# Urdu-Hindi: Are the diphthongs disappearing?



## Qureshpor

In a recent thread UM SaaHib wrote "For most m*o*lvis and others versed in Arabic the difference is not only in 3 but also "z" here as that has to be uttered with the top edge of the tongue touching top front teeth". This could have been a typo or perhaps this is how he pronounces this word, with an "o" as opposed to an "au" (maulavii).

In Urdu/Hindi, we have "ai" and "au" which now appear to be gradually moving towards "e" and "o". Have you noticed this phenomenon?


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## UrduMedium

I meant _maulvi_, as you put it.


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> I meant _maulvi_, as you put it.



aap kii taraf se safaa'ii to ho ga'ii magar savaal kaa javaab kahaaN hai?


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## UrduMedium

I thought the basis of the question was this one observation. With the observation gone, is there still the question?

Vowel transcription is tricky. maulvi can have many sounds, for example:

1. maulvii - au diphtong
2. molvii - not rhyming with the English 'mole', but with 'solve'
3. molvii - rhyming with 'mole'

I say it in the in #2 style. How best to write it in roman letters?


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## Qureshpor

^ Apologies if my post was not clear. The so called "observation" was mere padding, call it context. The second paragraph has the question and yes it still stands.


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## lcfatima

Yes, I have noticed this a lot in natural speech.


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## Alfaaz

> In Urdu/Hindi, we have "ai" and "au" which now appear to be gradually moving towards "e" and "o". Have you noticed this phenomenon?


If I have understood the question correctly: No, not really (except due to some "Urdu dialects" and/or regional differences- a combination of mother tongues being other than Urdu and not being fortunate enough (due to lack of resources/poverty) to have proper Urdu education); maybe I haven't been around "bad company" yet...


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## marrish

Alfaaz said:


> If I have understood the question correctly: No, not really (except due to some "Urdu dialects" and regional differences- a combination of mother tongues being other than Urdu and not being fortunate enough (due to lack of resources/poverty) to have proper Urdu education); maybe I haven't been around "bad company" yet...


I partly agree with this especially with you pointing to some who might not be fortunate enough to have a proper Urdu education, but this very commonly applies to well-to-do people choosing for English education and not giving importance to Urdu?

As to the original question, I believe we have discussed this in numerous threads although in a scattered manner and what I remember is the fact of Western vs. Eastern Urdu. 

It would be unfortunately to say something about if a gradual evolution has been taking place, because one would have to observe the speech patterns of particular persons for years together or look to the differences between generations.

Of course I'm familiar with speech patterns where people don't pronounce diphthongs at all but this might be caused by various reasons. In that case, I wouldn't be saying there is some evolution at play.


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## tonyspeed

QURESHPOR said:


> In a recent thread UM SaaHib wrote "For most m*o*lvis and others versed in Arabic the difference is not only in 3 but also "z" here as that has to be uttered with the top edge of the tongue touching top front teeth". This could have been a typo or perhaps this is how he pronounces this word, with an "o" as opposed to an "au" (maulavii).
> 
> In Urdu/Hindi, we have "ai" and "au" which now appear to be gradually moving towards "e" and "o". Have you noticed this phenomenon?



Can you give any examples, particularly of the "ai" to "e" shift?


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> Can you give any examples, particularly of the "ai" to "e" shift?



I hope I will be able to but I can't immediately think of an example right this moment in time. I shall try to think of one or two examples.


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## lcfatima

How do you normally hear people say 'jaib'?


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## UrduMedium

lcfatima said:


> How do you normally hear people say 'jaib'?


I hear and say it _jeb_. I mean _jeb _meaning pocket. Is it supposed to be pronounced _jaib_?


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## souminwé

The diphthongs have been long dead, becoming modern æ and ɔ. Perhaps  ɔ gets confused with o sometimes, but I have never heard e for æ.

As for "jeb", it is the only way I would pronounce it, and that  is reflected in both Hindi and Bengali spelling ( जेब , জেব )


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## tonyspeed

souminwé said:


> The diphthongs have been long dead, becoming modern æ and ɔ.



Well at least in some dialects of Hindi/Urdu. I still hear some people say aa-uu in the word for 9, naa-uu. 
And in the South I think you can still hear a clear a-ii in kaise and other words.

I was listening to one speech and it sounded like in saying maut he mispronounced and said mot once and then went back to maut. Maybe the pronunciation of the dipthong in Urdu aa-uu has grown closer to 'o' to the extent that it is easier to mispronounce it as 'o' but it is still not quite the same.


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## hindiurdu

souminwé is right in that dipthongs have long been dead in Hindi-Urdu for औ (ɔ) and ऐ (æ). Only in Eastern Hindi/Bihari dialects do you get 'au' and 'ai' for these. And, correct, Southern Indians pronounce them this way as well - might be the old Sanskrit influence. This applies to Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic root words alike, i.e. is a genuine internal development specific to Indo-Aryan. Persians pronounce Haider as Haa-eedar, whereas North Indians and Pakistanis (NIPs) say 'Hædar'. Similarly, Hairaan (surprised) becomes 'Hæraan' for NIPs. This also applies to English words that require dipthongal pronunciation, e.g. Powder or House. Non-English speaking NIPs will often say, 'Pɔdar' instead of 'Paa-udar' and 'Hɔz' instead of 'Haa-uz'. This last is funny because Hɔz (Hauz) means 'water pond' in Hindi-Urdu.

However, under other influences (eg Punjabi) there is sometimes shift even in the non-dipthongal pronunciations. So, 'Mɔlvi' (मौलवी, مولوی) is the correct standard pronunciation for 'Maulvi' but under Punjabi influence 'ɔ' becomes 'o' and people will say Molvi (मोलवी) too in Delhi, Lahore, Chandigarh, Shimla, etc.

UrduMedium, 'jeb' is correct. No one says 'jaib' (jæb), which would be the same vowel sound as 'bail' (bæl, ox). However, Persians will pronounce this word as 'jeeb' which is a very common pronunciation difference with Indo-Aryan speakers and Persian speakers. seb-seeb (apple), mez-meez/mezban-meezban (table). Although, note that Dari (Afghan Farsi) speakers speak it like NIPs, which is why NIPs have an easier time understanding what Dari-speakers are saying than people from Tehran (where even words common to Hindi-Urdu and Farsi are often tough to follow until you get the hang of it). Of course, Punjabi changes this too and you do hear something that resembles 'mira' instead of 'mera' (mine) sometimes, but never 'meera'. At speed the last -a can be deleted, 'meri kitab' (my book) can sound like 'mirkitab' in Punjabi-influenced Hindi-Urdu.


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## Faylasoof

It really depends on many things whether a diphthong is heard or not and yes there may even be an East-West divide in this.

We (i.e. yours truly, family and many close friends) are “diphthongers” and are trying to keep the diphthong alive. So although we hear ‘_jeb_’ a lot – so much so that we too falter into it – mostly we say ‘_jaib_’. Those not used to hearing “_jaib_” (which is most people we come across) think us strange - perhaps _mirriixii _or _birjiisii_. But for us it is ‘_jaib_’ and  _pair _( = foot, and never _per_, though we do say _peR_ = tree, as it is meant to be and do not put a diphthong here!) and _ghair _( = stranger) and _be-ghairat_ (= shameless, brazen) and _Hairaan_ (= perplexed, bewildered) and _Hairat_ (= amazement, wonder etc) and _Haid*a*r_ and _HauDh_ (_Hauz_ = pool).

Also, it is _pairnaa_ (= to swim) and _tairnaa_ (=  to float), just as it is _maulaanaa _and _maul*a*vi_ (never _molaanaa_ and _molvi_) for us. Similarly, it is _mausam, mauqa3_, and there is a truly a huge difference between a _bail_ (= ox) and a _bel_ ( a creeper) !

So it is diphthongs all the way for us but more and more I hear the flattening of  these diphthongs - a process that has been going on for a long while. In Urdu proper we are meant to pronounce our diphthongs clearly.


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## BP.

Greetings once more everyone


QURESHPOR said:


> ...
> In Urdu/Hindi, we have "ai" and "au" which now appear to be gradually moving towards "e" and "o". Have you noticed this phenomenon?


I have just experienced the opposite in کریلہ and ڈکیت.

Generally yes I'd agree, younger people seem to be rounding off their diphthongs where their parents don't.


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## BP.

hindiurdu said:


> ... 'Mɔlvi' (मौलवी, مولوی) is the correct standard pronunciation for 'Maulvi' but under Punjabi influence 'ɔ' becomes 'o' and people will say Molvi (मोलवी) too in Delhi, Lahore, Chandigarh, Shimla, etc. ...


 I'd differ slightly and say it's _maulawii_, but that risks branching off into the topic of systematic elision.


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> I partly agree with this especially with you pointing to some who might not be fortunate enough to have a proper Urdu education, but this very commonly applies to well-to-do people choosing for English education and not giving importance to Urdu?


Yes, I would agree that people from any part/level of society can be included. 



			
				hindiurdu said:
			
		

> souminwé is right in that dipthongs have long been dead in Hindi-Urdu for औ (ɔ) and ऐ (æ). Only in Eastern Hindi/Bihari dialects do you get 'au' and 'ai' for these. And, correct, Southern Indians pronounce them this way as well - might be the old Sanskrit influence. This applies to Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic root words alike, i.e. is a genuine internal development specific to Indo-Aryan. Persians pronounce Haider as Haa-eedar, whereas North Indians and Pakistanis (NIPs) say 'Hædar'. Similarly, Hairaan (surprised) becomes 'Hæraan' for NIPs.


Welcome to the forum hindiurdu! I would somewhat disagree with your opinion, because many people do still pronounce the words correctly, as Faylasoof SaaHib has detailed above in his post.



			
				hindiurdu said:
			
		

> but under Punjabi influence 'ɔ' becomes 'o' and people will say Molvi


As I mentioned in my post above, there will be differences in pronunciations due to many factors. (Note: not a Punjabi expert) However, I would say that even while speaking Punjabi, many would pronounce it maulawi (and consider molvi wrong).



			
				hindiurdu said:
			
		

> Of course, Punjabi changes this too and you do hear something that resembles 'mira' instead of 'mera' (mine) sometimes, but never 'meera'. At speed the last -a can be deleted, 'meri kitab' (my book) can sound like 'mirkitab' in Punjabi-influenced Hindi-Urdu.


Again, I would partially disagree with this as there are many people who would say "meri kitaab" in both Urdu and Punjabi...


			
				BelligerentPacifist said:
			
		

> Greetings once more everyone


Greetings to you as well!


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## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> It really depends on many things whether a diphthong is heard or not and yes there may even be an East-West divide in this.
> 
> We (i.e. yours truly, family and many close friends) are “diphthongers” and are trying to keep the diphthong alive. So although we hear ‘_jeb_’ a lot – so much so that we too falter into it – mostly we say ‘_jaib_’. Those not used to hearing “_jaib_” (which is most people we come across) think us strange - perhaps _mirriixii _or _birjiisii_. But for us it is ‘_jaib_’
> ....



Faylasoof saahab, your response encouraged me to look up a dictionary (one I have handy is Feroz-ul-Lughaat jaami3). It lists two distinct words as جیب

The first one is pronounced _jaib _(like you describe above, _ba-fath-i-awwal, wa-sukuun-i-dom-o-som_). This is a _masculine _noun, with an _Arabic _origin. This one means _girebaan _(not sure hot to translate to English).

The second one listed is _jeb _(_ba-yaa-i-majhuul_) which is a _feminine _noun with _Urdu _origin. This one means pocket.

In your example above, which of these two were you referring to?


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## UrduMedium

Please make sure we are making a distinction between _molvii _(o rhymes with English _hole_), and _mɔlvii _(o rhymes with English _solve_). I think the latter is very common and also how I have always said it.


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## hindiurdu

BelligerentPacifist said:


> I'd differ slightly and say it's _maulawii_, but that risks branching off into the topic of systematic elision.



I disagree with that. It is extremely rare that a schwa in that position would be pronounced by Hindi-Urdu speakers. The rule is that in [vowel-consonant-schwa-consonant-vowel] situations, the middle schwa is compulsorily deleted. So, /mɔːləviː/ → /mɔːlviː/. Hindi-Urdu speakers will normally spell it in Roman as "Maulvi" also, and almost never "Maulavi". Maulvi has 1.5 million hits on Google and Maulavi has 280k (tellingly the top four are Malayalam, Tamil, Arab and Afghan). There are hundreds of words like this btw, both Sanskrit and Persian. Sadak (सड़क, سڈک) is 'sadak' but (सड़कें, سڑکیں) is sadken, not sadaken (medial schwa deletion). This is an overpoweringly strong tendency in native Hindi-Urdu and retaining these schwas is a strong marker of people who are non-native speakers. Similarly for Arab (ethnicity) - Arab and Arbi, not Arabi (check out "Quran ki Arabi Zuban- Arabi e Mu'ala (01) - Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, youtube at about 2:30). People say 'Arbi zubaan mein xyz' not 'Arabi zubaan mein xyz'. Religious minded people or those schooled in Sanskrit or Persian/Arabic will retain these schwas sometimes (and it sounds affected) but not common speakers. Even really religious Hindus and Muslims cannot help but delete these Sanskrit/Arabic schwas when they speak unconsciously at speed. This is a local development in Northern Indo-Aryan. It is not derived from any other branch or language.


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## hindiurdu

UrduMedium said:


> Please make sure we are making a distinction between _molvii _(o rhymes with English _hole_), and _mɔlvii _(o rhymes with English _solve_). I think the latter is very common and also how I have always said it.



Yes, preserving that distinction, Punjabi-influenced people do say molvii (rhyming with h'o'le). They also say 'or' instead of 'ɔr' (for और/اور meaning 'and') and 'bot' instead of bɔhɔt (meaning a lot). Not all of them, but it's common enough. Punjabi actually seems to gravitate towards this 'o' a lot as even 'u' sounds become this. 'udhar' becomes 'odar', 'mauj' becomes 'moj', 'fauj' becomes 'foj'. Of course, they also make 'u' out of 'o' - 'poshak' becomes 'pushak'


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## hindiurdu

Faylasoof, I wish you luck with this. But you are really swimming against the tide on this. Northern Indo-Aryan, especially North-Western Indo-Aryan, has been demolishing schwas and diphthongs for over 2000 years now in defiance of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic tradition alike. There seems to be something intrinsic to these languages that makes this preferred. You may want to read about 'Preferred Syllable Structures'. In order to really preserve these, you may have to switch the language itself. In Eastern Hindi languages and Bengali, there are distinct modes of speaking from Western/Standard Hindi-Urdu which is largely based on the Khariboli dialect. There is a different music to these languages. You will notice that they often also say 'ha-ee' for 'hai' (है, ہے). Standard HU does not. You might enjoy the sweet 'Tadbeer se bidgi hui taqdeer bana le' (youtube) song - note how she turns 'le' to 'lei' - very diphthongal and very wrong for standard HU, but delicious!


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## UrduMedium

hindiurdu said:


> Yes, preserving that distinction, Punjabi-influenced people do say molvii (rhyming with h'o'le). They also say 'or' instead of 'ɔr' (for और/اور meaning 'and') and 'bot' instead of bɔhɔt (meaning a lot). Not all of them, but it's common enough. Punjabi actually seems to gravitate towards this 'o' a lot as even 'u' sounds become this. 'udhar' becomes 'odar', 'mauj' becomes 'moj', 'fauj' becomes 'foj'. Of course, they also make 'u' out of 'o' - 'poshak' becomes 'pushak'


 Very interesting and insightful observations. Welcome to the forum, _hindiurdu!_


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## hindiurdu

UrduMedium said:


> Very interesting and insightful observations. Welcome to the forum, _hindiurdu!_



Thank you UrduMedium!


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## ihaveacomputer

hindiurdu said:


> ...and 'bot' instead of bɔhɔt (meaning a lot). Not all of them, but it's common enough...



Hmm, wouldn't you agree that "bɔt" with a rising tone is much more common than "bot"? I'm not a native speaker and don't yet have extensive experience with different dialects, but I can't recall ever making a mental note of "bot" during my time spent in Indian Punjab. Furthermore, the form I'm proposing is taught on page 70 of Mangat Rai Bhardwaj's Colloquial Punjabi: 

"A similar problem is exemplified by bahut ਬਹੁਤ which is pronounced as [bɔt {+rising tone indicated by author with an acute accent}]. The rule of pronunciation in this case is, if you find -hu or [ਹੁ] in the middle or at the end of a word in Punjabi, pronunce it as [ɔ{+´}]"

Sorry for veering off topic!


