Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages

The IPA symbol for the schwa

Schwa deletion, or schwa syncope, is a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in Assamese, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Gujarati, and several other Indo-Aryan languages with schwas that are implicit in their written scripts. Languages like Marathi and Maithili with increased influence from other languages through coming into contact with them—also show a similar phenomenon. Some schwas are obligatorily deleted in pronunciation even if the script suggests otherwise. ^{[1] [2]} Here, schwa refers to an inherent vowel in the respective abugida scripts, not necessarily pronounced as schwa (mid central vowel).

Schwa deletion is important for intelligibility and unaccented speech. It also presents a challenge to non-native speakers and speech synthesis software because the scripts, including Devanagari, do not indicate when schwas should be deleted. ^[3]

For example, the Sanskrit word "Rāma" (IPA: [raːmɐ] , राम) is pronounced "Rām" (IPA: [raːm] , राम्) in Hindi. The schwa (ə) sound at the end of the word is deleted in Hindi. ^[4] However, in both cases, the word is written राम.

The schwa is not deleted in ancient languages such as Sanskrit. The schwa is also retained in all the modern registers of the Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam as well as the Indo-Aryan languages Odia and Sinhala. According to Masica (1993), there has been not "any attempt to deal with it [schwa deletion] (and medial vowel loss in general) in systematic fashion either descriptively or historically across all NIA [New Indo-Aryan] languages." ^[5]

Languages	Mid schwa deletion	Final schwa deletion
Assamese	Retains	Both
Bengali	Both	Both
Gujarati	Both	Deletes
Hindi	Both	Deletes
Kannada	Retains	Retains
Malayalam	Retains	Retains
Marathi	Both	Both
Odia	Retains	Retains
Punjabi	Both	Deletes
Sanskrit	Retains	Retains
Tamil	Retains	Retains
Telugu	Retains	Retains
Urdu	Deletes	Deletes

Hindi

Although the Devanagari script is used as a standard to write Modern Hindi, the schwa ('ə') implicit in each consonant of the script is "obligatorily deleted" at the end of words and in certain other contexts, unlike in Sanskrit. ^[1] That phenomenon has been termed the "schwa syncope rule" or the "schwa deletion rule" of Hindi. ^{[1] [3]} One formalisation of this rule has been summarised as ə → ∅ /VC_CV. In other words, when a schwa-succeeded consonant (itself preceded by another vowel) is followed by a vowel-succeeded consonant, the schwa inherent in the first consonant is deleted. ^{[3] [6]} However, this rule sometimes deletes a schwa that should remain and sometimes fails to delete a schwa when it should be deleted. The rule is reported to result in correct predictions on schwa deletion 89% of the time. ^[6]

Schwa deletion is computationally important because it is essential to building text-to-speech software for Hindi. ^{[6] [7]}

As a result of schwa syncope, the Hindi pronunciation of many words differs from that expected from a literal Sanskrit-style reading of Devanagari. For instance, राम is pronounced Rām (not Rāma, as in Sanskrit), रचना is pronounced Rachnā (not Rachanā), वेद is pronounced Ved (not Veda) and नमकीन is pronounced Namkīn (not Namakīna). ^{[6] [7]} The name of the script itself is pronounced Devnāgrī, not Devanāgarī. ^[8]

Correct schwa deletion is also critical because the same letter sequence is pronounced two different ways in Hindi depending on the context. Failure to delete the appropriate schwas can then change the meaning. ^[9] For instance, the letter sequence 'रक' is pronounced differently in हरकत (har.kat, meaning movement or activity) and सरकना (sarak.na, meaning to slide). Similarly, the sequence धड़कने in दिल धड़कने लगा (the heart started beating) and in दिल की धड़कनें (beats of the heart) is identical prior to the nasalisation in the second usage. However, it is pronounced dhaṛak.ne in the first and dhaṛ.kanẽ in the second. ^[9]

