Marathi phonology

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The phoneme inventory of the Marathi language is similar to that of many other Indo-Aryan languages. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.

Contents

Vowels

Vowels in native words are:

Vowels
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e ə o
Low a

There is almost no phonemic length distinction, even though it is indicated in the script. Some educated speakers try to maintain a length distinction in learned borrowings ( tatsamas ) from Sanskrit. [1]

Unlike Konkani or Hindustani, there are no phonemic nasal vowels in Marathi. [2]

Marathi only has four phonemic diphthongs: /əi,əu,ai,au/.

There are two more vowel signs used when writing Marathi to denote the pronunciations of English words such as of /æ/ in act and /ɔ/ in all. These are written as ⟨अ‍ॅ⟩ and ⟨ऑ⟩.

Furthermore, ɤ and ʌ occur as allophones of ə , with words such as कळ (kaḷa) being pronounced as [kɤː𝼈 ] rather than [kə𝼈] and others such as महाराज (mahārāja) being pronounced as [mʌɦa.raːd͡z]. [3]

Marathi retains several features of Sanskrit that have been lost in other Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in terms of pronunciation of vowels and consonants. For instance, Marathi retains the original diphthong qualities of ⟨ऐ⟩[əi], and ⟨औ⟩[əu] which became monophthongs in Hindi. However, similar to speakers of Western Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages, Marathi speakers tend to pronounce syllabic consonant ऋ ṛ as [ru], unlike Northern Indo-Aryan languages which changed it to [ri] (e.g. the original Sanskrit pronunciation of the language's name-root saṃskṛta was [sɐ̃skr̩t̪ɐ], while in day-to-day Marathi it is [səw̃.skrut̪]; in the aforementioned Northern Indo-Aryan languages, it is [sən.skrɪt̪]). While Marathi has also undegone schwa deletion like other Indo-Aryan languages in word-final positions, it has conserved the schwas after consonant clusters in words like शब्द (śabda, word) and also reintroduced it for certain words.

Consonants

Consonants [4] [5]
Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex (Alveolo-)
palatal 		Velar Glottal
Nasal plain m n ɳ ( ɲ )( ŋ )
murmured mʱ nʱ ɳʱ
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless p t̪ t͡s ʈ t͡ɕ ~ t͡ʃ k
aspirated pʰ ~ f t̪ʰ ʈʰ t͡ɕʰ ~ t͡ʃʰ kʰ
voiced b d̪ d͡z ~ z ɖ ~ ɽ d͡ʑ ~ d͡ʒ ɡ
murmured bʱ d̪ʱ d͡zʱ ~ zʱ ɖʱ ~ ɽʱ d͡ʑʱ ~ d͡ʒʱ ɡʱ
Fricative s ʂ ɕ ~ ʃ h ~ ɦ
Approximant plain ʋ l ( ɭ ) j
murmured ʋʱ lʱ ( jʱ ) [6]
Flap/Trill plain ɾ ~ r 𝼈 [7]
murmured ɾʱ ~ rʱ

Notes

In Marathi, the Indo-Aryan ल/la/ split into a retroflex lateral flap ळ (ḷa) and alveolar ल (la). It shares this feature with Punjabi, Gujarati, and other Western Indo-Aryan languages. For example, Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam, 'clan') becomes कुळ (kuḷa) and Sanskrit कमलम् (kamalam, 'lotus') becomes कमळ (kamaḷa). Marathi may have gotten ळ due to the areal influence of the neighbouring Dravidian languages; there are some ḷ words loaned from Kannada like ṭhaḷak from taḷaku but most of the words are native. Vedic Sanskrit also had /𝼈,𝼈ʱ/, but they merged with /ɖ,ɖʱ/ by the time of classical Sanskrit. Marathi maintains this split for some words where even classical Sanskrit did not: for example, the दाडिम (dāḍima, 'pomegranate') of classical Sanskrit is डाळिंब (ḍāḷimba) in Marathi. [4]

Palatalization is phonemic for some consonants, but it has not been well studied. [9] Furthermore, palatalization is only denoted for र (r) in writing through the usage of the eyelash reph/raphar, further complicating analysis. The following table gives two minimal pairs (in Standard Marathi) as examples: [10]

Consonant ClusterIPAPalatalizedIPA
तुल्य (tulya, 'equal')[t̪ul.jə]बाहुल्या (bahulyā, 'dolls')[baːɦulʲaː]
दर्या (dar'yā, 'ocean')[d̪əɾ.jaː]दऱ्या (daryā, 'valleys')[d̪əɾʲaː]

Additionally, an anusvara may be pronounced as a nasalized approximant in certain locations. When preceding श (ś), ष (ṣ), स (s), ह (h), or र (r), it is rendered as w̃ . For example, the words संशय (saṁśaya, 'doubt') and संरक्षण (saṁrakṣaṇa, 'protection') are pronounced as [səw̃.ɕəj] and [səw̃rəkʂəɳ] respectively. Before य (y), the anusvara is rendered as j̃ : for example, संयुक्त (saṁyukta, 'joint') is pronounced as [səj̃jukt̪ə]. [11]

Some dialects tend to simplify consonant clusters that are otherwise plentiful in standard Marathi. This might be an adaptation to a faster speaking pace. For example, "त्यांच्यासाठी" is often pronounced as "त्यांसनी", eliminating the "chya" cluster. [12]

References

  1. ↑ Dhongde, Ramesh Vaman; Wali, Kashi (2009). Marathi. London Oriental and African Languages Library, 13. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  2. ↑ Sardesai, p. 547.
  3. ↑ Ghatage, p. 111.
  4. 1 2 3 4
  5. ↑ Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V. (2003). Marathi. George Cardona and Dhanesh Jain (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages: London & New York: Routledge. pp. 789–790.
  6. ↑ In Kudali dialect
  7. 1 2 Masica (1991:97)
  8. ↑ Mhaiskar, Rahul (2014-01-01). "Change in Progress: Phonology of Marathi-Hindi contact in ( Eastern Vidarbha". Academia.
  9. ↑ Jha, Aparna (1977). An outline of Marathi phonetics. Pune, India: Deccan College Press.
  10. ↑ Naik, B.S. (1971). Typography of Devanagari-1. Bombay: Directorate of Languages.
  11. ↑ Masica (1991:105)
  12. ↑ Shinde, Anisha (2021). "COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF MARATHI DIALECTS IN SATARA REGION". International Journal of Forensic Linguistic. 2.
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