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...

among

plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...

s, rather than the two-way distinction found in English. The phonations are: # tenuis, as , which is like in English ''spin'' #

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

, as , which is like in English ''bin'' # aspirated, as , which is like in English ''pin'', and #

murmured Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

, as . The last is commonly called "voiced aspirate", though notes that,

"Evidence from experimental
phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
, however, has demonstrated that the two types of sounds involve two distinct types of voicing and release mechanisms. The series of so-called voice aspirates should now properly be considered to involve the voicing mechanism of murmur, in which the air flow passes through an aperture between the
arytenoid cartilage The arytenoid cartilages () are a pair of small three-sided pyramids which form part of the larynx. They are the site of attachment of the vocal cords. Each is pyramidal or ladle-shaped and has three surfaces, a base, and an apex. The arytenoid ...
s, as opposed to passing between the ligamental vocal bands."

The murmured consonants are believed to be a

reflex In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs ...

of murmured consonants in Proto-Indo-European, a phonation that is absent in all branches of the Indo-European family except Indo-Aryan and Armenian. ; Notes * Marginal and non-universal phonemes are in parentheses. * is lateral for some speakers. * is post-velar. * , , , and are pronounced as , , , and in Hindi respectively Stops in final position are not released, although they continue to maintain the four-way phonation distinction in final position. varies freely with , and can also be pronounced . is essentially a trill. In intervocalic position, it may have a single contact and be described as a flap , but it may also be a clear trill, especially in word-initial and syllable-final positions, and geminate is always a trill in Arabic and Persian loanwords, e.g. ( – 'little') versus well-trilled ( – 'particle'). The

palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...

and

velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...

s occur only in consonant clusters, where each nasal is followed by a

homorganic In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...

stop, as an allophone of a

nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...

followed by a stop, and in Sanskrit loanwords. There are murmured sonorants, , but these are considered to be consonant clusters with in the analysis adopted by . The fricative in Hindustani is typically voiced (as ), especially when surrounded by vowels, but there is no phonemic difference between this voiced fricative and its voiceless counterpart (Hindustani's ancestor Sanskrit ''has'' such a phonemic distinction). Hindustani also has a phonemic difference between the dental plosives and the so-called retroflex plosives. The dental plosives in Hindustani are laminal-denti alveolar as in Spanish language, Spanish, and the tongue-tip must be well in contact with the back of the upper front teeth. The retroflex series is not purely retroflex; it actually has an apico-postalveolar (also described as apico-pre-palatal) articulation, and sometimes in words such as ( – 'broken') it even becomes alveolar. In some

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

, the plosives and the flaps are

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

s in

complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...

, with the former occurring in initial, geminate and postnasal positions and the latter occurring in intervocalic and final positions. However, in Standard Hindi they contrast in similar positions, as in ( – 'bird') vs ( – 'fearless').

Allophony of and

Hindustani does not distinguish between and , specifically Hindi. These are distinct phonemes in English, but conditional

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

s of the phoneme in Hindustani (written in Hindi or in Urdu), meaning that contextual rules determine when it is pronounced as and when it is pronounced as . is pronounced in onglide position, i.e. between an onset consonant and a following vowel, as in ( , 'food dish'), and elsewhere, as in ( , 'vow'). Native Hindi speakers are generally unaware of the allophonic distinctions, though these are apparent to native English speakers. In most situations, the allophony is non-conditional, i.e. the speaker can choose , , or an intermediate sound based on personal habit and preference, and still be perfectly intelligible, as long as the meaning is constant. This includes words such as ''advait'' ( ) ( pronounced �d̪ˈʋɛːt̪)which can be pronounced equally correctly as or .

External borrowing

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

borrowing has reintroduced and into formal Modern Standard Hindi. They occur primarily in Sanskrit loanwords and proper nouns. In casual speech, they are sometimes replaced with and . does not occur word-initially and has a nasalized flap as a common

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

. Loanwords from

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

(including some words which Persian itself borrowed from Arabic or Turkish) introduced six consonants, . Being Persian in origin, these are seen as a defining feature of Urdu, although these sounds officially exist in Hindi and modified

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

characters are available to represent them. Among these, , also found in English and Portuguese loanwords, are now considered well-established in Hindi; indeed, appears to be encroaching upon and replacing even in native (non-Persian, non-English, non-Portuguese) Hindi words as well as many other Indian languages such as

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

,

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

and

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, as happened in Greek with

phi Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voicele ...

. This to shift also occasionally occurs in Urdu. While is a foreign sound, it is also natively found as an allophone of /s/ beside voiced consonants. The other three Persian loans, , are still considered to fall under the domain of Urdu, and are also used by many Hindi speakers; however, some Hindi speakers assimilate these sounds to respectively. The sibilant is found in loanwords from all sources (Arabic, English, Portuguese, Persian, Sanskrit) and is well-established. The failure to maintain by some Hindi speakers (often non-urban speakers who confuse them with ) is considered nonstandard. Yet these same speakers, having a Sanskritic education, may hyperformally uphold and . In contrast, for native speakers of Urdu, the maintenance of is not commensurate with education and sophistication, but is characteristic of all social levels. The sibliant is very rare and is found in loanwords from Persian, Portuguese, and English and is considered to fall under the domain of Urdu and although it is officially present in Hindi, many speakers of Hindi assimilate it to or . Being the main sources from which Hindustani draws its higher, learned terms– English, Sanskrit,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, and to a lesser extent Persian provide loanwords with a rich array of

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

s. The introduction of these clusters into the language contravenes a historical tendency within its native core vocabulary to eliminate clusters through processes such as cluster reduction and

epenthesis In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epenth ...

. lists distinctively Sanskrit/Hindi biconsonantal clusters of initial and final , and distinctively Perso-Arabic/Urdu biconsonantal clusters of final .

Suprasegmental features

Hindustani has a stress accent, but it is not as important as in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. To predict stress placement, the concept of

syllable weight In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical Indo-European verse, as developed in Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin, distinctions of syllable ...

is needed: * A light syllable (one

mora Mora may refer to: People * Mora (surname) Places Sweden * Mora, Säter, Sweden * Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality * Mora Municipality, Sweden United States * Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community * Mora, Minnesota, a city * M ...

) ends in a short vowel : V * A heavy syllable (two moras) ends in a long vowel or in a short vowel and a consonant: VV, VC * An extra-heavy syllable (three moras) ends in a long vowel and a consonant, or a short vowel and two consonants: VVC, VCC Stress is on the heaviest syllable of the word, and in the event of a tie, on the last such syllable. If all syllables are light, the penultimate is stressed. However, the final mora of the word is ignored when making this assignment (Hussein 1997) [or, equivalently, the final syllable is stressed either if it is extra-heavy, and there is no other extra-heavy syllable in the word or if it is heavy, and there is no other heavy or extra-heavy syllable in the word]. For example, with the ignored mora in parentheses: Content words in Hindustani normally begin on a low Intonation (linguistics), pitch, followed by a rise in pitch. Ramana Rao, G.V. and Srichand, J. (1996) ''Word Boundary Detection Using Pitch Variations.'' (

IIT Madras Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it is recognized as an Institute of National Importance and has be ...

, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering) Strictly speaking, Hindustani, like most other Indian languages, is rather a

syllable-timed language Isochrony is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Rhythm is an aspect of prosody, others being intonation, stress, and tempo of speech. Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postul ...

. The

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

has a strong tendency to vanish into nothing (syncopated) if its syllable is unaccented.

References

Bibliography

* * . * . * . * . * * * . * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Hindustani Phonology Hindustani language Urdu Indo-Aryan phonologies Hindi