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## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> souminwé is right in that dipthongs have long been dead in Hindi-Urdu for औ (ɔ) and ऐ (æ). Only in Eastern Hindi/Bihari dialects do you get 'au' and 'ai' for these. And, correct, Southern Indians pronounce them this way as well - might be the old Sanskrit influence. This applies to Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic root words alike, i.e. is a genuine internal development specific to Indo-Aryan. Persians pronounce Haider as Haa-eedar, whereas North Indians and Pakistanis (NIPs) say 'Hædar'. Similarly, Hairaan (surprised) becomes 'Hæraan' for NIPs. This also applies to English words that require dipthongal pronunciation, e.g. Powder or House. Non-English speaking NIPs will often say, 'Pɔdar' instead of 'Paa-udar' and 'Hɔz' instead of 'Haa-uz'. This last is funny because Hɔz (Hauz) means 'water pond' in Hindi-Urdu.
> 
> I am not sure if the Persians (all of them) pronounce the word "Haidar" in the manner you depict but this is not important for this thread because it is not Farsi that is under discussion. It is also interesting how you lump together all Pakistanis (from the border with China to the Arabian Sea and the western extremities of Baluchistan) as one coherent diphthong pronouncing/mispronouncing unit! I am also intrigued by your pronunciation of the English word "house" as "haa-uz". Pray, do tell us the locality where English speakers pronounce this word in this fashion. Powder/poDar etc are not really helpful to this discussion.
> 
> However, under other influences (eg Punjabi) there is sometimes shift even in the non-dipthongal pronunciations. So, 'Mɔlvi' (मौलवी, مولوی) is the correct standard pronunciation for 'Maulvi' but under Punjabi influence 'ɔ' becomes 'o' and people will say Molvi (मोलवी) too in Delhi, Lahore, Chandigarh, Shimla, etc.
> 
> Have you or someone else that you are aware of carried out a study on this vowel shift where Punjabi has influenced this change? Is this influence uniform both in India and in Pakistan or is it greater or lesser in one than the other? I am asking this because Punjab, geographically, is a fair distance away from at least some Urdu/Hindi speaking areas. Are Hindi speakers of Bengali background also being effected by this highly contagious wave that is converting the diphthong to an "o" vowel?
> 
> Of course, Punjabi changes this too and you do hear something that resembles 'mira' instead of 'mera' (mine) sometimes, but never 'meera'. At speed the last -a can be deleted, 'meri kitab' (my book) can sound like 'mirkitab' in Punjabi-influenced Hindi-Urdu.
> 
> What dialect of Punjabi do you speak where you end up saying "mirkitab"? You must speak at lightning speed!


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## Qureshpor

^What are "dom" and "som" UM SaaHib?


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## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> Yes, preserving that distinction, Punjabi-influenced people do say molvii (rhyming with h'o'le). They also say 'or' instead of 'ɔr' (for और/اور meaning 'and') and 'bot' instead of bɔhɔt (meaning a lot). Not all of them, but it's common enough. Punjabi actually seems to gravitate towards this 'o' a lot as even 'u' sounds become this. 'udhar' becomes 'odar', 'mauj' becomes 'moj', 'fauj' becomes 'foj'. Of course, they also make 'u' out of 'o' - 'poshak' becomes 'pushak'



Are you aware how other people whose mother tongue is not Urdu or Hindi pronounce maulavii/aur/bahut/udhar/fauj/poshaak and the like when speaking Urdu or Hindi or is this phenomenon that you are describing just restricted to Punjabis speaking Urdu or Hindi? I am once again assuming that you have access to some such study that has been carried out in which samples of all Urdu/Hindi speakers whose mother tongue is not Urdu/Hindi have been taken and the conclusion that has been drawn is that everyone barring Punjabis pronounces these types of words perfectly! At least this is how I am understanding your statements about Punjabi speakers' influence on Urdu and Hindi speech.

Do you pronounce "udhar" has "odar" when speaking Urdu or Hindi? I seem to get it right every time with my eyes closed and even standing on one leg on occasions! Perhaps, I am endowed with some unique power that most other people don't possess.


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## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> ^What are "dom" and "som" UM SaaHib?


دوم اور سوم


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## UrduMedium

It is rare to hear _maulvii _pronounced _molvii _(rhyming with hole). Ditto for _maulvii _and _maulavii_. I cannot recall hearing these except from religious types (with Urdu heavily Arabic-influenced). What I hear from all types of ethnic accents is mOlvii (rhyme with solve).


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> دوم اور سوم



I could be wrong but I fear "dom"/"som" are incorrect pronunciations. I think these words have been discussed in a separate thread.


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## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> Faylasoof saahab, your response encouraged me to look up a dictionary (one I have handy is Feroz-ul-Lughaat jaami3). It lists two distinct words as جیب
> 
> The first one is pronounced _jaib _(like you describe above, _ba-fath-i-awwal, wa-sukuun-i-dom-o-som_). This is a _masculine _noun, with an _Arabic _origin. This one means _girebaan _(not sure hot to translate to English).
> 
> The second one listed is _jeb _(_ba-yaa-i-majhuul_) which is a _feminine _noun with _Urdu _origin. This one means pocket.
> 
> In your example above, which of these two were you referring to?


 UM SaaHib, I do see what you mean but جیب is really _jaib_ :

A *جيب jaib*, *vulg. jeb*, s.f. _The opening at the neck and  bosom (of a shirt, &c.); the breast-collar (of a garment);_ the heart; the bosom; (the Arabs often carry things within the bosom of the shirt, &c.; and hence the word is now applied by them to) _'a pocket' _(i_n which sense the Turks, Persians, and Indians pronounce it jeb_):—_jaib-pāra_, adj. Having the collar rent; sad:—_jaib-ćākī_, s.f. Heart-rending:—_jeb-i-ḵẖāṣ_, s.f. A privy purse:—_jeb-ḵẖarć_, s.m. Pocket-money:—_jeb-katrā_, s.m. A pickpocket: _jeb katarnā_ (-_kī_), To pick the pocket (of):—_jeb-ghaṛī_, s.f. A watch.

In Farsi it did change which affected us because our ancestors were indeed once Persophones. However, in some families a switch back to a diphthonged version -the original Arabic - was made. Not everyone follows this of course. 

One could say that in a sense it doesn't matter as the context tells you which (_jaib_ / _jeb_, as per your reference) might be meant. But having said this, no one I know who recited these verses ever bothered to say _jaib_, as they should have (that is apart from my family members and some close friends:


جوں صبح، چاکِ *جَیب* مجھے تار و پود تھا
بازی خورِ فریب ہے ایلِ نظر کا ذوق


چپک رہا ہے بدن پر لہو سے پیراہن
ہمارے *جَیب* کو اب حاجتِ رفو کیا ہے


غالبؔ


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## Faylasoof

hindiurdu said:


> Faylasoof, I wish you luck with this. But you are really swimming against the tide on this. Northern Indo-Aryan, especially North-Western Indo-Aryan, has been demolishing schwas and diphthongs for over 2000 years ...........there are distinct modes of speaking from Western/Standard Hindi-Urdu which is largely based on the Khariboli dialect. There is a different music to these languages. You will notice that they often also say 'ha-ee' for 'hai' (है, ہے). Standard HU does not. You might enjoy the sweet 'Tadbeer se bidgi hui taqdeer bana le' (youtube) song - note how she turns 'le' to 'lei' - very diphthongal and very wrong for standard HU, but delicious!


 Thank you for your sentiments but I need neither luck nor opinions from non-native Urdu speakers who might never have learnt proper Urdu pronunciation! You are new here, it seems, so allow me to inform that swimming against the tide is neither daunting nor new to me. I’m not interested in the common mispronunciation of the plebs and the “_juhhaal_”! What is _Ghalat-ul-3aam_ may be _3aam_ but it is plain _Ghalat_ (wrong) !

I agree that Urdu has its roots in KhaRii Bolii, a point that has been discussed numerous times in this forum, but Urdu has gone beyond KhaRii Bolii, and the latter, bye the way, did have diphthongs because Prakrit did too! Please see the Indic words I list above. Many are of Prakrit origin and when it comes to the pronunciation of borrowed Arabic and Persian words, we’ve kept diphthonged forms as I’ve already mentioned above.

Dropping diphthongs means poor Urdu diction. Period!

I don’t agree with much of what you say above. If you are suggesting that Western Urdu (Delhi, Agra, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Panipat) has no diphthongs then I don’t think you know Urdu! Both Eastern and Western dialects of Urdu proper have and have always had diphthongs.

Incidentally, I’m by no means alone in keeping the diphthong alive! There are plenty of Urdu lovers (even in this forum) who do care about this language and its correct diction.

BTW, live youtube links are not allowed! I had to delete it!


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## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> ^ Is it a typo above, in _hamar*e* jeb_? I have always heard/read it as _hamar*ii* jeb_?


This is interesting! I have two very reliable versions of Ghalib's _diiwaan_ (plus another one which I can’t be  so sure of). One has *hamaare jaib *(diacritics for _jaib_ shown) and the other *hamaarii jaib / jeb *(no diacritics).

If we go by your *jaib* (masc.) = *garebaan*, then it'll be *hamaare jaib*, i.e. *hamaare garebaan* <--- this makes more sense to me!

If, however, we go by your *jeb* (fem.) = *pocket*, then it should be *hamaarii jeb* (but also *jaib* for some to also mean _pocket_, not just *garebaan* - same pronunciation but different gender).

It'll be good to find out what others have in their copies of Mirza SaaHib's _diiwaan_ and the opinions of various scholars. Which one do they think it is supposed to be.


In a sense this reminds me of Iftakhar Aarif SaaHib's _umaid_ (with a diphthong!) as opposed to _umiid_. But that was a slightly different argument as it didn't involve gender of the noun though the pronunciation issue was there.

Edit: _UM SaaHib, I see you deleted your post to which I was replying! Anyway, I think something interesting may come out of what I say here!_


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## UrduMedium

^ My copy of the diiwaan lists ہماری جیب. "Diiwaan-i-Ghalib Musavvar (by A. R. Chughtai)", published aiwaan-i-ishaa3at Lahore.

I can see you preference for _jaib=girebaan_ meaning. On the other hand a hole in the pocket can have severe consequences for a person, hence it's more deserving of the _rafuu_. 

Edit: I recall _hamaarii jeb_ also from the Indian drama serial, Mirza Ghalib (by Gulzar). Jagjit Singh's rendering of the ghazal for the serial also uses _hamaarii jeb_.


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## Faylasoof

hindiurdu said:


> I disagree with that. It is extremely rare that a schwa in that position would be pronounced by Hindi-Urdu speakers. The rule is that in [vowel-consonant-schwa-consonant-vowel] situations, the middle schwa is compulsorily deleted. So, /mɔːləviː/ → /mɔːlviː/. Hindi-Urdu speakers will normally spell it in Roman as "_Maulvi" also, and almost never "Maulavi"_. Maulvi has 1.5 million hits on Google and Maulavi has 280k (tellingly the top four are Malayalam, Tamil, Arab and Afghan). ....Similarly for Arab (ethnicity) - _Arab and Arbi, not Arabi_ (check out "Quran ki _Arabi_ Zuban- Arabi e Mu'ala (01) - Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, youtube at about 2:30). People say '_Arbi zubaan mein xyz' not 'Arabi zubaan mein xyz_'. Religious minded people or those schooled in Sanskrit or Persian/Arabic will retain these schwas sometimes (and it sounds affected) but not common speakers. _Even really religious Hindus and Muslims cannot help but delete these Sanskrit/Arabic schwas when they speak unconsciously at speed._ _This is a local development in Northern Indo-Aryan._ It is not derived from any other branch or language.


_I’m sorry but you are wrong on both counts! It is 3ar__a__bii / ‘ar__a__bii !_

A عربي *ʻar**a**bī *(rel. n. fr. _ʻ__arab_), m. = P عربيه _ʻ__arabīya_ (for A. _ʻ__arabīyat_), f. adj. & s. Arabian; Arabic;—an Arab; an Arabian horse;—the Arabic language

_As you have it (‘Arbi) is plain wrong! Similarly it is maulavii  and not what you have!  We pronounce both, the ‘au’ diphthong and the ‘a’ Harakat after the  ‘laam’._


*مولوی (mowl**a**vee)* Noun A 1. One of the order of dervishes founded by Djalaleddin-Roomi, famous poet. See مولانا || By ext. A dervish. 2. R. A learned man; also, a doctor of the law or lawyer. 3. [For کلاه مولوی] A kind of turban. smaller than the ordinary turbans. [O.S.] My lord or master.


*a مولوی maul**a**wī*, Judicial, belonging to a judge or magistrate; a doctor of the Muhammadan law; an assistant lawyer; a learned man; divine, religious, belonging to God; a dervīsh, Muhammadan monk;--kulāhi maulawī, A kind of high woollen cap worn by them.

_
Although Platts doesn’t seem to list maulavi ( he does list _*مولانا मौलाना*_ m*au*laanaa- with a diphthong, as it should be), but he does mention this name: *Maulavī Rūmī*_

_None of this has anything to do with religion and everything to do with good Urdu / Hindi teaching and learning!_


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## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> ^ My copy of the diiwaan lists ہماری جیب. "Diiwaan-i-Ghalib Musavvar (by A. R. Chughtai)", published aiwaan-i-ishaa3at Lahore.
> 
> I can see you preference for _jaib=girebaan_ meaning. On the other hand a hole in the pocket can have severe consequences for a person, hence it's more deserving of the _rafuu_.
> 
> Edit: I recall _hamaarii jeb_ also from the Indian drama serial, Mirza Ghalib (by Gulzar). Jagjit Singh's rendering of the ghazal for the serial also uses _hamaarii jeb_.


 Thanks for the Chughtai reference! 
Well, I'm not going to make a fuss about _jaib / garebaan _(collar / breast of garment) versus _jaib / jeb_ (pocket). It was just my gut feeling since _garebaan_ has a lot to do with a very obvious sign of somebody's disposition. Used a lot in poetry. But you are right, a hole in the pocket can have grave consequences. However, if your _garebaan_ gets _chaak_ it too will need _rafuu_ (darning)!


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## hindiurdu

Faylasoof said:


> _I’m sorry but you are wrong on both counts! It is 3ar__a__bii / ‘ar__a__bii !_



No yaar, it's not. Yes, people do often write Arabi, but they actually say 'Arbi' - surely you see this in your daily life. I can show you zillions of examples (did you even *listen* to the YouTube video)? It's no different than Garam (colloquial) → Garmi. Remember, arab is also a number in HindiUrdu (= a billion). 'Aik arab rupae' but 'Arbon rupae' not 'Arabon' rupae. Similarly, 'aik arab se baat ki' and 'kaee arbon se baat ki', not 'kaee arabon se baat ki'. If you are pronouncing the two Arab plurals differently, it means you're putting in some special effort into it which most speakers aren't going to do.
_
_


Faylasoof said:


> _As you have it (‘Arbi) is plain wrong! Similarly it is maulavii  and not what you have!  We pronounce both, the ‘au’ diphthong and the ‘a’ Harakat after the  ‘laam’._



Then what is your explanation for 1.5m Google hits for 'Maulvi' and 280k for 'Maulavi'?
​ 



Faylasoof said:


> _None of this has anything to do with religion and everything to do with good Urdu / Hindi teaching and learning!_



According to who? The point I am making is this - the language itself has a preferred syllable structure, which is extremely well documented in linguistic literature. Yes, Sanskrit-aware people will say 'Tulasi' instead of 'Tulsi' and Arabic-aware people will say 'Maulavi' instead of 'Maulvi'. They might also say 'paurush' and 'maulvi' diphthongally, but this is not the natural rhythm of this language. This is why the uncaring majority will say 'maulvi', 'arbi', 'tulsi'. Hindi-Urdu isn't Arabic or Persian or Sanskrit. With things like this, you can try as hard as you want and people wont change. School → Iskool. Snan → Isnan. Make that Askool and Asnan if you're Punjabi. The British tried fixing it for 200 years. Can't be done unless you teach them English itself and embed its preferred structures in their minds.

This is just one example. There are so many others. Western HU speakers have a tendency to make v's out of w's if they are in a leading position in the syllable and precede a vowel. So, War → Var, Wow → vow. They make w's out of all v's in medial positions. Advertise → Adwertise. Eastern Hindi speakers, Maharashtrians and Arabs make w's out of everything. Dev → Dew → Deo. Persians (and some Northern Punjabis) make v's out of everything. Wazifa → Vazifeh. It *can't* be helped. You can try to teach people their way out of it but it is like defying gravity. It's going to take permanent effort. Please don't be offended. I am not advocating any pronunciation and really have no preferences here. Just reporting it like I see it.


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## UrduMedium

^ I see what HU is describing all the time. An inherent linguistic preference theory sounds interesting. 

Perhaps it would be interesting to see counter examples of indigenous HU words (not Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian loans) where such short vowels are pronounced. Any usages where the middle short vowel of words like arab (number), kharab (number), saRak, etc are preserved while modifying the word with other vowels?


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## UrduMedium

There may be some truth in the Eastern Hindi-Urdu caring much more about the diphthong than the Western. I have a sample of one, a friend from Patna (Bihar) who tends to use all the diphthongs in words like _pauda_, _maulvii, baiThak,_and so on. At time I notice an extra short vowel after the 'h' in a word like _kahte _(which most Karachiites will say _kehte_), resulting in something sounding like _kahite_. Often also using noun genders also that are alien to me.


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## greatbear

hindiurdu said:


> Hindi-Urdu isn't Arabic or Persian or Sanskrit.