While native speakers pronounce the sequences differently in different contexts, non-native speakers and voice-synthesis software can make them "sound very unnatural", making it "extremely difficult for the listener" to grasp the intended meaning. ^[9]

Schwa deletion in other Indian languages

Different Indian languages can differ in how they apply schwa deletion. For instance, medial schwas from Sanskrit-origin words are often retained in Bengali even if they are deleted in Hindi. ^[10] An example of this is रचना/রচনা which is pronounced racanā (/rɐtɕɐnaː/) in Sanskrit, racnā (/rətʃnɑː/) in Hindi and rôcona (/rɔtʃona/) in Bengali. While the medial schwa is deleted in Hindi (because of the ə → ∅ / VC_CV rule), it is retained in Bengali. ^[6]

On the other hand, the final schwa in वेद /বেদ is deleted in both Hindi and Bengali (Sanskrit: /veːd̪ə/, Hindi: /veːd̪/, Bengali: /bed̪/). ^[6]

Assamese

The Assamese equivalent for schwa is the open-mid back rounded vowel or [ɔ]. Assamese deleted this vowel at the end of consonant ending words, with a few exceptions like in numerals. In clusters, it's deleted in words like কান্ধ (/kandʱ-/, shoulder), বান্ধ (/bandʱ-/, bond) while optional in the word গোন্ধ (/ɡʊnˈdʱ(ɔ)/, smell). Modern Standard Assamese developed the schwa in words like কাছ (/kaˈsɒ/, turtle), পাৰ (/paˈɹɒ/, pigeon), তই কৰ (/tɔi kɔɹɔ/, you do) which appear with different vowels in some other dialects, like কাছু /ˈkasu/, পাৰা /ˈpaɾa/, কৰাহ /ˈkɔɾaʱ/ in some Kamrupi dialects. Eastern (and its sub-dialect, Standard) and Central Assamese retained the schwa in medial positions, like নিজৰা (/niˈzɔɹa/, stream), বিচনি (/biˈsɔni/, handfan), বতৰা (/bɔˈtɔɹa/, news), পাহৰে (/paˈɦɔɹe/, forgets), নকৰে (/nɔˈkɔɹe/, doesn't do), which were deleted in some of the Kamrupi dialect, while some others kept them as /a/. Conjuncts in Sanskrit loanwords always have the schwa, and in consonants ending words (that are followed by schwa), the schwa is optionally present in words ending with suffixes, for example, শিক্ষিত from Sanskrit शिक्षित (śikṣita, "educated") is pronounced both as /ˌxikˈkʰitɔ/ and /ˌxikˈkʰit/.

Bengali

The Bengali equivalent for schwa is open-mid back rounded vowel or [ɔ]. Bengali deletes this vowel at the end when not ending in a consonant cluster but sometimes retains this vowel at the medial position. The consonant clusters at the end of a word usually follows a close-mid back rounded vowel or [o]. For example, the Sanskrit word पथ (/pɐt̪ʰɐ/, way) corresponds to the Bengali word পথ /pɔt̪ʰ/ (পথ্). But the Skt. word अन्त (/ɐnt̪ɐ/, end) retains the end vowel and becomes অন্‌তো (/ɔnt̪o/) in Bengali, as it ends with a consonant cluster.

However, tatsama borrowings from Sanskrit generally retain the 'ɔˈ except in word-final positions and except in very informal speech.

That vowel in medial position are not always retained. For instance, 'কলকাতা' is pronounced as কোল্‌কাতা (/kolkat̪a/), and not /kolɔkat̪a/ (although different pronunciations based on dialect exist, none pronounce it this way).

Gujarati

Gujarati has a strong schwa deletion phenomenon, affecting both medial and final schwas. From an evolutionary perspective, the final schwas appear to have been lost prior to the medial ones. ^[2] According to Cardona, the word-final schwa deletion occurred during the transition from Middle Gujarati to Modern Gujarati. ^[11]

Kashmiri

In the Dardic subbranch of Indoian, Kashmiri similarly demonstrates schwa deletion. For instance, drākṣa (द्राक्ष) is the Sanskrit word for grape, but the final schwa is dropped in the Kashmiri version, which is dach (दछ् or دَچھ).

