# no/not (pronunciation)



## albondiga

Wikipedia's Tagalog page gives a few basic phrases with pronunciation, including:

No: _hindî_ [hɪnˈdɛʔ] (*hin-DEH*)
I don't understand: _Hindî ko maintindihan_ [hɪnˈdiː ko mɐʔɪnˌtɪndiˈhan] (*hin-DEE* koh ma-in-TIN-dih-HAN)

I was wondering about the two different pronunciations given for _hindî_... Is it pronounced (a) "hin-DEH" when used as the stand-alone equivalent of the English "no" and (b) "hin-DEE" when used as the equivalent of the English "not" in a longer phrase?  If not, then what's the distinction above?


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## Outsider

Or the transcription could be wrong...


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## MarcB

*hin-DEH is the most common  way. hin-DEE* shows emphasis but natives can give you more info.


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## Qcumber

MarcB said:


> *hin-DEH is the most common way. hin-DEE* shows emphasis but natives can give you more info.


I am not a native, but I know the answer.
*Hindî* is pronounced [hIn'dI?] in isolation. B( I )B= <i> as in Eng. fit.

Within an utterance, the glottal stop [?] is dropped, and a compensatory lengthening of the vowel takes place, e.g. *Hindî túnay.* [hIn di: 'tu: naj] "It's not genuine."

Some speakers tend to replace the final B( I )B by [e], e.g.
*dáhil *['da:hIl] > ['da:hel]
*hindî* [hIn'dI?] > [hIn'de?]

Except in loan words, _, B( I )B and [e] are allomorphs; all three are the realization of the phoneme /i/.

P.S. Whenever I write I in square brackets, it's changed into i by the system. So I have deleted the brackets wherever necessary and replaced them by B( )B._


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## epistolario

albondiga said:


> Wikipedia's Tagalog page gives a few basic phrases with pronunciation, including:
> 
> No: _hindî_ [hɪnˈdɛʔ] (*hin-DEH*)
> I don't understand: _Hindî ko maintindihan_ [hɪnˈdiː ko mɐʔɪnˌtɪndiˈhan] (*hin-DEE* koh ma-in-TIN-dih-HAN)
> 
> I was wondering about the two different pronunciations given for _hindî_... Is it pronounced (a) "hin-DEH" when used as the stand-alone equivalent of the English "no" and (b) "hin-DEE" when used as the equivalent of the English "not" in a longer phrase? If not, then what's the distinction above?


 
Yes, that's how we say it. Except for non-native Tagalog speakers, they tend to mispronounce that. They tend to say hin-DEH ko maintindihan.


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## albondiga

Thanks, everyone!


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