Marathi phonology

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.

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 ['mʌɦaraːd͡z].[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 [sɐ̃s'kr̩t̪ɐ], while in day-to-day Marathi it is [səw̃'skrut̪]; in the aforementioned Northern Indo-Aryan languages, it is [səns'krɪt̪]). 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

  • Marathi used to have a /t͡sʰ/ but it merged with /s/.[4]
  • Some speakers pronounce /d͡z, d͡zʱ/ as fricatives but the aspiration is maintained in /zʱ/.[4]
  • Spoken Marathi in Marathwada-Vidarbha regions frequently simplifies the retroflexes /ɳ/, and /ʂ/ to /n/ and /s/; for example, आणि (āṇi, 'and') will be pronounced as [aːn] instead of [aːɳi].[8]
  • Unlike in Hindustani, Marathi does not contrast /ɖ/ and /ɽ/ or /ɖʱ/ and /ɽʱ/. Instead, the pairs are conditional allophones, being realized as stops in word-initial or post-nasal positions and as flaps in all other positions. [7]

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 Cluster IPA Palatalized IPA
तुल्य (tulya, 'equal') [t̪ul'jə] बाहुल्या (bahulyā, 'dolls') [baː'ɦulʲaː]
दर्या (daryā, 'ocean') [d̪ə'ɾjaː] दऱ्या (daryā, 'valleys') [d̪ə'ɾʲaː]

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 [səw̃'rəkʂəɳ] respectively. Before य (y), the anusvara is rendered as j̃: for example, संयुक्त (saṁyukta, 'joint') is pronounced as [səj̃'jukt̪ə].[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. ^ a b c d *Masica, Colin (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2
  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. ^ a b 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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