Maithili

Maithili's schwa deletion differs from other neighbouring languages. It does not delete schwa, but shortens it, i.e. ə → ə̆ / VC_CV applies to the language. Maithili with increased influence of other languages through coming into contact with them has been showing the phenomenon of schwa deletion sometimes with words that traditionally pronounce schwas. For instance, हमरो is həməro (even ours) with schwas but is pronounced həmᵊro. ^[12] That is akin to the neighbouring Bhojpuri in which हमरा (meaning mine) is pronounced həmrā rather than həmərā from the deletion of a medial schwa. ^[13]

Marathi

Marathi exhibits extensive schwa deletion. ^{[14] : 95–111} The schwa at the end of a word is almost always deleted, except in the case of a few tatsama words from Sanskrit ^[15] as well as when the word ends in a conjunct. ^{[14] : 95–111} Schwas essentially get deleted when there is an opportunity for a consonant with a schwa to turn into a coda consonant for the previous syllable, though the actual rules are more complicated and have exceptions. ^{[14] : 95–111}

However, in places where the schwa occurs in the middle of words, Marathi does exhibit a propensity to pronounce it far more regularly than Hindi. Words like प्रेरणा, मानसी, केतकी retain the schwa sound in the र, न, and त respectively, often leading to their transliteration by native Marathi speakers in the Roman script as Prerana, Manasi and Ketaki rather than Prerna, Mansi or Ketki.

Sometimes, to avoid schwa deletion, an anusvara is placed at the end of the word. For example, the word खर (khar, "roughness") is often read without the schwa. When the schwa needs to be made explicit, it is written as खरं (khara, "true"). This often happens in the case of pluralization, e.g. फूल (phūl, "flower") can be written as having the plural फुलं (phula, "flowers"). This arises from the original plural marker -एं (as in फुलें phulẽ, "flowers") having degraded to a schwa in modern speech, and the anusvara serves a purpose as a non-deleted vowel even though it is not realized as a nasal. ^{[14] : 114}

Unlike other Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi, comprehension of Marathi is not impeded if all schwas are retained. However it will be interpreted as a formal register called 'Ati Shuddha Marathi', which is only used for certain plays and poetry recitals.

Nepali

Nepali orthography is comparatively more phonetic than Hindi when it comes to schwa retention. Schwas are often retained within the words unless deletion is signaled by the use of a halanta(्). सुलोचना (a name) is pronounced sulocnā by Hindi speakers while sulocanā by Nepali speakers. Some exceptions exist, such as सरकार (government), pronounced sarkār, not sarakār.

The following rules can be followed to figure out whether or not Nepali words retain the final schwa in a word.

1. Schwa is retained if the final syllable is a conjunct consonant. अन्त (anta, 'end'), सम्बन्ध (sambandha, 'relation'), श्रेष्ठ (śreṣṭha, 'greatest', a Newari last name).
   Exceptions: conjuncts such as ञ्चञ्ज in मञ्च (mañc, 'stage') गञ्ज (gañj, 'city') and occasionally the last name पन्त (panta/pant).
2. Although postpositions are written joined to the preceding word in Nepali (unlike Hindi), schwa cancellation treats the words as if they were written separately. For example, उसको (his, of him) is not pronounced as *usako; it is pronounced as if it were written उस को: usko. Similarly, रामले (Ram-ergative marker, by Ram) is pronounced rāmle rather than *rāmale.
3. For any verb form the final schwa is always retained unless the schwa-cancelling halanta is present. हुन्छ (huncha, 'it happens'), भएर (bhaera, 'in happening so; therefore'), गएछ (gaecha, 'he apparently went'), but छन् (chan, 'they are'), गईन् (gain, 'she went'). Meanings may change with the wrong orthography: गईन (gaina, 'she didn't go') vs गईन् (gain, 'she went').
4. Adverbs, onomatopoeia and postpositions usually maintain the schwa and if they don't, halanta is acquired: अब (aba 'now'), तिर (tira, 'towards'), आज (āja, 'today') सिम्सिम (simsim 'drizzle') vs झन् (jhan, 'more').
5. A few exceptional nouns retain the schwa such as: दुःख (dukha, 'suffering'), सुख (sukha, 'pleasure').