Couldn't have been more brilliantly put.


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## UrduMedium

UrduMedium said:


> ^ I see what HU is describing all the time. An inherent linguistic preference theory sounds interesting.
> 
> Perhaps it would be interesting to see counter examples of indigenous HU words (not Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian loans) where such short vowels are pronounced. Any usages where the middle short vowel of words like arab (number), kharab (number), saRak, etc are preserved while modifying the word with other vowels?



HU, is _bandaroN _(plural of _bandar_) an indigenous counter example of your theory? I know some people may say _bandroN_, but can also visualize many saying _bandaroN _without much training_, _preserving the short-vowel after d. Or does this not fit the mould?


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## greatbear

I don't think "bandar" qualifies, since I don't recognise it to have a schwa: which is a short vowel sound, which does not seem to me the case with "bandar". There is another word in Hindi, "dar" (which means "rate"): the plural remains "daroN", not "droN", and again there is no question of schwa deletion, since in the first case there is no schwa.
In my opinion, it would be difficult to come up with counter examples, since what HU describes are very good observations of patterns the way Hindi-Urdu has been following. Some people might love to pronounce "maul*a*vii", but languages are defined by what _is_ "aam", not by hypothetical notions of purity and/or good diction.


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## hindiurdu

QURESHPOR said:


> Do you pronounce "udhar" has "odar" when speaking Urdu or Hindi? I seem to get it right every time with my eyes closed and even standing on one leg on occasions! Perhaps, I am endowed with some unique power that most other people don't possess.



You a rural speaker of Punjabi? No, you're probably someone that is educated in Hindi/Urdu. I *never* pronounce maulvi as molvi or udhar as odar. That's because I speak HU at native level. The question was 'does anyone say molvi' and the answer is, yes, many Punjabi people do. Are you asserting that no Punjabi speakers say 'or', 'molvi' and 'foj'? So, then if no one in the subcontinent says 'molvi' where does this come from? Outer space?



QURESHPOR said:


> AI am once again assuming that you have access to some such study that has been carried out in which samples of all Urdu/Hindi speakers whose mother tongue is not Urdu/Hindi have been taken and the conclusion that has been drawn is that everyone barring Punjabis pronounces these types of words perfectly! At least this is how I am understanding your statements about Punjabi speakers' influence on Urdu and Hindi speech.



'All', 'everyone'? Where are you getting this from? Maybe you're having a separate discussion elsewhere and confusing them? Please tone down your stridency otherwise I also have a tendency to get sucked up in it and it's going to ruin the tone for everyone. If you disagree, just say you disagree.


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## hindiurdu

UrduMedium said:


> HU, is _bandaroN _(plural of _bandar_) an indigenous counter example of your theory? I know some people may say _bandroN_, but can also visualize many saying _bandaroN _without much training_, _preserving the short-vowel after d. Or does this not fit the mould?



Excellent question. The schwa deletion rule is usually expressed as a →  ø | (non-nasal)VC_CV  (http://books.google.com/books?id=jJOXzRXsSK0C&pg=PA39). Bandaron,  you will note actually has a nasalized vowel preceding the first  consonant, bãdarõ, so the schwa isn't deleted. BTW even the rule is  wrong about 10-20% of the time. 

On the whole though, the pattern  is overwhelmingly strong. Some examples  (http://books.google.com/books?id=3_Sp1g_QziwC&pg=PA637) - namak  → namkeen, hiran  → hirni, waapas  → waapsi, oopar  → oopri, garaj/garajna  → garjila, pichak  → pichka, sisak   → siski. I wonder if the people who say 'tulasi' and 'maulavi' are also  sticking to their guns and saying 'namakeen', 'waapasi', 'oopari',  'garajila', 'pichaka' and 'sisaki'. If not, then they're going out of  their way to make exceptions for some words, which is bound to take  effort. BTW listen to many nonnative-HU speakers in Hindi movies - they  absolutely *do* say these words as 'namakeen', etc. Bengali and Eastern  HindiUrdu speakers also (often) retain these medial schwas. If maulavi is preferred over maulvi then, speaking with the same music, solah  → solahvaa will also happen instead of  solah → solhvaa.


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## hindiurdu

greatbear said:


> Couldn't have been more brilliantly put.



Thanks. Seems like a tautology - funny it should feel like a revelation (even to me, truth be told).


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## marrish

hindiurdu said:


> No yaar, it's not. Yes, people do often write Arabi, but they actually say 'Arbi' - surely you see this in your daily life. I can show you zillions of examples (did you even *listen* to the YouTube video)?



I believe there is a misunderstanding. When they say *arbii*, in the daily life, they mean a vegetable.


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## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> I believe there is a misunderstanding. When they say *arbii*, in the daily life, they mean a vegetable.


Isn't the vegetable name _arvii _though, marrish saahab?


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## UrduMedium

hindiurdu said:


> Let me add an example. Watch this video -_[video link deleted] _ Instead of 'aayat-e-...' he often says 'aayt-e-....' This is classic schwa deletion. Also listen to _[video link deleted] _ - this is quite a funny speech actually. He's speaking Punjabi. Note how he starts out with 'maulvi' (definitely *not* 'maulavi' and definitely *not* diphthongal) and then lapses into 'molvi' and then goes back to 'maulvi'. Start watching around 2:02 if you're pressed for time.



I don't think the speaker is saying _aayat _for _aayaat _here. Seems like he is referring to *a *specific _aayat _(verse). 

Also, watch out for adding youtube links, the mods are quite strict in enforcing a no youtube _links _policy. You can reference them with a searchable video title.


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## marrish

UrduMedium said:


> Isn't the vegetable name _arvii _though, marrish saahab?


In Urdu proper, it is as you very well know, _arvii_, UrduMedium SaaHib, but there was a discussion about non-Standard and even Punjabi influenced Urdu and Hindi. If _*arbii*_ is being uttered I get unmistakenly the idea that the speaker has an _arvii_ in his or her mind.


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## greatbear

marrish said:


> I believe there is a misunderstanding. When they say *arbii*, in the daily life, they mean a vegetable.



I don't think there's a misunderstanding; it's very normal speech to refer an Arab person as "arbii" rather than "arabii". (By the way, I use the latter, but I keep on hearing the former too.)

There are three "arbii"s that I'm familiar with: (1) an Arab person; (2) the vegetable; and (3) a kind of colored, shiny paper used for wrapping gifts, etc. Besides, there is the number "arab", already mentioned by HU, which again becomes "arboN" in plural (and this I also do), thus again showing the schwa deletion.


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## hindiurdu

UrduMedium said:


> I don't think the speaker is saying _aayat _for _aayaat _here. Seems like he is referring to *a *specific _aayat _(verse).



You are absolutely right. aayat has a schwa (/aːjət̪/) and when it gets a vowel at the end with the ezafe (/aːjət̪-eː/) assumes the vCəCv form, leading to schwa deletion and making it (/aːjt̪-eː/). If he were using plural, aayaat (/aːjaːt̪/), no such change would happen, i.e. /aːjaːt̪-eː/. 



UrduMedium said:


> Also, watch out for adding youtube links, the mods are quite strict in enforcing a no youtube _links _policy. You can reference them with a searchable video title.



I didn't know about this & appreciate your guidance!


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## hindiurdu

greatbear said:


> I don't think there's a misunderstanding; it's  very normal speech to refer an Arab person as "arbii" rather than  "arabii". (By the way, I use the latter, but I keep on hearing the  former too.) There are three "arbii"s that I'm familiar with: (1) an  Arab person; (2) the vegetable; and (3) a kind of colored, shiny paper  used for wrapping gifts, etc. Besides, there is the number "arab",  already mentioned by HU, which again becomes "arboN" in plural (and this  I also do), thus again showing the schwa deletion.



On v/w → b: Responding to Marrish, UM and you together. Search the  YouTube video for 'UMER SHARIF arabic dance' and see how he says  'Arbii'. This is how the name of the vegetable is said too in colloquial  HU. UM is right in that the correct pronunciation is 'arvii' but v/w → b  is common in colloquial HU. There are many examples of this, eg  vyaapaari → byopari, vinti → binti. Incidentally, there are many  examples where Punjabi preserves the original 'v' even in rustic speech  whereas HU turns then to 'b'. vasna (P) ↔ basna (HU), vela (P) ↔  bela (HU). In Punjabi, "towns get settled' would be "vastiyaan vas  paindiyaan" whereas in HU it would be "bastiyaan bas jaati hain".


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## tonyspeed

hindiurdu said:


> Excellent question. The schwa deletion rule is usually expressed as a →  ø | (non-nasal)VC_CV  (http://books.google.com/books?id=jJOXzRXsSK0C&pg=PA39). Bandaron,  you will note actually has a nasalized vowel preceding the first  consonant, bãdarõ, so the schwa isn't deleted. BTW even the rule is  wrong about 10-20% of the time. .



So I'm guessing the word ikatthaa /ikhatta breaks the forementioned "rule"?

And is pronunciation of "galatii" (which seems to be en-vogue in the movies) vs "galtii" a marker of foreign speakers?


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## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> ?Dude, are you a rural speaker of Punjabi? No, you're probably someone  that is educated in Hindi/Urdu. I *never* pronounce maulvi as molvi or  udhar as odar. That's because I speak HU at native level. The question  was 'does anyone say molvi' and the answer is, yes, many Punjabi people  do. Are you asserting that no Punjabi speakers say 'or', 'molvi' and  'foj'? So, then if no one in the subcontinent says 'molvi' where does this come from? Outer space?/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Please read my post once again as it is a response to your sweeping statements concerning Punjabi's supposed influences on Urdu/Hindi. If you perceive my post as "strident", then that is unfortunate. And, I would suggest that you refrain from addressing me as a "dude". Let's just concentrate on the topic of this thread and that is whether the diphthongs are perceived by readers of this forum to be disappearing in Urdu/Hindi and not someone's guesswork on the cause of this phenomenon. The cause is not under discussion but if you feel it is Punjabi, then it would be appropriate if you could back your argument with a reference from some reputable piece of research.
> 
> You may speak Urdu at native level; this is of no consequence to me. As you have indicated Punjabi as one of the languages you are familiar with and are putting forward causes for the diphthong changes, I asked you how you pronounced these words. From your answer, it appears that Punjabi does not interfere with your Urdu/Hindi pronunciation.
Click to expand...


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## Faylasoof

hindiurdu said:


> No yaar, it's not. Yes, people do often write Arabi, but they actually say 'Arbi' - surely you see this in your daily life. I can show you zillions of examples (did you even *listen* to the YouTube video)? It's no different than Garam (colloquial) → Garmi. Remember, arab is also a number in HindiUrdu (= a billion). 'Aik arab rupae' but 'Arbon rupae' not 'Arabon' rupae. Similarly, 'aik arab se baat ki' and 'kaee arbon se baat ki', not 'kaee arabon se baat ki'. If you are pronouncing the two Arab plurals differently, it means you're putting in some special effort into it which most speakers aren't going to do.
> _......_
> 
> Then what is your explanation for 1.5m Google hits for 'Maulvi' and 280k for 'Maulavi'?
> ​


 You don't seem to get it! I have been referring to Urdu proper not the Urdu-Hindi mix which you seem to have in mind and which we all know varies in both pronunciation and vocabulary across a wide region! Which is why Google hits are not always very useful! As I said earlier, there are several examples of Ghalat-ul-3aam and this is yet another one as far as Urdu is concerned!


hindiurdu said:


> According to who? The point I am making is this - the language itself has a preferred syllable structure, which is extremely well documented in linguistic literature. Yes, Sanskrit-aware people will say 'Tulasi' instead of 'Tulsi' and _*Arabic-aware people will say 'Maulavi' instead of 'Maulvi'*_. .....


 In Urdu proper it is _*maulavii*_ ! Proper Urdu training also means getting both Arabic and Persian grammar backgrounds which of late have become less and less. Those who get this training not only know how we either form words derived form them or how the borrowed words should be pronounced (and often also what they mean). 

Our Urdu pronunciation rules are very clear whether we are talking of words of Prakrit, Persian, Sanskrit or Arabic etymology. If you don't already have an Urdu-English dictionary which indicates pronunciations in Urdu then please get one. You’ll see more diphthongs than you might feel comfortable with... and please remember that in this thread we are supposed to discuss diphthongs!


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## Faylasoof

> ...Some people might love to pronounce "maul*a*vii", but languages are defined by what _is_ "aam", not by _*hypothetical notions of purity and/or good diction.*_


 _*Only a person ignorant of Urdu pronunciation rules would say this!*_


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## Faylasoof

*Moderator note*

*Let us remind ourselves what this thread is about! It is about diphthongs and not schwa per se! The latter can be discussed in terms of its relevance to the former but should not become an end in itself. All future posts that discuss schwa with no relevance to diphthongs shall be deleted! *


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## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> There may be some truth in the Eastern Hindi-Urdu caring much more about the diphthong than the Western. I have a sample of one, a friend from Patna (Bihar) who tends to use all the diphthongs in words like _pauda_, _maulvii, baiThak,_and so on. At time I notice an extra short vowel after the 'h' in a word like _kahte _(which most Karachiites will say _kehte_), resulting in something sounding like _kahite_. Often also using noun genders also that are alien to me.


 UM SaaHib, diphthongs are not just the characteristic of Eastern Urdu and certainly not Patna alone -not that I suggest you mean this. Patna too is a city I have links with, apart from Lucknow, but Western Urdu (Delhi, Merut, Agra - your ancestral city, I believe) also retained clear diphthongs. I know people from there, including janaab Intizar Hussain SaaHib who is originally from Bulandshahr, Western UP, but migrated to Pakistan. He never missed a diphthong!

As for Urdu pronunciation of Karachiites, it depends. The city is not just huge but more importantly hugely cosmopolitan! I’ve stayed there long enough to see the immense variation of pronunciation but those who were native Urdu speakers clearly pronounced their diphthongs.

Things may be changing now due to poor teaching of Urdu even for children of families who are native Urdu speakers. This phenomenon is of course not restricted to any particular place or language. The point is I’ve come across Urdu teachers whose pronunciation has much to be desired, which explains a lot!


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## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> UM SaaHib, diphthongs are not just the characteristic of Eastern Urdu and certainly not Patna alone -not that I suggest you mean this. Patna too is a city I have links with, apart from Lucknow, but Western Urdu (Delhi, Merut, Agra - your ancestral city, I believe) also retained clear diphthongs. I know people from there, including janaab Intizar Hussain SaaHib who is originally from Bulandshahr, Western UP, but migrated to Pakistan. He never missed a diphthong!
> 
> As for Urdu pronunciation of Karachiites, it depends. The city is not just huge but more importantly hugely cosmopolitan! I’ve stayed there long enough to see the immense variation of pronunciation but those who were native Urdu speakers clearly pronounced their diphthongs.
> 
> Things may be changing now due to poor teaching of Urdu even for children of families who are native Urdu speakers. This phenomenon is of course not restricted to any particular place or language. The point is I’ve come across Urdu teachers whose pronunciation has much to be desired, which explains a lot!



Based on my listening of various people in real time and in media, I think the mainstream Karachi accent is very close to the Delhi Urdu accent. Again, this is my unscientific personal view. Karachi has a lot of variety of accents also due to the more recent immigrants whose native language is not Urdu. I am not referring to those but to the native Urdu speaker accent. All of the cities you mentioned, including Bulandshahr are represented in my family. I can tell you I do not see what you are describing for this Western UP Urdu. I do not hear the diphthongs in words like _paudaa, maulvii, baiThak_, etc, or much of a diphthong in a word like _hai_. It is possible that my family is somehow not representative of the region. However, I am not restricting my view to my family alone, but to a much larger group of native Urdu speakers of non-Lucknow, non-Bihar origin. Obviously, your mileage varies with the same group. That's how we learn from each other 

When you talk about "teaching of Urdu for native Urdu speaking children", are you referring to such teaching in the family, or classroom? I studied Urdu for about twelve years growing up at school. It covered a lot of prose and poetry, and I am glad I did it. However, _strictly _from a "language" perspective, I think I learned very little Urdu from classroom, and almost all from family and surroundings. If a native speaker has to learn his/her native language in a classroom, does that not make the language sound kind of _elitist?_ I am again not referring to learning literature or style and so on, but just _language_. I read somewhere, that outside one particular gate of Jami3 Masjid in Delhi, literary types used to gather after Jum3ah prayers, just to hear the hawkers (supposedly not highly literate) hawk and talk, to understand the authentic delivery of words, and correct use of idioms and proverbs. To me that makes a lot of sense. That's not to say what these common folk spoke was exalted literary language, but it represented _authentic _language_, _nevertheless. If the authentic language becomes solely the domain of the people who are highly well-versed in literature and own several lexicons, does that not leave out say the 98% of the native speakers out in the proverbial cold, and make Urdu sound like the language of only the _elite_? I feel very uncomfortable with this picture, even if I somehow miraculously qualified in the 2%. Sha'ista Ikramullah has a short and delightful book called 'dillii ki khawateen kii kahawateN aur muhaware' which basically captures idioms and proverbs of of Delhi homemaker women of the early 20th century, supposedly with the idea that such sample is the basis of what authentic usage is. Just from the stereotypical view of these women, I doubt many of them ever looked up a lexicon or _learned_ Urdu anywhere outside their home.


