# Hindi: Swades: why romanised with "w" and a final "s"?



## chrysalid

Greetings,

I still cannot understand why they romanised the name of that film as "Swades" while the original Hindi name is स्वदेश. For me, "Svadesh" looks more correct. 

As far as I know, the consonant "w" exists in neither Hindi nor Sanskrit and देश is generally transliterated as "desh". I know that the same word might appear as "des", however, in the name of the film, it is obivously the consonant "sh". 

Any ideas?


----------



## omlick

The way titles are romanized in BW are generally left to the marketeers, and they are not linguists.  There is not necessarily any real logic to their transliterations, you can't take BW transliteration as any standard or adherence to anything.  Thus the answer to your question is the spelling "Swades" probably comes across as more charming to the Engish speaking audiences then "Svadesh"  according to the film's marketers.


----------



## Cilquiestsuens

Maybe it can be justified in this specific case because the sound 'v' actually becomes 'w' in pronounciation in a cluster after and initial 's'...


----------



## omlick

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Maybe it can be justified in this specific case because the sound 'v' actually becomes 'w' in pronounciation in a cluster after and initial 's'...


 
In a way "v" and "w" are both correct transcriptions of the व  in Hindi, that is just pure choice.  But I am sure that BW which has numerous roman spellings for the same word , is not to be taken too seriously.


----------



## BP.

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Maybe it can be justified in this specific case because the sound 'v' actually becomes 'w' in pronounciation in a cluster after and initial 's'...


Exactly what I was thinking. Look at how other _swa_-lat. se- words e.g. swaahaa, swaastica are pronounced.


----------



## Cilquiestsuens

omlick said:


> In a way "v" and "w" are both correct transcriptions of the व in Hindi, that is just pure choice. But I am sure that BW which has numerous roman spellings for the same word , is not to be taken too seriously.


 

I agree with your previous statement that a number of transliterations are quite irregular and sometimes random.

However, *v* is quite an exception in this regard. I think the most common transliterations use a v. 

Veda, Vikram, Vidya, Savitri, Kaviraj.... In these examples you will barely find any of those words written with W..

On the contrary, the cluster sw is almost never written sv, and it reflects the most common pronounciation.


----------



## tamah

Sometimes I write latinized 'व' as 'v' or sometimes as 'w' but my teacher can understand that so I agree with omlick its matter of choice.


----------



## panjabigator

Romanization is the bane of my existence!  People tend to pronounce a sound somewhere between a V and W, in my opinion.


----------



## Subhash Kumar

The 'w' in Swades is related to Romanization. But the last 's' is due to colloquial Hindi. Often, when speaking, the last 'sh' in desh or swadesh is replaced by 's'.
We would always find the word written as Swadesh स्वदेश in formal Hindi writing unless the writing itself is showing some kind of colloquial usage. The title of the Hindi film is obviously such a usage.


----------



## Faylasoof

I always Romanize the व as <w> in Swadesh. As for <desh> we say it with a <sh> ending here but always say <desii> and not <deshii>!


----------



## Birdcall

व usually sounds like something between the English v and w, like a v without buzzing, but in certain conjuncts it sounds like a full w when it would otherwise be hard to pronounce. Many people in my family speak Hindi with a Tamil accent and they usually pronounce व as a full v sound with buzzing (and they also pronounce the retroflex sha as retroflex).


----------



## omlick

Subhash Kumar said:


> The 'w' in Swades is related to Romanization. But the last 's' is due to colloquial Hindi. Often, when speaking, the last 'sh' in desh or swadesh is replaced by 's'.
> We would always find the word written as Swadesh स्वदेश in formal Hindi writing unless the writing itself is showing some kind of colloquial usage. The title of the Hindi film is obviously such a usage.


 

On the other hand, some people just say "sh" for "s". Prashad for Prasad. What the heck is that? I am talking about someone from Benares talking like that.


----------



## tamah

Well 'Swades' film is set on the backdrop of an Indian village and maybe thats why it is 'des' and not 'desh'
When I travelled Rajasthan many people used to ask something like ... 'tharo des kunso?' I never heard any Rajasthani saying it as 'desh' Dialects are designed like that maybe. 
Also I recently learnt that Gujarati people also pronunce 'sh' as 's'. So many languages and so many different ways to express. India is amazing indeed !


----------



## Birdcall

I've heard many Gujaratis switch s and sh in English at the wrong time, just like how many Indians systematically incorrectly switch v and w. Many Bengalis speaking Hindi tend to pronounce sa as sha, and they sometimes have trouble with the short vowels too (ek din --> ek deen)


----------



## panjabigator

Birdcall said:


> व usually sounds like something between the English v and w, like a v without buzzing, but in certain conjuncts it sounds like a full w when it would otherwise be hard to pronounce. Many people in my family speak Hindi with a Tamil accent and they usually pronounce व as a full v sound with buzzing (and they also pronounce the retroflex sha as retroflex).