Note that schwas are often retained in music and poetry to facilitate singing and recitation.

Odia

Odia in its standardised form retains the schwa in its pronunciation as an open-mid back rounded vowel. Both medial and final schwas are retained: in the medial case ଝରଣା jharaṇā is pronounced /dʒʱɔɾɔɳā/ (waterfall) and in the final case ଟଗର ṭagara is pronounced /ʈɔgɔɾɔ/ (crepe jasmine flower).

Sanskrit loanwords or 'tatsama' words, being more formal, always have the schwa pronounced.

However, deletion is more common in a number of non-standard dialects, as well as increasingly in the speech of urban areas as a result of exposure to English and Hindi. For example, the name of the city Bhubaneshwar can be pronounced either informally as /bʰubɔneswɔɾ/, or more formally /bʰubɔneswɔɾɔ/.

Punjabi

Punjabi has broad schwa deletion rules: several base word forms (ਕਾਗ਼ਜ਼, کاغز, kāġəz/paper) drop schwas in the plural form (ਕਾਗ਼ਜ਼ਾਂ, کاغزاں, kāġzāṁ/papers) as well as with ablative (ਕਾਗ਼ਜ਼ੋਂ, کاغزوں, kāġzōṁ/from the paper) and locative (ਕਾਗ਼ਜ਼ੇ, کاغزے, kāġzé/on the paper) suffixes. ^[16]

Common transcription and diction issues

Since Devanagari does not provide indications of where schwas should be deleted, it is common for non-native learners/speakers of Hindi, who are otherwise familiar with Devanagari and Sanskrit, to make incorrect pronunciations of words in Hindustani and other modern North Indian languages. ^[17] Similarly, systems that automate transliteration from Devanagari to Latin script by hardcoding implicit schwas in every consonant often indicate the written form rather than the pronunciation. That becomes evident when English words are transliterated into Devanagari by Hindi-speakers and then transliterated back into English by manual or automated processes that do not account for Hindi's schwa deletion rules. For instance, the word English may be written by Hindi speakers as इंगलिश (rather than इंग्लिश्) which may be transliterated back to Ingalisha by automated systems, but schwa deletion would result in इंगलिश being correctly pronounced as Inglish by native Hindi-speakers. ^[18]

Some examples are shown below:

Word in Devanagari and meaning	Pronunciation in Hindi (with schwa syncope)	Pronunciation without schwa syncope	Comments
लपट (flame)	ləpəṭ	ləpəṭə	The final schwa is deleted [19]
लपटें (flames)	ləpṭeṅ	ləpəṭeṅ	The medial schwa, ləpəṭ, which was retained in लपट, is deleted in लपटें [19]
समझ (understanding)	səməjh	səməjhə	The final schwa is deleted [20]
समझा (understood, verb masc.)	səmjhā	səməjhā	The medial vowel also is deleted here, which it wasn't in समझ [20]
भारत (India)	bhārət	bhārətə	Final schwa is deleted
भारतीय (Indian)	bhārtīy	bhārətīyə	Both the medial and final schwa are deleted, although the final schwa is sometimes faintly pronounced due to the 'y' glide; when pronounced without this, the word sounds close to 'bhārtī'
देवनागरी (Devanagari, the script)	devnāgrī	devənāgərī	Two medial schwas (after व and after ग) are deleted
इंगलिश (English, the language)	inglish	ingəlishə	Medial and final schwas (after ग and after श) are deleted
विमला (Vimla, a proper name)	vimlā	viməlā	Medial schwa is deleted [21]
सुलोचना (Sulochna, a proper name)	sulochnā	sulochənā	Medial schwa is deleted [21]