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## greatbear

Faylasoof said:


> _*Only a person ignorant of Urdu pronunciation rules would say this!*_



That is only your personal opinion - there is no need of converting it into the sweeping statement that you have done. UM's excellent post no. 63 has already further elaborated what I wanted to say.


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## BP.

hindiurdu said:


> ...
> On the whole though, the pattern  is overwhelmingly strong. Some examples  (http://books.google.com/books?id=3_Sp1g_QziwC&pg=PA637) - namak  → namkeen, hiran  → hirni, waapas  → waapsi, oopar  → oopri, garaj/garajna  → garjila, pichak  → pichka, sisak   → siski. I wonder if the people who say 'tulasi' and 'maulavi' are also   sticking to their guns and saying 'namakeen', 'waapasi', 'oopari',   'garajila', 'pichaka' and 'sisaki'. If not, then they're going out of   their way to make exceptions for some words, which is bound to take   effort....


I always knew it to be waapasii and uuparii, for some of the rest of the words we might be talking the reverse phenomenon I.e. the introduction of a vowel rather than its deletion. I'm afraid this discussion is for another thread, as a mod has indicated, and I'd respect that...this little post being a jumlah e muta3arrazah.


----------



## tonyspeed

UrduMedium said:


> If the authentic language becomes solely the domain of the people who are highly well-versed in literature and own several lexicons, does that not leave out say the 98% of the native speakers out in the proverbial cold, and make Urdu sound like the language of only the _elite_?



The standard language is always in the domain of the elite. The dialects, the true form in which language exists, is in the domain of the common people. The purpose of the standard language is to slow down language change and unite the various dialects of a language.

I often wish English had such a pronunciation standard as lack of one has created various English pronunciations that border on incomprehensible for the uninitiated.


----------



## UrduMedium

tonyspeed said:


> The standard language is always in the domain of the elite. The dialects, the true form in which language exists, is in the domain of the common people. The purpose of the standard language is to slow down language change and unite the various dialects of a language.
> 
> I often wish English had such a pronunciation standard as lack of one has created various English pronunciations that border on incomprehensible for the uninitiated.



Would that not also allow the keepers of elite pronunciation declare other (and otherwise perfectly fine) accents "wrong" also? For example, American or Australian pronunciations may have been classified as incorrect, uneducated, and so on. I think English is better off not having this "standard". Lack of it allows large numbers of wildflowers to bloom. Just looking at the other side of the coin 

Thanks for a very helpful insight in your first comment.


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## Qureshpor

Alfaaz said:


> If I have understood the question correctly: No, not really (except due to some "Urdu dialects" and/or regional differences- a combination of mother tongues being other than Urdu and not being fortunate enough (due to lack of resources/poverty) to have proper Urdu education); maybe I haven't been around "bad company" yet...



I will be honest with you. I did n't really understand your reply!



souminwé said:


> The diphthongs have been long dead, becoming modern æ and ɔ. Perhaps ɔ gets confused with o sometimes, but I have never heard e for æ.
> 
> As for "jeb", it is the only way I would pronounce it, and that is reflected in both Hindi and Bengali spelling ( जेब , জেব )



I may be mistaken but your perception of what a diphthong is seems to be different from how others understand it. Your definition is probably the more accurate one but all I meant to ask in this thread is whether "ai" as in xair and "au" as in "maut" are changing to "e" and "o".



Faylasoof said:


> This is interesting! I have two very reliable versions of Ghalib's _diiwaan_ (plus another one which I can’t be so sure of). One has *hamaare jaib *(diacritics for _jaib_ shown) and the other *hamaarii jaib / jeb *(no diacritics).
> 
> If we go by your *jaib* (masc.) = *garebaan*, then it'll be *hamaare jaib*, i.e. *hamaare garebaan* <--- this makes more sense to me!
> 
> If, however, we go by your *jeb* (fem.) = *pocket*, then it should be *hamaarii jeb* (but also *jaib* for some to also mean _pocket_, not just *garebaan* - same pronunciation but different gender).
> 
> It'll be good to find out what others have in their copies of Mirza SaaHib's _diiwaan_ and the opinions of various scholars. Which one do they think it is supposed to be.
> 
> 
> In a sense this reminds me of Iftakhar Aarif SaaHib's _umaid_ (with a diphthong!) as opposed to _umiid_. But that was a slightly different argument as it didn't involve gender of the noun though the pronunciation issue was there.
> 
> Edit: _UM SaaHib, I see you deleted your post to which I was replying! Anyway, I think something interesting may come out of what I say here!_



Faylasoof SaaHib. Haamid Ali Khan's compilation of "diivaan-i-Ghalib" is considered to be one of the best and most accurate. He has "hamaare jaib".



Faylasoof said:


> Thanks for the Chughtai reference!
> Well, I'm not going to make a fuss about _jaib / garebaan _(collar / breast of garment) versus _jaib / jeb_ (pocket). It was just my gut feeling since _garebaan_ has a lot to do with a very obvious sign of somebody's disposition. Used a lot in poetry. But you are right, a hole in the pocket can have grave consequences. However, if your _garebaan_ gets _chaak_ it too will need _rafuu_ (darning)!



Faylasoof SaaHib, Hamid Ali Khan's compilation of diivaan-i-Ghalib is considered one of the best and most authentic. He has "hamaare jaib". Strangely, Professor Prichett still decides to transliterate as "jeb"!



greatbear said:


> That is only your personal opinion - there is no need of converting it into the sweeping statement that you have done. UM's excellent post no. 63 has already further elaborated what I wanted to say.



I would neither class Faylasoof's statement as personal opinion nor a sweeping statement. I agree wholeheartedly with Faylasoof's point of view in this post and everything he has said in his previous posts. Here is an example of the -a vowel being pronounced on the same lines as "maulavii"

maulaa >> maulavii

talab >> talaboN

hai bazm-i-butaaN meN suxan aazurdah laboN se
taNg aa'e haiN ham aise xushaamad-talaboN se

Ghalib


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## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> I may be mistaken but your perception of what a diphthong is seems to be different from how others understand it. Your definition is probably the more accurate one but all I meant to ask in this thread is *whether "ai" as in xair and "au" as in "maut" are changing to "e" and "o"*.



In your question, do you assume in ...

"ai" to "e" shift in _xair _to _xer_, shifted vowel rhyming with a in cat (Eng), or a in table (Eng)?
"au" to "o" shift in _maut _to _mot_, shifted vowel rhyming with o in solve (Eng), or o in hole (Eng)?

If it is the latter (rhyming table, hole), almost no one pronounces these words like that. If it is the former (rhyming cat, solve), I would suggest that an overwhelming majority or native Urdu speakers pronounce these words like this, instead of the ai or au diphthongs. 

Not getting into the right or wrong of the pronunciation, just describing the ground reality, as I see it.


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## Alfaaz

QURESHPOR said:
			
		

> I will be honest with you. I did n't really understand your reply!


Now that you have provided examples and made the question clearer, I shall try to explain my reply: 



			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> If I have understood the question correctly: No, not really


This was in response to this question: 



			
				Qureshpor said:
			
		

> In Urdu/Hindi, we have "ai" and "au" which now appear to be gradually moving towards "e" and "o". Have you noticed this phenomenon?





			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> (except due to some "Urdu dialects" and/or regional differences- a combination of mother tongues being other than Urdu and not being fortunate enough (due to lack of resources/poverty) to have proper Urdu education)


The above was given as an exception. People might not have been fortunate enough to have a proper Urdu education, either due to financial reasons or due to being influenced by English (as marrish SaaHib pointed out). Another reason could be regional differences, family, and environment. UM said above: 



			
				UrduMedium said:
			
		

> If it is the latter (rhyming table, hole), almost no one pronounces these words like that.


If not mistaken, I think I heard these words on the news last night being pronounced (in the manner described above) by a Pashto native. Another example could probably be a'urat ---> orat.

Note: Here I would say that there are many people who might pronounce words perfectly while reciting Arabic, but they mispronounce the same words when they switch over to Urdu. This doesn't mean that they are not educated, but the reason seems to be: they are used to speaking like that in their "dialect of Urdu", as that is how they have heard their family speak. 



			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> maybe I haven't been around "bad company" yet...


This wasn't meant to be rude or offensive, just used (as a reference) since UM and others mentioned it in another thread. It goes back to the question about noticing the phenomenon. Generally speaking, people still seem to have correct pronunciation, on TV at least, and in my surroundings. However, the fact cannot be ignored that Urdu is widespread and will have many differences/variation. 

The younger generation is often attacked for not adhering to the standard of (any) language. Here I would like to mention that while there are many who wouldn't mind diphthong deletion (or other such problems), there are also many who strive to speak/articulate properly and learn (not because they are maulawis, religious minded people, linguists, language professors, or television personalities, but because they just have a passion for learning!)


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## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> UM SaaHib, diphthongs are not just the characteristic of Eastern Urdu and certainly not Patna alone -not that I suggest you mean this. Patna too is a city I have links with, apart from Lucknow, but Western Urdu (Delhi, Merut, Agra - your ancestral city, I believe) also retained clear diphthongs. I know people from there, including janaab Intizar Hussain SaaHib who is originally from Bulandshahr, Western UP, but migrated to Pakistan. He never missed a diphthong!
> 
> As for Urdu pronunciation of Karachiites, it depends. The city is not just huge but more importantly hugely cosmopolitan! I’ve stayed there long enough to see the immense variation of pronunciation but those who were native Urdu speakers clearly pronounced their diphthongs.
> 
> Things may be changing now due to poor teaching of Urdu even for children of families who are native Urdu speakers. This phenomenon is of course not restricted to any particular place or language. The point is I’ve come across Urdu teachers whose pronunciation has much to be desired, which explains a lot!



Faylasoof saahab, if you haven't already seen it, this may interest you. Youtube title is "RAIS SIDDIQUI on DD URDU / Intezar Hussain". I listened to more than half (kind of late here). Very interesting. On the diphthong front, respectfully, I did not hear any noticeable diphthong in his speech. I heard words like paiGhaam, hai, haiN, jaisaa, baiTh, paidaa'ish, maujuud, etc., without diphthong. 

It was also a treat to hear Gopi Chand Narang introduce Intezar Husain in the beginning.

Youtube "Dilemma of progressive writers in Pakistan-Intezar Hussain with Imran Mir in Programe EHAD" is also a short clip of an Intezar Husain interview.


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## hindiurdu

I keep getting the feeling that we're experiencing some unnecessary disconnect here. How could anyone think diphthongal pronunciation is standard for 'hai' - it's quite surprising. Could there be a misunderstanding on what 'diphthong' means? Could Faylasoof and Qureshpor please clarify just one last time which, according to them, is how they say 'hai' (the word in 'kya baat hai') -

(a) as in *hei*ght
(b) as in *ha*ndle
(c) as in *ha*re

Only (a) is a diphthong here (two vowel sounds in sequence - aa-ii). (b) is represented as /æ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet and (c) is represented as /e/. No HU native used (c) afaik, so there's not really a question of a drift in that direction. So is it (a), (b) or (c). Similarly for maulvi/maulavi, the 'au' is -

(a) as in *mou*ntain
(b) as in *m**o*rris
(c) as in *mo*le

Only (a) is a diphthong here. (b) is /ɔː/ and (c) is /o/. No HU native says (c) afaik.


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## Abu Talha

hindiurdu said:


> Could Faylasoof and Qureshpor please clarify just one last time which, according to them, is how they say 'hai' (the word in 'kya baat hai') -
> 
> (a) as in *hei*ght
> (b) as in *ha*ndle
> (c) as in *ha*re


I have an idea that the diphthong (and possibly prescriptively correct) form rhymes with _na'e _نۓ (new) and _ga'e _گۓ (they went). But if so, I don't know why it wasn't written as ہۓ . I've heard a couple of people pronounce it like this but it sounds quite strange.

By the way, I'm not completely sure if the sound in _ga'e_ گۓ is a diphthong, but in any case all native speakers distinguish between _ga'e_ گۓ and _ge_ گے. In many other words, I agree that the diphthongs are usually not articulated. But I think it's not the same for every word. _jaib _is never pronounced with a diphthong, but I think _maut often _is.


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## marrish

Abu Talha said:


> I have an idea that the diphthong (and possibly prescriptively correct) form rhymes with _na'e _نۓ (new) and _ga'e _گۓ (they went). But if so, I don't know why it wasn't written as ہۓ . I've heard a couple of people pronounce it like this but it sounds quite strange.



It is probably for the reason that مے mai/Persian: می may is neither written _*مئے*_ nor pronounced _*ma'e*_ or *me*?


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## Abu Talha

marrish said:


> It is probably for the reason that مے mai/Persian: می may is neither written _*مئے*_ nor pronounced _*ma'e*_ or *me*?


Thanks Marrish Saahib. I think my statement that _hai_ ہے would rhyme with _ga'e_ گۓ  is probably incorrect. By the way, do you see a difference, in vowel length or otherwise, between گۓ _ga'e _and مے _mai _(diphthonged)? I'm trying to say them both out loud but I'm not sure if there is a difference or if I'm consciously inventing one.

_woh wahaaN ga'e aur un ne mai pii._


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## UrduMedium

Abu Talha said:


> Thanks Marrish Saahib. I think my statement that _hai_ ہے would rhyme with _ga'e_ گۓ  is probably incorrect. By the way, do you see a difference, in vowel length or otherwise, between گۓ _ga'e _and مے _mai _(diphthonged)? I'm trying to say them both out loud but I'm not sure if there is a difference or if I'm consciously inventing one.
> 
> _woh wahaaN ga'e aur un ne mai pii._


Isn't the difference that the _hamzah _sound is missing in _mai_, while it is audible in _ga'e_? (hence the apostrophe)


----------



## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> Couldn't have been more brilliantly put.



There is nothing profound in the quoted statement that I can see. Indeed Urdu-Hindi are not Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.


----------



## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> There is nothing profound in the quoted statement that I can see. Indeed Urdu-Hindi are not Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.



Great news, considering that many of the posts seem to advocate for retention of schwas, ignoring the dynamics of Hindi-Urdu itself, just because they came from such and such sources. In the meanwhile, there is no need for you to comment on what I consider as profound or not. Your answers to post no. 71 are awaited eagerly, btw.


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## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> Great news, considering that many of the posts seem to advocate for retention of schwas, ignoring the dynamics of Hindi-Urdu itself, just because they came from such and such sources. In the meanwhile, there is no need for you to comment on what I consider as profound or not. Your answers to post no. 71 are awaited eagerly, btw.



There was certainly a need to comment and I have done so! Regarding your other comment, your eagerness for a reply from me is appreciated and just to let you know none of the posts that I feel I should respond to have in anyway been forgotton. I shall choose the time when it is convenient for me. I have hinted about this issue in my post no. 67 to which UM has posed similar questions as post no. 71. From now on, would you like me to remind you of posts which YOU should answer but have n't answered?


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## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> There was certainly a need to comment and I have done so! Regarding your other comment, your eagerness for a reply from me is appreciated and just to let you know none of the posts that I feel I should respond to have in anyway been forgotton. I shall choose the time when it is convenient for me. I have hinted about this issue in my post no. 67 to which UM has posed similar questions as post no. 71. From now on, would you like me to remind you of posts which YOU should answer but have n't answered?



You must remember that it is you who has started this thread, and in light of post 71, the point of having this whole thread, though it has been very informative, is tottering: that is why the sooner you could reply, the better it would be for all concerned. You are welcome to remind me to answer when I have started a thread and that thread is suffering from lack of clarity. Anyway, I greatly appreciate your readiness to respond and I await with certain eagerness your replies, whenever they be forthcoming.


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## Qureshpor

gb, please see post 20 of the "bastii" thread. Thanks.


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## greatbear

Thanks; I look forward to you getting back to your "seat". Please note, QP, that even if we disagree about many things, I look forward to your posts (and also to the gems you quote often), since without your informed and well-reasoned posts this forum would be indeed poor.


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## Abu Talha

UrduMedium said:


> Isn't the difference that the _hamzah _sound is missing in _mai_, while it is audible in _ga'e_? (hence the apostrophe)


Thanks UM Saahib. I guess I'm not completely sure about the sound of this hamzah. But I think you're might be right and that there is a perceptible difference between _-ay_ and _-a'e._


----------



## marrish

UM SaaHib is right, the sound -ay- or -ai- is much different from -a'e.


----------



## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> Can you give any examples, particularly of the "ai" to "e" shift?



One example that comes to mind is "shaix" >> "shex". Whilst searching for something else, I came across this thread on the same topic but it did not take off as this was has done.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2333251

There seem to be more examples of the au >> o shift. Only today I was listening to the Youtube video which icfatima SaaHibah had brought to our notice. In it Amir Khan, as far as I can tell, is pronouncing the following words with a straight o.