Ah, I never met anyone who retroflexed there Sh's naturally, aside from Pandits.  As a joke, I always referred to this Sh as the Sean Connery Sh 



omlick said:


> On the other hand, some people just say "sh" for "s". Prashad for Prasad. What the heck is that? I am talking about someone from Benares talking like that.



I never heard <prasād> till I was older.  I instinctively say <prashād> - the opposite was really odd for me.



Birdcall said:


> I've heard many Gujaratis switch s and sh in English at the wrong time, just like how many Indians systematically incorrectly switch v and w. Many Bengalis speaking Hindi tend to pronounce sa as sha, and they sometimes have trouble with the short vowels too (ek din --> ek deen)



I have heard many a <sukriyā> from the Gujarati shopkeepers by my house.    Has anyone seen Jaane Tu ya Jaane na?  There is a scene where a Gujarati character pronounces the name "Sushant" as "Susant."  Cracked me up big time


----------



## tamah

Well does it all depends on the schooling and location of the person? I mean one country, one language but different state person pronounce it differently. Kindly throw some light on this as I am unaware of the same.
Speaking of 'v' and 'w' , how can one speak or write 'volkswagen' in Hindi? How does 'v' and 'w' matter in Hindi where there is only one letter 'व' for the same sound? 
In fact I think in Hindi there is no headache of using the correct alphabet for the correct spelling. And where to use 'v' and 'w' also comes through practice which I lack


----------



## lcfatima

S/sh changes are pretty widespread for people of many many language backgrounds in India; they are allophones of the same phoneme on a spoken level in these communities.

I thought des is actually des, not truly desh. Des is the original word and desh is the "vulgarization."


----------



## chrysalid

Thank you all for your contributions. I did not know about the sw- cluster actually. 

After reading the posts here, I carefully listened to some songs in Hindi and realized the "w" sound after "s", interesting. Another thing, Tamil seems to have the same thing in words borrowed from Sanskrit (I suppose). I noticed that while listening to a song in Tamil. However, it could very well be a learned way of pronouncing Sanskrit words with "sw" cluster.


----------



## Machlii5

tamah said:


> Speaking of 'v' and 'w' , how can one speak or write 'volkswagen' in Hindi? How does 'v' and 'w' matter in Hindi where there is only one letter 'व' for the same sound?


No problem in German at all, as <v> doesn't have a value of its own but is pronounced either like German <w> in words mostly borrowed from other languages, and like <f> in all the others, e.g. Vater (cf. father), vor (cf. before), Volk (= people, cf. folks). Written in devanagari, फ़ोल्क्स्वागन would be pronounced exactly as in German. 
In English of course v and w represent  different sounds, v being labiodental (upper front teeth touching lower lip), and w being bilabial (make O or U and release the tension). 
As far as I know Hindi व is spoken like English w, so the W in romanized SWADES seems totally adequate. It's rather DEVDAS I used to pronounce wrong at first. But it can't be spelled DEWDAS, as some people might then pronounce it as DYOUDAS.  
Oh, that reminds me: On German TV Swades was once announced as rhyming with spades or maids ...!


----------



## Subhash Kumar

lcfatima said:


> I thought des is actually des, not truly desh. Des is the original word and desh is the "vulgarization."


Desh is actually a Sanskrit word that has been adapted in almost all Indo-Aryan languages. Most of the languages, in their formal form (प्रमाण भाषा) retain the word as it is (as a Tatsam तत्सम word). You will see many usages of this form like Deshpremi, Deshdrohi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bangla Desh. I don't think a Hindi news reader would use "des" instead of "desh" in any of these words or for that matter in any of the words other than the name of the movie


----------



## tamah

Machlii5 said:


> Written in devanagari, फ़ोल्क्स्वागन would be pronounced exactly as in German.


yes machlii thats the correct pronunciation of the word in German but not in English . In India I have seen on car showrooms they write it as 'वोक्सवेगन' transliterating from English. I didn't dare to write that in devnagri as I can easily mess it up 
In Hebrew we don't have 'w' and the arabics don't have 'v' so it depends on language pair as well. In Hindi its not the case so it totally depends on the user!