Vowel nasalisation

With some words that contain /n/ or /m/ consonants separated from succeeding consonants by schwas, the schwa deletion process has the effect of nasalising any preceding vowels. ^[22] Here are some examples in Hindustani:

• sən.kī (सनकी, سنکی, whimsical) in which a deleted schwa that is pronounced in the root word sənək (सनक, سنک, whimsy) converts the first medial schwa into a nasalised vowel.
• chəm.kīlā (चमकीला, چمکیلا, shiny) in which a deleted schwa that is pronounced in the root word chəmək (चमक, چمک, shine) converts the first medial schwa into a nasalised vowel.

See also

• Schwa
• Hindustani language
• Indo-Aryan languages
• Devanagari

References

1. Larry M. Hyman; Victoria Fromkin; Charles N. Li (1988), Language, speech, and mind (Volume 1988, Part 2), Taylor & Francis, ISBN   0-415-00311-3, ...The implicit /a/ is not read when the symbol appears in word-final position or in certain other contexts where it is obligatorily deleted (via the so-called schwa-deletion rule which plays a crucial role in Hindi word phonology)...
2. Indian linguistics, Volume 37, Linguistic Society of India, 1976, 1976, ...the history of the schwa deletion rule in Gujarati has been examined. The historical perspective brings out the fact that schwa deletion is not an isolated phenomenon; the loss of final -a has preceded the loss of medial -a-;...
3. Tej K. Bhatia (1987), A history of the Hindi grammatical tradition: Hindi-Hindustani grammar, grammarians, history and problems, BRILL, ISBN   90-04-07924-6, ...Hindi literature fails as a reliable indicator of the actual pronunciation because it is written in the Devanagari script... the schwa syncope rule which operates in Hindi....
4. Ann K. Farmer; Richard A. Demers (2010). A Linguistics Workbook: Companion to Linguistics (Sixth ed.). MIT Press. p. 78. ISBN   9780262514828.
5. Masica 1993, p. 189.
6. Monojit Choudhury, Anupam Basu & Sudeshna Sarkar (July 2004), "A Diachronic Approach for Schwa Deletion in Indo Aryan Languages" (PDF), Proceedings of the Workshop of the ACL Special Interest Group on Computational Phonology (SIGPHON), Association for Computations Linguistics, ...schwa deletion is an important issue for grapheme-to-phoneme conversion of IAL, which in turn is required for a good Text-to-Speech synthesizer.... Sanskrit rəcəna, Hindi rəcna, Bengali rɔcona....
7. Naim R. Tyson; Ila Nagar (2009), "Prosodic rules for schwa-deletion in Hindi text-to-speech synthesis", International Journal of Speech Technology, 12: 15–25, doi:10.1007/s10772-009-9040-x, S2CID   8792448, ... Without the appropriate deletion of schwas, any speech output would sound unnatural. Since the orthographical representation of Devanagari gives little indication of deletion sites, modern TTS systems for Hindi implemented schwa deletion rules based on the segmental context where schwa appears ...
8. Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy (1995), The rāgs of North Indian music: their structure and evolution, Popular Prakashan, 1995, p. xi, ISBN   978-81-7154-395-3, ...The Devnāgrī (Devanāgarī) script is syllabic and all consonants carry the inherent vowel a unless otherwise indicated. The principal difference between modern Hindi and the classical Sanskrit forms is the omission in Hindi of this inherent a when in final position (e.g. rāga in Sanskrit and rāg in Hindi) and frequently in medial position (e.g. Māravā in Sanskrit and Mārvā in Hindi).
9. Monojit Choudhury; Anupam Basu (July 2004), "A Rule Based Schwa Deletion Algorithm for Hindi" (PDF), Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge-Based Computer Systems, archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-21, retrieved 2011-01-30, ... Without any schwa deletion, not only the two words will sound very unnatural, but it will also be extremely difficult for the listener to distinguish between the two, the only difference being nasalisation of the e at the end of the former. However, a native speaker would pronounce the former as dha.D-kan-eM and the later as dha.Dak-ne, which are clearly distinguishable ...