Maulana Azad >> Molana Azad
aulaad >> olaad
3aurat >> orat
.......

Another common change is Khusrau/Xusrau > Khusro/xusro


----------



## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> Faylasoof saahab, if you haven't already seen it, this may interest you. Youtube title is "RAIS SIDDIQUI on DD URDU / Intezar Hussain". I listened to more than half (kind of late here). Very interesting. On the diphthong front, respectfully, I did not hear any noticeable diphthong in his speech. I heard words like paiGhaam, hai, haiN, jaisaa, baiTh, paidaa'ish, maujuud, etc., without diphthong.
> 
> It was also a treat to hear Gopi Chand Narang introduce Intezar Husain in the beginning.
> 
> Youtube "Dilemma of progressive writers in Pakistan-Intezar Hussain with Imran Mir in Programe EHAD" is also a short clip of an Intezar Husain interview.


UM SaaHIb, thanks for pointing out the video. I finally did get to listen to it and yes it definitely was a treat seeing Narang SaaHib intorduce Intizaar Hussain SaaHib. 

Firstly, it was a little painful to both see and hear him. He has aged a lot and as with anyone aged his speech is now at times a bit unclear. This is not how I remember him. Anyway, unlike you, UM SaaHib, I counted approximately 21 words (excluding those repeated) with diphthongs, including the ones you mentioned. Here they are but since I've heard this only once so some of the timings I indicate may be off by a second or two (or more!). BTW, I'm counting some English words too that he used where I detected a diphthong:

_paiGhaam_, _chairmain_, _akaidemi_,  --- in the first 7' 35", _Hairaanii _and _laijend_ -- between the last time point and 10' 7", _gaihraa_ (11' 41"), (raashidul) _xairii_ (12' 34"), _taiHriir_ (14' 36''), _rau _(14' 49"), _naubat_ (15' 39''), _nae / naii_? (16' 39''), _duaRaayaa_ (17'  54''), _3ain _(18' 41''), _kaun_ (19' 51''), _paidaa_ (20' 24''), _maut_ (20' 36''), _baiThaa_ (23' 32''), _Ghaur_ (23' 21'), _haiN_ (23' 56''), _baiThe_ (24' 42''), _maiN_ (21 ' 41''). [I might have missed one ot two!]

Sorry once again if the timings are a bit off. Perhaps second time I can be more precise. Anyway, you shall be able to get close to the right positions on the tape with the above timings. 

I did however notice how his pronunciation of 'aur' (= and) has deteriorated but I could hear the diphthong there too. Not very clear but it is there.

It was very nice to hear him but his slightly slurred speech & reading (old age can do terrible things to you), I must confess, left me pained. Nevertheless, overall I'm glad I heard him. Thanks once again!


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> In your question, do you assume in ...
> 
> "ai" to "e" shift in _xair _to _xer_, shifted vowel rhyming with a in cat (Eng), or a in table (Eng)?
> "au" to "o" shift in _maut _to _mot_, shifted vowel rhyming with o in solve (Eng), or o in hole (Eng)?
> 
> If it is the latter (rhyming table, hole), almost no one pronounces these words like that. If it is the former (rhyming cat, solve), I would suggest that an overwhelming majority or native Urdu speakers pronounce these words like this, instead of the ai or au diphthongs.
> 
> Not getting into the right or wrong of the pronunciation, just describing the ground reality, as I see it.





hindiurdu said:


> I keep getting the feeling that we're experiencing some unnecessary disconnect here. How could anyone think diphthongal pronunciation is standard for 'hai' - it's quite surprising. Could there be a misunderstanding on what 'diphthong' means? Could Faylasoof and Qureshpor please clarify just one last time which, according to them, is how they say 'hai' (the word in 'kya baat hai') -
> 
> (a) as in *hei*ght
> (b) as in *ha*ndle
> (c) as in *ha*re
> 
> Only (a) is a diphthong here (two vowel sounds in sequence - aa-ii). (b) is represented as /æ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet and (c) is represented as /e/. No HU native used (c) afaik, so there's not really a question of a drift in that direction. So is it (a), (b) or (c). Similarly for maulvi/maulavi, the 'au' is -
> 
> (a) as in *mou*ntain
> (b) as in *m**o*rris
> (c) as in *mo*le
> 
> Only (a) is a diphthong here. (b) is /ɔː/ and (c) is /o/. No HU native says (c) afaik.



I would like to thank everyone for their useful contributions in this thread. When I started this thread, my intention was not to go into exactly what constitutes a diphthong and what does n't. I merely wished to know how Urdu and Hindi speakers felt about the real or perhaps perceived gradual disappearance of "ai" and "au" sounds. When souminwé saaHib mentioned that diphthongs were "long dead" (in Urdu and Hindi), I realised what was happening and responded to him in post 67 to which I don't believe there was a reply.



> I may be mistaken but your perception of what a diphthong is seems to be different from how others understand it. Your definition is probably the more accurate one but all I meant to ask in this thread is whether "ai" as in xair and "au" as in "maut" are changing to "e" and "o".


Now to answer UM SaaHib's and hindimedium's questions. For "ai" and "au", I did not have the sound contained within "height" and "mountain" in mind even though these pronunciations still exist amongst some speakers. I don't believe I pronounce my "ai" like the "a" in cat nor the "au" as in "morris". But, for me or I should say at least for this thread the exact starting point is not important. Are we hearing "ai" and "au" "kind" of sounds ending up as "e" as in "ek" and "o" as in "gol"? That's all.

My personal perception is that this phenomenon is taking place. I feel the "crisp" "ai" and "au" of Urdu/Hindi are not being clearly differentiated by a large number of modern day speakers. I don't know whether this is part of the general decline in speech standards or a separate issue altogether.


----------



## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> UM SaaHIb, thanks for pointing out the video. I finally did get to listen to it and yes it definitely was a treat seeing Narang SaaHib intorduce Intizaar Hussain SaaHib.
> 
> Firstly, it was a little painful to both see and hear him. He has aged a lot and as with anyone aged his speech is now at times a bit unclear. This is not how I remember him. Anyway, unlike you, UM SaaHib, I counted approximately 21 words (excluding those repeated) with diphthongs, including the ones you mentioned. Here they are but since I've heard this only once so some of the timings I indicate may be off by a second or two (or more!). BTW, I'm counting some English words too that he used where I detected a diphthong:
> 
> _paiGhaam_, _chairmain_, _akaidemi_,  --- in the first 7' 35", _Hairaanii _and _laijend_ -- between the last time point and 10' 7", _gaihraa_ (11' 41"), (raashidul) _xairii_ (12' 34"), _taiHriir_ (14' 36''), _rau _(14' 49"), _naubat_ (15' 39''), _nae / naii_? (16' 39''), _duaRaayaa_ (17'  54''), _3ain _(18' 41''), _kaun_ (19' 51''), _paidaa_ (20' 24''), _maut_ (20' 36''), _baiThaa_ (23' 32''), _Ghaur_ (23' 21'), _haiN_ (23' 56''), _baiThe_ (24' 42''), _maiN_ (21 ' 41''). [I might have missed one ot two!]
> 
> Sorry once again if the timings are a bit off. Perhaps second time I can be more precise. Anyway, you shall be able to get close to the right positions on the tape with the above timings.
> 
> I did however notice how his pronunciation of 'aur' (= and) has deteriorated but I could hear the diphthong there too. Not very clear but it is there.
> 
> It was very nice to hear him but his slightly slurred speech & reading (old age can do terrible things to you), I must confess, left me pained. Nevertheless, overall I'm glad I heard him. Thanks once again!



Faylasoof saahab- thanks for the detailed response. I did a quick scan of some of the first few words. Could it be we mean different things by diphthong? For example,

at 7:03 I hear paeghaam rather than paighaam
9:19 haeraanii rather than hairaanii
7:?? chaerman rather than chairman
at 6:27, 6:36, 6:39, 6:48, 6:56, 8:25, 9:10, I hear maeN (sometimes even meN!) rather than maiN.
12:29 xaerii not xairii
14:49 mild diphthong in rau (not like how some people say fully in jau)
15:39 ditto in naubat
17:54 ditto in dauRaayaa
...

I did not know one can have a diphthong in gaehraa and taehriir, neither do I notice it here.

Also I think in academy and legend, rather than diphthong he's got a slightly extending vowel, leading to akeeDmi and leejenD.

Perhaps we can get a neutral umpire to officiate here


----------



## Faylasoof

QURESHPOR said:


> ....
> Faylasoof SaaHib, Hamid Ali Khan's compilation of diivaan-i-Ghalib is considered one of the best and most authentic. He has "hamaare jaib". Strangely, Professor Prichett still decides to transliterate as "jeb"!
> ....


QP SaaHib, Hamid Ali Khan's version was exactly that I had in mind. Just now I checked it one more time and it does indeed say "hamaare jaib", i.e. with a diphthong and also as a masculine noun!


----------



## Qureshpor

^ I have not listened to the video but looking at Faylasoof SaaHib's previous posts and this one, it seems to me that his understanding of a "diphthong" (and mine) is at variance with yours (and hindiurdu and souminwé 's). My last post should clarify this point. Having said all this, I do not disagree with you, hindiurdu or souminwé because all of you are technically speaking correct. 

"taHriir" and "gahraa" etc is brought into the equation (not equasion!!) by Faylasoof SaaHib because their pronunciation is more "ai" than "a".


----------



## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> Faylasoof saahab- thanks for the detailed response. I did a quick scan of some of the first few words. Could it be we mean different things by diphthong? For example,
> 
> at 7:03 I hear paeghaam rather than paighaam
> 9:19 haeraanii rather than hairaanii
> 7:?? chaerman rather than chairman
> at 6:27, 6:36, 6:39, 6:48, 6:56, 8:25, 9:10, I hear maeN (sometimes even meN!) rather than maiN.
> 12:29 xaerii not xairii
> 14:49 mild diphthong in rau (not like how some people say fully in jau)
> 15:39 ditto in naubat
> 17:54 ditto in dauRaayaa
> ...
> 
> I did not know one can have a diphthong in gaehraa and taehriir, neither do I notice it here.
> 
> Also I think in academy and legend, rather than diphthong he's got a slightly extending vowel, leading to akeeDmi and leejenD.
> 
> Perhaps we can get a neutral umpire to officiate here


  We don't need an umpire to officiate, UM SaaHib! Diphthong pronunciation can vary!  If you wish to go by the book then many more would fail! The point is even if you hear shallower _xaerii _(and not _xairii)_ etc. it is still a diphthong. He certainly doesn’t drop it and say _xerii_ - no diphthong at all which is plain wrong and which many do say, just as they would _doR_ instead of _dauR_ and _dor_ instead of _daur_ etc.

Need I remind you that what we consider our “proper Urdu diphthongs” of Arabic words come out shallower and flatter than in the original! The MSA / Classical Arabic _Ghair_ / _xair_ / daur etc. sound quite different. They are much sharper in Arabic than in Urdu. Using this criterion, pronunciations of these diphthongs as properly pronounced in Urdu (and considered correct by us) would fall flat!


----------



## UrduMedium

^ QP saahab, regarding whether anyone is saying maulvii as molvii (rhyme mole), we addressed it in post #32. In my mind the debate has been whether it is maulvii (au rhyme with o in solve) or maulvii (au rhyme with foul). I strongly believe it is the former.


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> ^ QP saahab, regarding whether anyone is saying maulvii as molvii (rhyme mole), we addressed it in post #32. In my mind the debate has been whether it is maulvii (au rhyme with o in solve) or maulvii (au rhyme with foul). I strongly believe it is the former.



Your belief is correct and I have explained this point in a previous post that I don't equate "au" with "mountain" (your foul).


----------



## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> Your belief is correct and I have explained this point in a previous post that I don't equate "au" with "mountain" (your foul).



So does it rhyme with "o" in "solve" according to you as well? Clear answers would be appreciated. How are you calling it a diphthong btw if it is not like "mountain" or "foul"?


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> Your belief is correct and I have explained this point in a previous post that I don't equate "au" with "mountain" (your foul).


 OK. Do you equate the au (in maulvii) then with o in solve? If not, what's a close approximation of the sound? I assume it is safe to rule out the the mapping of au to the o in mole sound?


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> OK. Do you equate the au (in maulvii) then with o in solve? If not, what's a close approximation of the sound. I assume it is safe to rule out the o in mole sound also?



I don't believe my "au" pronunciation is equivalent to the "o" in solve nor is my "ai" like the "a" in cat. The clearest answer that I could give is via a recorded message but I don't feel I need to go to those lengths. Perhaps my ai/au are in between height/cat and "mountain/solve".


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> I don't believe my "au" pronunciation is equivalent to the "o" in solve nor is my "ai" like the "a" in cat. The clearest answer that I could give is via a recorded message but I don't feel I need to go to those lengths. Perhaps my ai/au are in between height/cat and "mountain/solve".


Interesting. To me solve and cat are approximations also. So technically I'm between mountain/solve too but probably much closer to solve.

If you do get time to listen to Intizar Hussain talk, please let us know what you think. I'd appreciate that. Even content-wise its a great listen.


----------



## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> _*I did not know one can have a diphthong in gaehraa and taehriir, neither do I notice it here.*_
> 
> Also I think in academy and legend, rather than diphthong he's got a slightly extending vowel, leading to akeeDmi and leejenD.
> ....


 _*He pronounces both with a diphthong as they should be and I do hear it!  This is the same kind of diphthong we discussed here! Post #6 onwards.
*_
We use this kind of "diphthonged" pronunciation of many words though they may not be spelt with a diphthong! 

Apart from words like شہر  (pronounced _shaihr_)  and لہر (pronounced _laihr_) discussed in the thread linked above, we use the same kind of diphthong in many other words, e.g. بحث (pronounced _baiHth_) and بحر (pronounced _baiHr_) etc.

I've just looked through my Standard 20th Century Urdu-English Dictionary (and the later, 21st Century edition), compiled by Prof. Bashir Ahmed Qureshi (i.e. _quraishii_), [Foreward by Gopi Chand Narang, Head, Department of Urdu Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi; Publishers: Educational Publishing House, Vakil Street, Lal Kuan, Delhi, India]. Not only does this dictionary (both editions) gives transliterations of Urdu words in English, it also indicates how they should be pronounced. All of the words I mention above (and many more) are shown as indicated, i.e. in these cases with an _ai_ diphthong. 

My _nasiim-ul-luGhaat_ also gives these pronunciations and since we are talking of lexicons compiled and published by those in western UP (Delhi for 20th Century Dictionary or Amroha, in the case of Nasim Amrohvi for _nasiim-ul-luGhaat_ ) we can say that both, _dabistaan-e-dehlii_ and _dabistaan-e-lakhnau _are at one on this. Hardly surprising as the overlap between the two schools has always been considered huge. Needless to say that the standard form of Urdu is the same and although we may have our differences (gender issue of some words etc.) the commonalities far outweigh the exceptions. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as _lakhnawii urdu_ has its roots in _dehlavii urdu_ given the migration eastwards of many Urduphones, including my ancestors, who moved from in and around Delhi to Lucknow at the end of the 18th century. These people took their language with them.


----------



## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> Based on my listening of various people in real time and in media, I think the mainstream Karachi accent is very close to the Delhi Urdu accent. Again, this is my unscientific personal view.


 Sorry, but how often have you visited Delhi, UM SaaHib? Especially _puraanii dilli_ because that is where you’ll find, in an increasingly restricted circle, the _dehlavii urdu _I have in mind – not the one “_aariyaa / jaariyaa huuN_” variety. You’ll find this latter type of Urdu too in _dilli_ ! I have been a frequent visitor there. Anyway, I agree we can’t determine Karachi’s “mainstream” Urdu pronunciation and hence the use of diphthongs just by the company we keep and in my experience it may be hard to define Karachi Urdu, especially now when many of the older generation who migrated there are passing away leaving the younger generations who have begun to drift away from the pronunciation of their immediate ancestors. So there many may now just flatten out or simply omit diphthongs. This wouldn’t entirely surprise me.  

Over the years I’ve travelled much around the subcontinent and do note the variant pronunciations but I’d still say (as I said above) that _dehlavii _and _lakhnavii_ Urdus are the same, with some exceptions of course, which we’ve been discussing. But as far as diphthongs go I don’t think they are different.   

I note with pleasure your association with places like Bulandshahr (_bulandshaihr_ for us). Are you saying they never pronounce _paudaa_ (= plant), _pair_ (= foot) etc. and for them it is _podaa_ and _per_? Or are we talking of slightly different things. The issue here might be as to where you draw the line and consider a certain pronunciation of _ai_ or _au_ to cease to be classified as a diphthong? In that case, how else would you then define it when two distinct vowels come together?

BTW, I do remember coming across the book you mentioned, “dillii kii khawateen kii kahawateN aur muhaware” by Mrs. Sha'ista Ikramullah who I remember very well. She was a “native” of Calcutta but her Urdu, including her pronunciation of diphthongs, was very clear! She spoke virtually the same language as us!