----------



## lcfatima

> Desh is actually a Sanskrit word that has been adapted in almost all Indo-Aryan languages. Most of the languages, in their formal form (प्रमाण भाषा) retain the word as it is (as a Tatsam तत्सम word). You will see many usages of this form like Deshpremi, Deshdrohi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bangla Desh. I don't think a Hindi news reader would use "des" instead of "desh" in any of these words or for that matter in any of the words other than the name of the movie


 
Yes _desh_ is Sanskrit. At least according to Platt's _des_ is Hindi. I believe in Urdu we are supposed to say "des" as well and never "desh", and it is written with seen. The s/sh seems to express differently, depending on the word, Bangladesh, X pradesh, but Des-Pardes.


----------



## BP.

The s<=>sh shift was the source of my first linguistic shock. I understood the word as _des _but our on one occasion music teacher pronounced it desh and so did every kid. I now know the person was of Bengali origin, that does some explaining away, but I still don't know why everyone else too knew the word as _desh_.

FYI the complete switch would be s <=> sh <=> k <=> k-h <=> kh/x across languages or regional pronunciations.
In Urdu script س <=> ش <=> ک <=> کھ <=> <=> خ.
I'm being a bit dishonest by including the k in the sequence even when I've never known an example, but it just naturally fits in the transition and one of you might stumble upon an example.


----------



## Machlii5

BelligerentPacifist said:


> FYI the complete switch would be s <=> sh <=> k <=> k-h <=> kh/x across languages or regional pronunciations.
> I'm being a bit dishonest by including the k in the sequence even when I've never known an example, but it just naturally fits in the transition and one of you might stumble upon an example.


Hi, k <=> k-h <=> kh/x is widespread in Switzerland. Their regional way of speaking German does show this shift to a big extent, e.g. Küche (kitchen) turns into “Chuchi“ (with the ch spoken like Khan - from the epiglottis  ) 
s <=> sh is a common feature of my own native South-German dialect.
As to the shift between sibilant and occlusive you might consider that the imperial titles of “Kaiser“ and “Tsar“ are both derived from the name of Caesar.  But as this is a digression I'll stop here for fear of being kicked off the thread.


----------



## Faylasoof

lcfatima said:


> Yes _desh_ is Sanskrit. At least according to Platt's _des_ is Hindi. I believe in Urdu we are supposed to say "des" as well and never "desh", and it is written with seen. The s/sh seems to express differently, depending on the word, Bangladesh, X pradesh, but Des-Pardes.


 
It is true that in Urdu we usually say _des_ but _desh_ is also listed in Urdu dictionaries and some Urduphones also use it. But we usually say _des / desii_ etc.



Machlii5 said:


> ....s <=> sh is a common feature of my own native South-German dialect.
> As to the shift between sibilant and occlusive you might consider that the imperial titles of “Kaiser“ and “Tsar“ are both derived from the name of Caesar. But as this is a digression I'll stop here for fear of being kicked off the thread.


Interesting! Actually, the s <=> sh shift was one of two that was particularly mentioned in an Urdu phrase concerning good pronunciation:

ش و ق درست ہونا
_shiin <ش>  o qaaf <ق>  durust hona!_

Although other shifts are noticed between Urdu proper and the various Hindi dialects (including the x <= > kh -> fricative k = x  as in _Khan_ vs. the aspirated k [k-h] as in _k-haanaa_ = food / to eat and the aspirated ph < = > f shift as in _phuul_ [flower] vs. _fuul_, to mean the same),  it was _shiin_ < = > _siin_ shift (apart from the qaaf < = > kaaf shift ) that got emphasised. The phrase was meant to incorporate all these shifts but it specifically mentions these two.


----------



## BP.

BelligerentPacifist said:


> ...
> FYI the complete switch would be s <=> sh <=> k <=> k-h <=> kh/x across languages or regional pronunciations.
> In Urdu script س <=> ش <=> ک <=> کھ <=> <=> خ.
> ...



There's another one *ks/ksh* (_ks _being pronounced somewhat like the _x_ in _excuse_) that could well be the 'fulcrum' of this switch. We have a community /clan/caste here in Sindh called _*k.h*atrii_ (written _Khatri_) who are so named because they were the local _*ksh*atrye_ caste (note also its Persian _sh _cognate).

Another example would be H/U/P _paRau*s* _to Lat. _pro*x* _(e.g. Eng. proximity).


----------



## panjabigator

BelligerentPacifist said:


> There's another one *ks/ksh* (_ks _being pronounced somewhat like the _x_ in _excuse_) that could well be the 'fulcrum' of this switch. We have a community /clan/caste here in Sindh called _*k.h*atrii_ (written _Khatri_) who are so named because they were the local _*ksh*atrye_ caste (note also its Persian _sh _cognate).
> 
> Another example would be H/U/P _paRau*s* _to Lat. _pro*x* _(e.g. Eng. proximity).



You'll find Khatriis in both Punjabs too.  Do you prononce this with a خ or كھ?


----------



## BP.

With a  كھ.


----------