10. Anupam Basu; Udaya Narayana Singh (2005-01-01), Proceedings of the Second Symposium on Indian Morphology, Phonology & Language Engineering: Simple'05, February 5th-7th, 2005, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Central Institute of Indian Languages, 2005, ISBN   978-81-7342-137-2, ...The compound words derived from native words of Bengali show greater tendency towards {a} deletion than those derived from Sanskrit....
11. Cardona, George; Suthar, Babu (2014) [2003]. "Gujarati". The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 723.
12. George Cardona (2007-07-26), The Indo-Aryan languages, Psychology Press, 2003, ISBN   978-0-7007-1130-7, ...The two morphophonemic alternations that are very productive and regular in Maithili are schwa deletion and replacement of a by schwa. (a) Schwa deletion:... VCəCV → VC0CV.... Schwa deletion in Maithili occurs....
13. Manindra K. Verma; Karavannur Puthanvettil Mohanan (1990), Experiencer subjects in South Asian languages, Center for the Study of Language (CSLI), 1990, ISBN   978-0-937073-60-5, ...The paradigm in Bhojpuri... hamaar in isolation is genitive and has an oblique form in -aa, which according to the general principle of vowel attenuation (schwa deletion) in this language yields the form hamraa before postpositions....
14. Lambert, H.M. (1953). "Marathi Section: Characters of the Syllabary". Introduction to the Devanagari script, for students of Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Bengali. Oxford University Press.
15. Rajeshwari Pandharipande (1997). Marathi. Psychology Press. p. 571. ISBN   978-0-415-00319-3 . Retrieved 26 December 2012.
16. Tej K. Bhatia (1993), Punjabi: a cognitive-descriptive grammar, Psychology Press, 1993, ISBN   978-0-415-00320-9, ...nazar 'glance' - nazar të - nazrë. Postposition incorporation is quite productive. The stem-final schwa undergoes deletion before the vocalic postpositional elements....
17. Florian Coulmas (1991-01-08), The writing systems of the world, Wiley-Blackwell, 1991, ISBN   978-0-631-18028-9, ...in the Devanagari script, the schwa vowel is not indicated in consonant-initial syllables. This is a well-known problem for those learning to read Hindi....
18. An example is Google's automated transliteration of J. P. Singh Ahluwalia; Mohan Singh, Jepī Raipiḍa korasa ṭu sapokana Iṅgalisha: including Ingalisha pronouncing dikashanarī, Jaypee Publications, 2008, ... sapokana Iṅgalisha ...
19. Rajendra Singh; Rama Kant Agnihotri (1997), Hindi morphology: a word-based description, Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1997, ISBN   978-81-208-1446-2, ... For a pair of words eg ləpəṭ ~ ləpəṭen 'flame', one has to apply the following phonomorphological interface rules on the abstract ...
20. Masica, Colin P. (9 September 1993), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN   978-0-521-29944-2, ... on the suffixation: H. samajhna 'to understand' > samjha 'understood'. This too produces clusters, albeit unstable ones. As noted in Chapter 6, the most recent treatment (synchronic) of this "schwa-deletion" phenomenon in Hindi ...
21. Manjari Ohala (1974), The schwa-deletion rule in Hindi: phonetic and non-phonetic determinants of rule application, Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1974, ... [sulochna] ~ [sulochəna] ... schwa is conditionally deleted ...
22. G.C. Narang; Donald A. Becker (September 1971), "Aspiration and nasalization in the generative phonology of Hindustani", Language, 47 (3), Linguistic Society of America: 646–667, doi:10.2307/412381, JSTOR   412381, ... nasalized vowels are derived from underlying sequences of vowel plus nasal consonant ...