----------



## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> Sorry, but how often have you visited Delhi, UM SaaHib? Especially _puraanii dilli_ because that is where you’ll find, in an increasingly restricted circle, the _dehlavii urdu _I have in mind – not the one “_aariyaa / jaariyaa huuN_” variety. You’ll find this latter type of Urdu too in _dilli_ ! I have been a frequent visitor there. Anyway, I agree we can’t determine Karachi’s “mainstream” Urdu pronunciation and hence the use of diphthongs just by the company we keep and in my experience it may be hard to define Karachi Urdu, especially now when many of the older generation who migrated there are passing away leaving the younger generations who have begun to drift away from the pronunciation of their immediate ancestors. So there many may now just flatten out or simply omit diphthongs. This wouldn’t entirely surprise me.
> 
> Over the years I’ve travelled much around the subcontinent and do note the variant pronunciations but I’d still say (as I said above) that _dehlavii _and _lakhnavii_ Urdus are the same, with some exceptions of course, which we’ve been discussing. But as far as diphthongs go I don’t think they are different.
> 
> I note with pleasure your association with places like Bulandshahr (_bulandshaihr_ for us). Are you saying they never pronounce _paudaa_ (= plant), _pair_ (= foot) etc. and for them it is _podaa_ and _per_? Or are we talking of slightly different things. The issue here might be as to where you draw the line and consider a certain pronunciation of _ai_ or _au_ to cease to be classified as a diphthong? In that case, how else would you then define it when two distinct vowels come together?
> 
> BTW, I do remember coming across the book you mentioned, “dillii kii khawateen kii kahawateN aur muhaware” by Mrs. Sha'ista Ikramullah who I remember very well. She was a “native” of Calcutta but her Urdu, including her pronunciation of diphthongs, was very clear! She spoke virtually the same language as us!


I have only visited old Delhi once. However, since part of the family stayed back and did not migrate to Pakistan, I have had frequent contact with my family there, right in the heart of the old city in a neighborhood called the Matia Mahal, a short walk from the Jami3 Masjid, which is where I stayed when I visited many many years ago. I am also talking from personal experience with elders in the family (few still alive) who were of mature age before moving from Delhi to Karachi. Add to that the various other people who are classified as the Dehliwalas in Karachi (Saudagaran community). The distinction I am making in the words like _pauda _is unmistakable when uttered by my Patna-native friend (strong diphthong, au rhymes ou in _loud_) and others I described above from Delhi or from Delhi families, where is it spoken much more flatter _p__ɔdaa _(rhymes solve, not mole). I do not have much experience with Lucknowi Urdu except for a neighborhood family I recall from childhood. All I recall is that I loved hearing the 'uncle' talk, as well his general impeccable manner. Intizar Hussain's language sounded very familiar to my ear, like that of one of my female elders who is very proud of her Bulandshahr upbringing and frequently talks about it. If you are finding diphthongs in his speech, then clearly I have a different view of diphthongs, as his delivery is miles apart from the strong-diphthonged Patna Urdu that I am used to hearing.

Thanks again for your detailed comment.


----------



## UrduMedium

Faylasoof said:


> _*He pronounces both with a diphthong as they should be and I do hear it!  This is the same kind of diphthong we discussed here! Post #6 onwards.
> *_
> We use this kind of "diphthonged" pronunciation of many words though they may not be spelt with a diphthong!
> 
> Apart from words like شہر  (pronounced _shaihr_)  and لہر (pronounced _laihr_) discussed in the thread linked above, we use the same kind of diphthong in many other words, e.g. بحث (pronounced _baiHth_) and بحر (pronounced _baiHr_) etc.


I think this is how I also say _shahr, baHr, laHr, baHs_ etc, where the zabar is flattened to somewhere between a zabar and a zer. But I do not consider that a diphthong situation (again may be different definitions, I concur with one HU documented above). This seems to be the only feasible and standard way to utter such words involving the h/H sounds.


----------



## UrduMedium

Faylasoof saahab- The following sounds very _familiar _to me. Does it pass your Lucknow Urdu test? Just trying to benchmark in my head how to classify Lucknow Urdu.

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6974AK

Parable of the prodigal son Language Family: Indo-Aryan central group
Language: Urdū
Recording Number: 6974AK
Narrator: Maulānā Safī
Narrator District: Lucknow
Narrator Province: United Provinces
Year: 1920


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> OK. Do you equate the au (in maulvii) then with o in solve? If not, what's a close approximation of the sound? I assume it is safe to rule out the the mapping of au to the o in mole sound?



Please see my reply to UM SaaHib (post 95). I might be wrong but for me "ai" is a glide between "a" (as in ab) and "i" (as in in) and this produces the diphthong. Same goes for "au" where the "u" is as in "un".


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> Interesting. To me solve and cat are approximations also. So technically I'm between mountain/solve too but probably much closer to solve.
> 
> If you do get time to listen to Intizar Hussain talk, please let us know what you think. I'd appreciate that. Even content-wise its a great listen.



I think one thing that all of us need to bear in mind is that we are human beings and not robots. As human beings we may differ in our speech even within one's own immediate family, let alone from people in the neighbouring village or town. janaab-i-Intizar Hussain is no exception. Even taking into account the worthy gentleman's age, I would tend to agree with you that his "ai" and "au" (if you don't regard them as diphthongs) sounds do come across a bit "lifeless", without "vigour". But, as I have said, we are humans with individuality and do not reproduce identical strands of voice pattern in the manner of DNA duplication. Another person from the same street as janaab-i-Intizaar Hussain may produce these sounds in a much more vivid manner resembling your friend from Patna.( As a side note janaab-i-Intizar Hussain did pronounce "ad*a*bii, kaNk*a*rii and not adbii, kaNkrii (=maulvii!!)


----------



## greatbear

UrduMedium said:


> Faylasoof saahab- The following sounds very _familiar _to me. Does it pass your Lucknow Urdu test? Just trying to benchmark in my head how to classify Lucknow Urdu.
> 
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6974AK



It also sounds not only very familiar to me, but is also extremely close to the way I speak. I don't hear any alleged diphthongs in the speech here.


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> Faylasoof saahab- The following sounds very _familiar _to me. Does it pass your Lucknow Urdu test? Just trying to benchmark in my head how to classify Lucknow Urdu.
> 
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6974AK
> 
> *Parable of the prodigal son*
> 
> Language Family: Indo-Aryan central group
> Language: Urdū
> Recording Number: 6974AK
> Narrator: Maulānā Safī
> Narrator District: Lucknow
> Narrator Province: United Provinces
> Year: 1920



Thank you for this link UM SaaHib. It is exactly 92 years today since this recording was made! Of course, this is not natural speech and Maulana Safi SaaHib is reading an Urdu passage out aloud in front of at least one other person. The reader is clear in his delivery and the qaafs and the "Re"s are very sharp (laa'iq, faaqah-kashii/laRke/paRaa). The diphthongs as in "naubat", "aur", "daulat", "jau", "dauR" "maiN" are pronounced distinctly.


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> I think one thing that all of us need to bear in mind is that we are human beings and not robots. As human beings we may differ in our speech even within one's own immediate family, let alone from people in the neighbouring village or town. janaab-i-Intizar Hussain is no exception. Even taking into account the worthy gentleman's age, I would tend to agree with you that his "ai" and "au" (if you don't regard them as diphthongs) sounds do come across a bit "lifeless", without "vigour". But, as I have said, we are humans with individuality and do not reproduce identical strands of voice pattern in the manner of DNA duplication. Another person from the same street as janaab-i-Intizaar Hussain may produce these sounds in a much more vivid manner resembling your friend from Patna.( As a side note janaab-i-Intizar Hussain did pronounce "ad*a*bii, kaNk*a*rii and not adbii, kaNkrii (=maulvii!!)


QP saahab- Thanks for listening to the recording and your valuable commentary. True that delivery can vary from individual to individual. However, I think Intizar Hussain's speech is representative (and not anomalous) of the region he hails from. 

 Well, for maulvii, we posted earlier a clip from Iftikhar Arif where he repeatedly pronounces as maulvii or mOlvii (rhyme solve). Let me know if you can't find it. Of course, I do not deny that maulavii is also a commonly used pronunciation.


----------



## UrduMedium

Posting a few examples of what I consider diphthongs (from Forvo.com Arabic as Arabic has perfect diphthongs)

Could not find maulavii/maulvii but the closest one is maulaa'ii. Listen here and here

Also this one in daulah. Listen here.

And now two examples of ai kind. Here and here.


----------



## Qureshpor

^ Well UM Jii, I seem to pronounce the "au" like the Arabs but not the "ai". Rafi marHuum in the clip below pronounces it as such.

Rafi - Aji *Ai*sa Mauka Phir Kahan Milega *(1:53 , 3:08 , 4:27 Youtube)*


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> ^ Well UM Jii, I seem to pronounce the "au" like the Arabs but not the "ai". Rafi marHuum in the clip below pronounces it as such.
> 
> Rafi - Aji *Ai*sa Mauka Phir Kahan Milega *(1:53 , 3:08 , 4:27 Youtube)*



Thanks. Great example. But except Biharis, I have not heard this ai glide anywhere. Interesting to know your au bent. So you are much closer to mountain on the solve/mountain scale, it seems. Different strokes ...


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> Thanks. Great example. But except Biharis, I have not heard this ai glide anywhere. Interesting to know your au bent. So you are much closer to mountain on the solve/mountain scale, it seems. Different strokes ...



I am not quite sure if I would equate your "au" examples with mountain/foul. Here is how I think I pronounce "au" (ai raushaniyoN ke shahr bataa..what a song by Mehdi Hassan!)

AE ROSHANIYON KE SHAHER -CHINGARI (Youtube)


----------



## UrduMedium

^ That's very mild and much closer to solve on the solve/mountain scale, and very close to how I also pronounce. Quite unlike the Arabic mawwlaanaa or dawwlaah, to my ears.

True, not "equate". Which is why I said "closer". Arabic au is definitelty much closer to mountain than solve. Again to my ears. Your mileage may vary.


----------



## tonyspeed

I found interesting the difference between "hai" between

the Benares speaker @1:42:
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6966AK

and the Agra speaker @1:10:
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6960AK

You definitely hear more of a glide in the Vanaras speaker.


Bhojpuri speaker @ 2:08 also has a glide.
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6968AK


Braj Speaker @ 0:49 has no glide as well.
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6958AK


From this evidence we see the glide disappearing as one moves west.


----------



## UrduMedium

tonyspeed said:


> I found interesting the difference between "hai" between
> 
> the Benares speaker @1:42:
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6966AK
> 
> and the Agra speaker @1:10:
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6960AK
> 
> You definitely hear more of a glide in the Vanaras speaker.
> 
> 
> Bhojpuri speaker @ 2:08 also has a glide.
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6968AK



Yes, I agree. Very interesting. Thanks for the links and precise time-markers, Tony saahab.


----------



## BP.

tonyspeed said:


> I found interesting the difference between "hai" between
> the Benares speaker @1:42:
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6966AK
> and the Agra speaker @1:10:
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6960AK
> You definitely hear more of a glide in the Vanaras speaker.
> Bhojpuri speaker @ 2:08 also has a glide.
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6968AK
> Braj Speaker @ 0:49 has no glide as well.
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6958AK
> From this evidence we see the glide disappearing as one moves west.



Thank you for the muushigaafaanah piece of work. I  found the 'hai' I'm most used to here at 00:35 and 00:42 : http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK

This is the hai when it is stressed in a sentence, there is a version with a shorter sound and a flatter diphthong, used when the preceding word  takes the stress.


----------



## marrish

Not sure if its relevant but I notice the same - people flattening the diphthongs - in Modern Persian (Iran).


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> Not sure if its relevant but I notice the same - people flattening the diphthongs - in Modern Persian (Iran).



Well, if need be, the thread title can be amended to include Standard Modern Persian. You are right, our "shaitaan" is pronounced as "sheiitaan" by them ( i.e our ai = their e+ii). Would you agree?


----------



## hindiurdu

QURESHPOR said:


> Well, if need be, the thread title can be amended to include Standard Modern Persian. You are right, our "shaitaan" is pronounced as "sheiitaan" by them ( i.e our ai = their e+ii). Would you agree?



'Sheitoon'/'sheytoon' not 'sheitaan', at least colloquially. khaanaa (room for subcontinentals) -> khoone (Mod Pers). Tehraan -> Tehroon. By 'oo' (anglicized), I mean 'uu' for you.


----------



## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> 'Sheitoon'/'sheytoon' not 'sheitaan', at least colloquially. khaanaa (room for subcontinentals) -> khoone (Mod Pers). Tehraan -> Tehroon. By 'oo' (anglicized), I mean 'uu' for you.



Sure. But I was just concentrating on the ai > eii shift as far as Tehrani Persian was concerned. I did not have the colloquial language in mind but formal language on TV, radio etc.


----------



## Qureshpor

> Can you give any examples, particularly of the "ai" to "e" shift?-tonyspeed





QURESHPOR said:


> One example that comes to mind is "shaix" >> "shex".QUOTE]
> 
> Another example that comes to mind is "pesh-xaimah" (prelude) >> "pesh-xemah".


----------



## BP.

BelligerentPacifist said:


> ... I  found the 'hai' I'm most used to here at 00:35 and 00:42 : http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK
> This is the hai when it is stressed in a sentence, there is a version with a shorter sound and a flatter diphthong, used when the preceding word  takes the stress.



Reading it again made me realize people would, as I just did, misunderstand this a little bit. What I said there was that among the sounds linked, this one was what I was the most familiar with, I did not say this is how I say it.
Have a nice day.


----------



## marrish

hindiurdu said:


> Tehraan -> Tehroon. By 'oo' (anglicized), I mean 'uu' for you.


In Persian it is never Tehraan, but Tahraan.


----------



## hindiurdu

marrish said:


> In Persian it is never Tehraan, but Tahraan.



I guess it depends on which Persian you are talking about. In Modern Tehrani Persian, I am not sure that the 'Tah' (where a = अ = schwa) sound really even happens at the beginning of any word. I have always heard Tehroon as the most prevalent pronunciation. That 'e' though feels closer to /ɛ/ (ऍ). Tɛhruun. तॅहरून. This is similar to the HU treatment of words like rehna (रहना → रॅहना). Of course, actual modern Persian is allophonic on त and थ, so often it sounds like थॅहरून. See 'TM BAX - Khoshgele Tehroon' on YouTube at 0:45. Many words that have अ at the outset change that to an ऐ. Rafsanjaanii (रफ़सनजानी) → Ræfsanjɒnii रैफ़सनजॉनी. See 'Enghelab Iran Barbad Taheri Asadolahi' on YT from 0:16. Dari, of course, and traditional subcontinental pronunciations for Persian are a totally different beast. I only bring the Iranian renderings up because the word itself was 'Tehran'.


----------



## BP.

UrduMedium said:


> There may be some truth in the Eastern Hindi-Urdu caring much more about the diphthong than the Western....


The only Dehli accent I knew of before learning that there were several, says lee-لے- like la2ee-لئے, and generally had very clear diphthongs across the board.


----------



## marrish

BelligerentPacifist said:


> The only Dehli accent I knew of before learning that there were several, says lee-لے- like la2ee-لئے, and generally had very clear diphthongs across the board.


This might be out of place but this is how the word is in Punjabi.


----------



## BP.

marrish said:


> This might be out of place but this is how the word is in Punjabi.


From the various Panjabi accents I've heard, the sound is flatter and that very prominent diphthong is absent. Its a smooth slide from the a to the i, while the former has a jagged bump, if my extremely shoddy layman's phonetic skills are any help in describing it.


----------



## souminwé

hindiurdu said:


> I guess it depends on which Persian you are talking about. In Modern Tehrani Persian, I am not sure that the 'Tah' (where a = अ = schwa) sound really even happens at the beginning of any word. I have always heard Tehroon as the most prevalent pronunciation. That 'e' though feels closer to /ɛ/ (ऍ). Tɛhruun. तॅहरून. This is similar to the HU treatment of words like rehna (रहना → रॅहना). Of course, actual modern Persian is allophonic on त and थ, so often it sounds like थॅहरून. See 'TM BAX - Khoshgele Tehroon' on YouTube at 0:45. Many words that have अ at the outset change that to an ऐ. Rafsanjaanii (रफ़सनजानी) → Ræfsanjɒnii रैफ़सनजॉनी. See 'Enghelab Iran Barbad Taheri Asadolahi' on YT from 0:16. Dari, of course, and traditional subcontinental pronunciations for Persian are a totally different beast. I only bring the Iranian renderings up because the word itself was 'Tehran'.



Does Tehran often become /tæhrun/? 
I've definitely heard /tæhruni/ before (_doxt__ær tæhruni, divunæm k__ærdi_ ^.- ), but I always assumed "Tehran" on it's own was too formal/prestigious/whatever to "un"-ify.


As for the main topic of this thread, I can't really follow what definition of "diphthong" this thread is using. BelligerentPacifist's description of a "smooth transition from /a/ to /i/" sounds like a diphthong to me (and very Punjabi). 
QP seemed to be merely asking if [æ] and [ɔ] tend to be confused with [e] and [o] these days, whereas Faylasoof seems to be talking about /ayi/ and /awu/ (diphthongs) turning into the usual sounds (not diphthongs).
Has any conclusion been approached as to whether any "diphthongs" are disappearing? 

(Other than Faylasoof's unfortunately rather moribund ones ^.- )


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## Qureshpor

souminwé said:


> As for the main topic of this thread, I can't really follow what definition of "diphthong" this thread is using.
> 
> QP seemed to be merely asking if [æ] and [ɔ] tend to be confused with [e] and [o] these days, whereas Faylasoof seems to be talking about /ayi/ and /awu/ (diphthongs) turning into the usual sounds (not diphthongs).Has any conclusion been approached as to whether any "diphthongs" are disappearing?



souminwé, this is exactly the point behind my starting the thread. If I have misrepresented  or misunderstood the true definition for a diphthong, then I apologise for it.


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## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> If I have misrepresented  or misunderstood the true definition for a diphthong, then I apologise for it.



I think you have; this has also been pointed out to you before by UM and HU in this thread.


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## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> I think you have; this has also been pointed out to you before by UM and HU in this thread.



My position was clear from the first post and I pointed this out in replies to various people along the route.


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## hindiurdu

QURESHPOR said:


> My position was clear from the first post and I pointed this out in replies to various people along the route.



and also



souminwé said:


> Has any conclusion been approached as to whether any "diphthongs" are disappearing?



Mitti pao. The basic agreement we all got to was this - hæ is standard for 'is' and he is non-standard and uncommon. Eastern dialects have həɪ (genuine diphthongal). Similarly, ɔ:r is standard for 'and' and o:r is non-standard. Eastern dialects have əʊr (genuine diphthongal). There was a branch discussion where some of us (at least me) contended that Punjabis often do ɔ → o. So, ɔ:r → o:r and mɔ:lvi: → mo:lvi: for many Punjabis. But this was disputed by others, so there wasn't consensus. I posted YT videos but not everyone perceived the /o/ sound like I did, so we still didn't get consensus on it. Regardless of Punjabi lehja, all agreed that /ɔ:/ commonly represented in HU-romanization as 'au' is the standard pronunciation. Afaik no one really argued for məʊlvi:, which is what a genuine diphthong would be (we had a false argument on this where we were actually all in agreement). Unrelated to diphthongality, there was a separate issue with mɔ:lvi: vs mɔ:ləvi: with Faylasoof (at least him, probably others) arguing hard for schwa retention in their preferred Arabic/Persian/Sanskrit words and certifying their own native retentions of it, whereas UM, I and others certified our deletion of it in concordance with what we believe to be modern northern Aryan pronunciation. No consensus on that either.

Fair summarization?


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## hindiurdu

souminwé said:


> Does Tehran often become /tæhrun/? I've definitely heard /tæhruni/ before (_doxt__ær tæhruni, divunæm k__ærdi_ ^.- ), but I always assumed "Tehran" on it's own was too formal/prestigious/whatever to "un"-ify.



 No, can't say that I've heard /tæhru:n/ really. How would you say 'tah deegh' though, /tæh/? My natural inclination is to say /tɛh/ because we use this word all the time in HU-P-Kash with that pronunciation. This is similar to how I hear /tɛhru:n/ but I remember being corrected on this.


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## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> and also
> 
> 
> 
> Mitti pao. The basic agreement we all got to was this - hæ is standard for 'is' and he is non-standard and uncommon. Eastern dialects have həɪ (genuine diphthongal). Similarly, ɔ:r is standard for 'and' and o:r is non-standard. Eastern dialects have əʊr (genuine diphthongal). There was a branch discussion where some of us (at least me) contended that Punjabis often do ɔ → o. So, ɔ:r → o:r and mɔ:lvi: → mo:lvi: for many Punjabis. But this was disputed by others, so there wasn't consensus. I posted YT videos but not everyone perceived the /o/ sound like I did, so we still didn't get consensus on it. Regardless of Punjabi lehja, all agreed that /ɔ:/ commonly represented in HU-romanization as 'au' is the standard pronunciation. Afaik no one really argued for məʊlvi:, which is what a genuine diphthong would be (we had a false argument on this where we were actually all in agreement). Unrelated to diphthongality, there was a separate issue with mɔ:lvi: vs mɔ:ləvi: with Faylasoof (at least him, probably others) arguing hard for schwa retention in their preferred Arabic/Persian/Sanskrit words and certifying their own native retentions of it, whereas UM, I and others certified our deletion of it in concordance with what we believe to be modern northern Aryan pronunciation. No consensus on that either.
> 
> Fair summarization?



I would agree on "miTTii paa'o" (Thanks) and the summary is also fair. I too am with Faylasoof SaaHib on "maulavii".


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## Abu Talha

hindiurdu said:


> there was a separate issue with mɔ:lvi: vs mɔ:ləvi: with Faylasoof (at least him, probably others) arguing hard for schwa retention in their preferred Arabic/Persian/Sanskrit words and certifying their own native retentions of it, whereas UM, I and others certified our deletion of it in concordance with what we believe to be modern northern Aryan pronunciation. No consensus on that either.


It is my impression that retaining an original "classical" pronunciation of Persian words stems from Persian being at one point a second language for the educated, and because there actually was some interaction between North-Indian and Persian culture. It is, I think, similar to how nowadays one takes pains to pronounce almost all English words correctly when speaking Hindi-Urdu, with, e.g., all the consonant clusters which are foreign to Hindi-Urdu's phonology.

I agree, however, that in natural fluent speech (that I hear) these schwas are deleted but Urdu, at least, seems to have always had space for "academic" discussion of faSeeH vs. non-faSeeH.


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## marrish

Abu Talha said:


> I agree, however, that in natural fluent speech (that I hear) these schwas are deleted but Urdu, at least, seems to have always had space for "academic" discussion of faSeeH vs. non-faSeeH.



It might be unsignificant but let me say it here that it is not the question of academic discussion but rather the standard of Urdu. For me it is most natural to articulate these schwas in fluent speech. There are and were some ladies in my family who had never heard of academic discussions, and wouldn't know what is faSeeH and what not, have also very naturally uttered the sounds where they belong.


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## BP.

Might I ask the colleagues here how they pronounce the following words, with or without a diphthong on the _yee_:
سمیت
کریلہ
ڈکیت
Thanks.


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## Qureshpor

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Might I ask the colleagues here how they pronounce the following words, with or without a diphthong on the _yee_:
> سمیت
> کریلہ
> ڈکیت
> Thanks.



With the vowel you represent by "ee".


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## marrish

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Might I ask the colleagues here how they pronounce the following words, with or without a diphthong on the _yee_:
> سمیت
> کریلہ
> ڈکیت
> Thanks.


1. without a diphthong
2. without a diphthong
3. with a diphthong!


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## BP.

Thank you both. I went home a few weeks ago and was paying attention to the pronunciations (I guess that's what this forum does to you), and discovered these variations, at least 2 and 3 were being said with definite diphthongs, and 1 depending on the person! karailah banaa too ma3luum huaa usee kyunkar pukaaraa jaataa hai.


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## hindiurdu

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Might I ask the colleagues here how they pronounce the following words, with or without a diphthong on the _yee_



سمیت -without a diphthong - sam*e*t, same sound as m*a*de - though I have heard people pronounce this as sameit, with a very slight and fleeting 'i' sound inserted in there
کریلہ - without a diphthong - karela, same sound as m*a*de
ڈکیت - usually without a diphthong, though I realize I am bordering on a diphthong sometimes - dak*ai*t, sometimes as æ (same as b*a*d) but sometimes with a minute schwa in there dakæ-at

On schwas, I've thought of a great example. How do you say - Abbottabad? Speaking naturally and forgetting that it's an English name, I myself would say æbTa:ba:d and I am pretty sure lots of H/U/Punjabi-speakers say it that way (classic HU vc_cv schwa deletion). Would you retain the schwa and say æb*ə*Ta:ba:d?



Abu Talha said:


> It is my impression that retaining an original  "classical" pronunciation of Persian words stems from Persian being at  one point a second language for the educated, and because there actually  was some interaction between North-Indian and Persian culture. It is, I  think, similar to how nowadays one takes pains to pronounce almost all  English words correctly when speaking Hindi-Urdu, with, e.g., all the  consonant clusters which are foreign to Hindi-Urdu's phonology.



Yes, that makes sense, I agree. In some cases our pronunciation is constant where theirs may have shifted (conjecture on my part based on the fact that Dari resembles our pronunciation a lot and is supposed to be purer/older). Bad (=bad, opposite of xush) is 'b*ə*d' (बद) for HU-speakers but 'b*æ*d' (बैद, same sound as b*a*d) for Iranians (though that æ sound is of shorter duration than HU-speakers are used to - YT for 'first persian Gi-joe Bache Bad' very close to the beginning).


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## BP.

hindiurdu said:


> On schwas, I've thought of a great example. How do you say - Abbottabad? Speaking naturally and forgetting that it's an English name, I myself would say æbTa:ba:d and I am pretty sure lots of H/U/Punjabi-speakers say it that way (classic HU vc_cv schwa deletion). Would you retain the schwa and say æb*ə*Ta:ba:d?
> ...


aybaT aabaud.

The ay and au here are meant to exaggeratedly represent respectively a diphthong and a falling tone.

PS: please don't write in my quote-boxes without leaving the possibility of telling the two parts apart. I'm appreciative.


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## UrduMedium

Abu Talha said:


> It is my impression that retaining an original "classical" pronunciation of Persian words stems from Persian being at one point a second language for the educated, and because there actually was some interaction between North-Indian and Persian culture. It is, I think, similar to how nowadays one takes pains to pronounce almost all English words correctly when speaking Hindi-Urdu, with, e.g., all the consonant clusters which are foreign to Hindi-Urdu's phonology.



Thanks. This is a very insightful analogy. It explains the phenomenon well.


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## greatbear

hindiurdu said:


> Would you retain the schwa and say æb*ə*Ta:ba:d?



Yes, I would retain the schwa here and I think most Hindi/Urdu speakers would retain it here.


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## UrduMedium

hindiurdu said:


> On schwas, I've thought of a great example. How do you say - Abbottabad? Speaking naturally and forgetting that it's an English name, I myself would say æbTa:ba:d and I am pretty sure lots of H/U/Punjabi-speakers say it that way (classic HU vc_cv schwa deletion). Would you retain the schwa and say æb*ə*Ta:ba:d?


I say it as abTabaad and hear it the same way from most people (including people close to the city). Some do say abaTabaad (I guess more consistent with the Abbott name). One should be able to find numerous pronunciations of this city name from about a year ago when it was in the news related to OBL killing.


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## hindiurdu

BelligerentPacifist said:


> PS: please don't write in my quote-boxes without leaving the possibility of telling the two parts apart. I'm appreciative.



Oops, my apologies! This was unintentional and I have gone back and fixed it.



UrduMedium said:


> I say it as abTabaad and hear it the same way from most people (including people close to the city). Some do say abaTabaad (I guess more consistent with the Abbott name). One should be able to find numerous pronunciations of this city name from about a year ago when it was in the news related to OBL killing.



Quickly sampled some YT videos on this -

Eyewitness account of Bin laden killing in Abbottabad (with subtitles) - clear æbTa:ba:d
Attack on Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad - clear æbTa:ba:d
PTI FEVER grips Abbottabad, before UPcoming Jalsa. Suba Hazara Ki Jang Imran Khan Ki SUNG - host says it with schwa (æbəTa:ba:d)

There were many others, but schwa-deletion feels like the norm to me, so I suspect UM and I have good company. Others can check for themselves.


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## UrduMedium

hindiurdu said:


> Oops, my apologies! This was unintentional and I have gone back and fixed it.
> 
> 
> 
> Quickly sampled some YT videos on this -
> 
> Eyewitness account of Bin laden killing in Abbottabad (with subtitles) - clear æbTa:ba:d
> Attack on Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad - clear æbTa:ba:d
> PTI FEVER grips Abbottabad, before UPcoming Jalsa. Suba Hazara Ki Jang Imran Khan Ki SUNG - host says it with schwa (æbəTa:ba:d)
> 
> There were many others, but schwa-deletion feels like the norm to me, so I suspect UM and I have good company. Others can check for themselves.



Thanks for the links. Interestingly, I scanned randomly and heard 2-3 guests (Abbottabad local political leaders) all say abTabaad. 

I also have a friend from Abbottabad who says abTabaad. Ditto for my family members from KP province.


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## Abu Talha

Thanks for your replies everyone.
æbTaba:d for me in fluent non-careful speech. In fact I remember used to say æ*p*Taba:d before I had seen it written. I don't know why though.


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## UrduMedium

Abu Talha said:


> Thanks for your replies everyone.
> æbTaba:d for me in fluent non-careful speech. In fact I remember used to say æ*p*Taba:d before I had seen it written. I don't know why though.


This is very true. I think this is because saying _abTabaad _requires more effort than _apTabaad_.


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## Faylasoof

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Might I ask the colleagues here how they pronounce the following words, with or without a diphthong on the _yee_:
> سمیت
> کریلہ
> ڈکیت
> Thanks.


 BP SaaHIb, in our speech it is:

1) _*samait*_ - with a diphthong! Of course _samet_ is also considered correct but we always say it with a diphthong. 
2) _karelah_ - no diphthong
3) Don't use it! I assume you mean 'ticket'  in English. We say _*TiKaT*_ !!


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## Faylasoof

QURESHPOR said:


> souminwé, this is exactly the point behind my starting the thread. If I have misrepresented  or misunderstood the true definition for a diphthong, then I apologise for it.


 QP SaaHib, from my humble experiences in other languages I can tell you that diphthongs can very in their "sharpness". The way an Arab speaking fuS-Haa (the classical language) pronounces what we are here transliterating as _m*au*laanaa_ is not the way we do it. It may be tricky to explain this to others but as you know, according to the fus-Ha pronunciation it is _m*a**uu*laanaa _- quite sharp. If we take this as a base then how we say it as mentioned earlier, i.e. _m*au*laanaa _this is the best transliteration I can offer. Same for what we say as _x*ai*r_ they say _x*aii*r_. In both cases the doubled vowel is meant to represent a sharper diphthong. We never say _xer_ or _xaer_. For us it is sharper than this but as I indicate not the same as Arabs. Here is Platts' "guide":

A خير _ḵẖ*ai*r_ (inf. n. of خير 'to be possessed of good'; 'to be good or well'), s.f. Good; goodness; benefit; good  fortune, prosperity, welfare, well-being, weal; health; happiness;—adj. & adv. Good; best; well;—well; very well; it is just as well; no matter;—intj. Indeed! you don't say so!:

This is not a vowel glide!!  ... and it is _x*ai*r_, _*ai*saa_, _k*ai*saa_, _p*ai*sah_ etc. not matter how moribund it may sound to others!! 

When I was learning Greek we were told to differentiate between proper diphthongs ("The             following are diphthongs: αι,              ει, οι, αυ, ευ, ηυ, ου", equivalent to ai, ei, oi, au, etc. <- from my textbook!) and improper diphthongs which are more like vowel glides. The following is again from another of my textbooks about how these diphthongs are meant to be pronounced by English speakers though amongst modern Greek speakers I do hear differences in sharpness:

αι is                     pronounced _*ai*_ as in                     Th*ai*land 
ει                     is pronounced _*ei*_ as                     in *ei*ght1
οι                     is pronounced _*oi*_ as                     in Illin*oi*s
αυ                     is pronounced _*ow*_ as                     in c*ow*   --- our _maulaanaa_ comes close to this!
ευ                     is pronounced _*eu*_ as                     in f*eu*d2
ηυ                     is pronounced the same as *eu*
ου                     is pronounced _*ou*_ as                     in s*ou*p 
υι                     is pronounced _*uee*_                     as in q*uee*n

I've presented these as a mere guide and hope we don't start off-topic discussions about Greek vs. Latin vs. Sanskrit or Arabic and Biblical Hebrew etc.  that have nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Many Indo-European languages share the way diphthongs are pronounced which is why I thought I'd mention this Indo-European language, ancient though it might be. 

It would be a lot easier if we were able to hear each other!


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## BP.

I discovered it was karailah in our family. Must be a wobbly vegetable.


Faylasoof said:


> ...
> 3) Don't use it! I assume you mean 'ticket'  in English. We say _*TiKaT*_ !!


dacoit. You misread.


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## Faylasoof

BelligerentPacifist said:


> I discovered it was karailah in our family. Must be a wobbly vegetable.
> 
> dacoit. You misread.


 Your family says _kar*ai*lah_! It seems you all are even more moribund than yours truly!  We say _kar*e*laa_ !

H کريلا करेला _kar*e*lā_ [S. कारवेल्लकः], s.m. A kind of  bitter vegetable, _Momordica charantia_;—a sort of fire-works (with or without stars).
No diphthong for us here!

Sorry, I didn't zoom in! Yes, it is for us _always with a diphthong_, _Dak*ai*t_ and _Dak*ai*tii _- same as Platts' :

डकैत _ḍak*ai*t_ [_ḍākā_, q.v.+_ait_ = _āʼit_ = Prk.  आइत्तो=आयंतो=आवेंतो=S. आपयन्, the term. of the pres. part. with the caus. aug. _āpi_], s.m. One of a gang of robbers, a '*dacoit*,' robber, brigand, highwayman, pirate (=_ḍākū_).      ڐکيتي डकैती ḍak*ai*tī

How about قرولي ? Do you say it with or without the diphthong?


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## tonyspeed

I just thought of 2 examples of seeming dipthong confusion, as per QP's description, that seem to be over 100 years old. But interestingly, it is not possible to say whether we are going from o->au or au->o.                                                                                                                                                                                                          H بيورا ब्योरा byorā, ब्यौरा byaurā, बेवरा beʼorā [S. व्यवहारः, rt. हृ with वि and अव],       H روشن raushan, roshan [Pehl. roshan; Zend raokhshna, rt. rukhsh; S. रोचन, rt. रुच्], Is it possible that it was the Urdu script that introduced this confusion itself?


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## Faylasoof

tonyspeed said:


> I just thought of 2 examples of seeming dipthong confusion, as per QP's description, that seem to be over 100 years old. But interestingly, it is not possible to say whether we are going from o->au or au->o.                                                                                                                                                                                                          H بيورا ब्योरा byorā, ब्यौरा byaurā, बेवरा beʼorā [S. व्यवहारः, rt. हृ with वि and अव],       H روشن raushan, roshan [Pehl. roshan; Zend raokhshna, rt. rukhsh; S. रोचन, rt. रुच्], _*Is it possible that it was the Urdu script that introduced this confusion itself*_?


 If it was the Urdu script that caused confusion, then the Arabs should be just as confused about diphthongs! We not only use the Arabic script (modified of course for Urdu) but have many of the same diphthonged words -and we are meant to pronounce these diphthongs, though not as sharply as they do. BTW, this also applies to many words of Persian origins too, e.g. _r*au*shan_ as you mention. 

Platts gives both but for us it is always _r*au*shan_:

H روشن _r*au*shan_, _roshan_ [Pehl. _roshan_; Zend _raokhshna_, rt.  _rukhsh_; S. रोचन, rt. रुच्], adj. Light, lighted up, alight, illuminated; bright, shining, splendid, luminous; clear, evident, manifest, conspicuous:—_raushan-ćaukī_, s.f. _lit_. 'A lighted station,' a band of musicians; a kind of serenade with pipes and small tabours:—_roshan-dān_, s.m. A hole for admitting light, a skylight:—_roshan-dil_,

Besides this, three other Urdu lexicons I have also say it is _r*au*shan_ - true for other diphthongs too.  

We got _r*au*shan_ from Persian. Here is Steingass:

روشن _r*au*shan_ (for _r*au*zan_), A window;--_roshan_ (for _roshān_) Light, splendid, lumi- nous, bright, serene, resplendent; clear, evi- dent, manifest, conspicuous; illustrious, celebrated; neither thick nor thin, moderate; bad-tempered, harsh;--_roshan kardan,_ To clear; to know by heart (a lesson); to ex- plain (a word or speech);--_gulū roshan kardan,_ To clear the throat

He also mentions _roshan_ since Modern (esp. Tehrani) Persian has been smoothing out diphthongs and elongating the vowels so now it is _r*uu*shan_. But the earlier, New Persian pronunciation I think was _r*au*shan_.

_loghatnaameh dehkhoda_ also has both with the diphthong-giving _zabar_ on '_re_' coming first:

روشن . [* رَ* / رُو ش َ ] (ص ) ۞ تابناک . نورانی . منور. درخشان . تابان . (ناظم الاطباء)(فرهنگ فارسی معین ). چیز دارنده ٔ نور مثل چراغ و آفتاب و اطاق روشن . (فرهنگ نظام .). مُضی ٔ. منیر. باهر.بافروغ . مقابل تاریک


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## hindiurdu

Another example - qaum (قوم क़ौम). In the olden days, YT for "Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja - Ashok Kumar, Chitalkar, Samadhi Song" has clearly diphthongal 'qaʊm' in it. From more modern times "Hum Aik Zinda Qaum Hain | We Are Awake | Islami Jamiat Talaba Pakistan" or "Dushmano Tum ne Us Qaum ko Lalkara hai (Tasawwar Khanum)" - sound pretty non-diphthongal 'qɔːm' to me. I see a mix of 'qaʊm' and 'qɔːm' from modern stuff (does not appear correlated to India vs Pakistan or Hindi vs Urdu as far as I can tell), but the older ones appear to be strictly 'qaʊm' (could be a sample bias). It could of course be the case that in olden times Bengalis and Maharashtrians were overrepresented in movie singing (conjecture on my part) and they are natively diphthongal about these things anyway.


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## hindiurdu

Faylasoof said:


> use the Arabic script (modified of course for Urdu) but have many of the same diphthonged words -and we are meant to pronounce these diphthongs ... Platts gives both but for us it is always _r*au*shan_



Interesting. Would you say raushandaan with a diphthong? How would you say 'maulaanaa, qaum ka raushandaan khol do"? Kind of like 'मउलाना क़उम का रउशनदान​ खोल दो' (I understand that the diphthongal transitions are shorter than appear apparent here)? That's very different from me. I would say 'मौलाना, क़ौम का रौशनदान खोल दो'. /ɔː/ all the way for me.


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> Can you give any examples, particularly of the "ai" to "e" shift?


Yes, how about "shaix" which is more often than not pronounced as "shex".


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## tarkshya

It seems to be an old thread, but I was always curious about diphthongs in Hindi, so let's continue on.

I don't think the diphthongs are disappearing. Speaking strictly for Hindi, the diphthongs are more common in eastern and southern regions, while western Hindi speakers (like myself), seems to lean towards  monophthongs. Words like पैसा, जैसा, कैसा (paisaa, jaisaa, kaisaa) etc are spoken with the single vowel sound of IPA /æ/, (i.e. the vowel used in "cat", "hat" etc.) by western Hindi speakers. Biharis and eastern UPites will speak these words with a distinct diphthong sound, like pa-i-saa, where one can easily notice the vowel glide in the pronunciation.

Which brings the question, what is the correct way of speaking devanaagri vowel  ै ? Is it a diphthong or a pure vowel? I really don't know and would like to know other's opinion. In my school days, I had a teacher who was eastern UPite and  he always used to speak this vowel with the diphthong sound. I always thought his pronunciation was regional, and thus incorrect, but now I am not sure. Same goes for the vowel  ौ, which is spoken as pure vowel as in "not", "got" by western Hindi speakers, but as diphthong by easterners. I would like to know which pronunciation is correct.


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## tarkshya

Also, an interesting tid-bit. In a recent Hindi movie Shagird, a north Indian man introduces his wife named वैशाली (vaishaalii) to his Maharashtrian colleague. The north Indian man pronounces her name with a pure vowel sound, i.e. as v/æ/shaalii. The maharashtrian character, played by Nana Patekar, chides him saying that you north Indians can't even pronounce your own name correctly! It is va-i-shaalii, not v/æ/shaalii. Was he right?


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## mundiya

I believe grammarians consider both the pure vowel and diphthongal pronunciations of ै and  ौ to be correct in Hindi.

EDIT: Tony jii posted a couple of references in an old thread...



tonyspeed said:


> Rama Kant Agnihotri "*Hindi an Essential Grammar*"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ai ऐ ...is  phonetically [æ] in most standard varieties of  Hindi and is prounounced  as a simple vowel....In some varieties,  particularly Eastern Hindi, it  has a dipthongal pronunciation
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Spoken Urdu Volume 1* Muhammad Adb-Al-Rahman Barker
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The /ǝy/ sequence should begin with with a vowel almost as low and fronted as the a of rat, followed by an offglide somewhat like the e of set (or even a little higher, like the a of fate)
> 
> /ǝ/  is also fronted and lowered in the sequence /ǝy/ before a consonant,  phonetically [æ ⁱ ] or [ɛ   ⁱ]; at the end of a word with a lower  offglide, almost equivalent to a lenis[e] [æ ᵉ] or [ɛ ᵉ] ...(In the  South, however, /ǝy/ is pronounced like the ie of tie, but this does not  occur in the North)....
> 
> /pǝyda/ born, produced (phon. [pæ ⁱda] or even [pæda]
> /hǝy/ is (pron. [hæ ᵉ] or [hɛ ᵉ])
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There  are several conclusions I have drawn from this. According to the  book  standard, there IS a difference between the pronunciation of ai  between  Hindi and Urdu.
> This is aided by the fact that Urdu sees this as two  characters,  whereas in Hindi this represented by only one character. In  practice  though, I think there may be a bit of overlap between the two.  Even in  the example the author concedes that in practice [æ ⁱ] can be   simplified to [æ] by some speakers. Secondly, it is technically an  offglide and not a full-dipthong as Faylasoof-saahib mentioned.
> 
> 
> As far as Bollywood goes,  Bollywood primarily caters to India, second  to Pakistan and then third  to the world. Least on its mind at this  point in time is Urdu  pronunciation. However, I would not be quick to  assume it doesn't care  at all. At least for some movies, there are  speech trainers on set.  Obviously, some people like Kaif are going to  speak bad Hindi to some  extent, but that is to be expected.
Click to expand...


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## Dib

One "external" observation may be interesting here: In Bengali transcription of Hindi speech, words like hai, maiN, etc. are pretty consistently spelt with an "æy"* - হ্যায় (hæy), ম্যায় (mæy), etc. which seems to be consistent with the "Urdu" pronunciation described above.

---

* Bengali "æy" is probably better described as "æe̯" with a nonsyllabic "e", but that is hopefully irrelevant here.


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## tarkshya

mundiya said:


> I believe grammarians consider both the pure vowel and diphthongal pronunciations of ै and  ौ to be correct in Hindi.



Well, if that is the case, shouldn't there be distinct symbols for monophthongs and diphthongs? After all, they are different sounds.


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## Dib

tarkshya said:


> Well, if that is the case, shouldn't there be distinct symbols for monophthongs and diphthongs? After all, they are different sounds.



Even though they are phonetically different sounds, Hindi does not seem to distinguish between them in any meaningful way. So, Hindi probably does not (yet) need separate symbols for them. Marathi does, however, already use separate symbols for /æ/ and /ɔ/ in English words, as separate from both /e/~/ai/ and /o/~/au/ respectively - you know using the sign that looks like chandrabindu without the dot. I am sure you've seen it if you have ever been to MH. I am not sure how to type it. So, Hindi speakers (should I say - "writers" ) can obviously borrow them if they want.

EDIT: Here are the symbols, I meant: ॅ /æ/ and ॉ /ɔ/. That explains the funny-looking Devanagarization of "bank" (बँक) you see in MH. It's actually not a chandrabindu, it's supposed to be this æ plus a normal bindu for the nasal consonant.


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## mundiya

tarkshya said:


> Well, if that is the case, shouldn't there be distinct symbols for monophthongs and diphthongs? After all, they are different sounds.



The difference is regional, so that's why the need for distinct symbols hasn't occurred.  Just as the English "aunt" is pronounced in different ways depending on region but spelled the same.


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## marrish

It must have been said somewhere on the pages of this thread but I risk repeating it that the dissapeareance (or better: transformation) of diphthongs has taken place in the most of varieties of Persian and in several dialects of Arabic. This piece of information might be only relevant for Urdu but I think it is a wider tendence. I don't know Modern Greek but as I have heard it and read some of the answers here and there on the Forum, it is also the case with it.

As far as Hindi is concerned, I agree with both mundiya and Dib. I can realise that it is a slightly different case but there are other cases of etymology-based spellings in Hindi (like the vowel r or retroflex NR (N). Marathi is a different case and I appreciate this language's ability to indicate more vowels and diphthongs.

Mr. Dib, are you convinced that your example of bank in Marathi amounts to an anecdote? Why I am asking about it is that earlier, bank was written in Urdu بنک while now it is more بینک.


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## Dib

marrish said:


> I don't know Modern Greek but as I have heard it and read some of the answers here and there on the Forum, it is also the case with it.



Yeah, Greek has been losing diphthongs since a very early date. Even the classical (at least, Attic) Greek was not exempt (example: the iota-subscript).



> Mr. Dib, are you convinced that your example of bank in Marathi amounts to an anectode? Why I am asking about it is that earlier, bank was written in Urdu بنک while now it is more بینک.



I don't quite follow your question. But a photo may help here:
http://www.hotpalwal.in/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Bank-of-Maharashtra-palwal.jpg

The open ɔ sign has been retained even in the "Hindi" version. I am not sure, but actually, this particular transcription is probably not uncommon in Hindi.


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## marrish

Dib said:


> I don't quite follow your question. But a photo may help here:
> http://www.hotpalwal.in/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Bank-of-Maharashtra-palwal.jpg


Thanks for sharing the photo. I'm sorry I was unable to be clear when asking you the question; there was a typo too. You said the way 'bank' is written in Marathi was funny-looking and that it was not a chandrabindu.

My question is whether it is possible that the word is written with a chandrabindu and pronounced 'b*a*Nk', not 'bæNk'.


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## Dib

marrish said:


> My question is whether it is possible that the word is written with a chandrabindu and pronounced 'b*a*Nk', not 'bæNk'.



Ah, now I see. I just confirmed with a Marathi friend. He said (without me prompting) that it was बॅ+ङ्क, and on prompting he said that the vowel was the English vowel of Bank and not short a/schwa.


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## tarkshya

Thanks Dib, and now let me muddy the waters even further. What are these diacritic marks -  ॆ and ॊ for? Or as written like this ऄ and ऒ. Notice the wavy diacritic marks. Are these supposed to be the symbols for diphthongs, or are these pure vowel (IPA /æ/ and /ɒ/) sounds?

Btw, I have never seen these wavy diacritic marks in Hindi books. I have only seen them in Sanskrit religious texts.

PS: I feel silly asking these questions as I am a native Hindi speaker, but I guess it is never too late to correct one's knowledge.


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## eskandar

It may be off-topic but as there were quite a few posts concering modern Tehrani Persian pronunciation on this thread, I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions:



hindiurdu said:


> Tehraan -> Tehroon. By 'oo' (anglicized), I mean 'uu' for  you.





marrish said:


> In Persian it is never Tehraan, but Tahraan.


Actually neither of these is quite right. By far the most common pronunciation is 'tehraan' (something like [tɛhɾɒn]). I don't think I've ever heard 'tahraan'. 'Tehroon' is also not the norm at all and is less often heard; it might be used for particular effect in a song or a sarcastic sentence or something. However the adjective is most commonly 'tehruunii'.



Faylasoof said:


> He also mentions _roshan_ since Modern (esp. Tehrani) Persian has been smoothing out diphthongs and elongating the vowels so now it is _r*uu*shan_. But the earlier, New Persian pronunciation I think was _r*au*shan_.


I've never heard 'ruushan'. Today two pronunciations coexist in Tehrani Persian: you'll hear the diphthong 'rowshan' as well as the more colloquial monophthong 'roshan' but never 'ruushan'.



hindiurdu said:


> How would you say 'tah deegh' though, /tæh/? My natural  inclination is to say /tɛh/ because we use this word all the time in  HU-P-Kash with that pronunciation.


ته as in 'tah diig' is pronounced /tæh/ in Tehrani Persian, not /tɛh/.


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## Dib

tarkshya said:


> Thanks Dib, and now let me muddy the waters even further. What are these diacritic marks -  ॆ and ॊ for? Or as written like this ऄ and ऒ. Notice the wavy diacritic marks. Are these supposed to be the symbols for diphthongs, or are these pure vowel (IPA /æ/ and /ɒ/) sounds?
> 
> Btw, I have never seen these wavy diacritic marks in Hindi books. I have only seen them in Sanskrit religious texts.
> 
> PS: I feel silly asking these questions as I am a native Hindi speaker, but I guess it is never too late to correct one's knowledge.




Rest assured, there is nothing silly about it. These signs are not used in Hindi, as you have correctly noticed. These two, if I remember correctly, are supposed to be short "e" and short "o", and normally meant to be used to transliterate the South Indian languages accurately in Devanagari. Vedic Sanskrit and Prakrits can have short "e" and "o" in some contexts, but as far as I know, they are never distinguished in writing from the long ones - these signs are new inventions. Hindi as well as Classical Sanskrit have no short "e" and "o"; so as expected these signs don't occur in those texts. I am, however, intrigued by your comment that you have seen them in Sanskrit texts. I did not expect that. So, any more details (like, book, publisher, etc.) in that regard will be welcome.


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## tarkshya

Dib said:


> I am, however, intrigued by your comment that you have seen them in Sanskrit texts. I did not expect that. So, any more details (like, book, publisher, etc.) in that regard will be welcome.



Looks like it's just a false memory I have. After doing some Internet search, I could not find any Sanskrit text with those wavy diacritic marks. Somehow all foreign looking symbols present in devnagrii  are Sanskrit to my mind . But will certainly alert you if I do come across these symbols in Sanskrit.


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