# Sanskrit-Hindi: The consonants ङ and ञ



## Qureshpor

I know how the words are articulated when consonants ङ and ञ form part of the word. I find that I struggle when I attempt to pronounce them on their own. Any assistance in this matter will be much appreciated.


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## nineth

It took me a long time myself to understand how to correctly pronounce them standalone; it was in the nineth grade when I was able to finally formally deduce their pronunciation and figure it out. There are a few ways to explain it. The best I feel is as follows:

Step 1. Try to feel where you pronounce ta, tha, da, dha, na from; note that the tongue is exactly at the same position for 'na' as for ta, tha, da, dha; similarly, for pa, pha, ba, bha, ma.  Now this gives you an idea as to how to get to the right pronunciation for nga, nya, and ana.

Step 2. Now consider
ka, kha, ga, gha, ङ
cha, Cha, ja, Jha,  ञ
Ta, Tha, Da, Dha, ana
Now, for ङ,  try to pronounce like 'na' (nasal) but keeping your tongue at the same place and with the same position/shape as you would for 'ka', Kha, ga, Gha (i.e., velar plosives).
For ञ, now again try to pronounce just like 'na' (nasal) but force your tongue to be exactly in the same way as for "cha, Cha, ja, jha" (affricates); you'll get something that sounds like 'nya'
Similarly, one can deduce the pronunciation for 'aNa' or confirm that the above method works as expected.  

I hope this helps you accurately pronounce them standalone. If not, let me know and I can describe another way you can get to them.


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## Qureshpor

nineth said:


> It took me a long time myself to understand how to correctly pronounce them standalone; it was in the nineth grade when I was able to formally deduce its pronunciation and finally figure it out. There are a few ways to explain it. The best I feel is as follows:
> 
> 1. Try to feel where you pronounce ta, tha, da, dha, na from; note that the tongue is exactly at the same position for 'na' as for ta, tha, da, dha; similarly, for pa, pha, ba, bha, ma.  Now this gives you an idea as to how to get to the right pronunciation for nga, nya, and ana.
> 2. Now consider
> ka, kha, ga, gha, nga
> cha, Cha, ja, Jha, nya
> Ta, Tha, Da, Dha, ana
> Now, for ङ,  try to pronounce like 'na' (nasal) but keeping your tongue at the same place as you would for 'ka', Kha, ga, Gha (i.e., velar plosives).
> For ञ, now again try to pronounce just like 'na' (nasal) but keeping your tongue at the same place as "cha, Cha, ja, jha" (affricates); you'll get something that sounds like 'nya'
> Similarly, one can deduce the pronunciation for 'aNa'.
> 
> I hope this helps you accurately pronounce them standalone. If not, let me know and I can describe another way you can get to them.




Thank you nineth for the clear, detailed response. Interestingly, this is exactly the method I have been adopting! Perhaps, I have managed to learn to pronounce them accurately afterall! Let's see what other friends's views are on this topic and if they don't cover your plan B, I shall come back to you and bother you once again!

Thank you.


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## marrish

QURESHPOR said:


> I know how the words are articulated when consonants ङ and ञ form part of the word. I find that I struggle when I attempt to pronounce them on their own. Any assistance in this matter will be much appreciated.


These sounds are difficult to pronounce on their own, indeed! And, I suspect they're not supposed to be so pronounced, whether separately or in the initial position. 
This is the reason why there are no words in Sanskrit which begin with these sounds.


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## marrish

The best way to practice their pronunciation is to say them with a vowel.  ङ is a common English consonant and is also used in Punjabi, so the articulation shouldn't give any problems whatsoever.
ञ is a palatalized n, which contains an inherent vowel i, you can say to make things easy. So it's easy to give it a try with a following vowel i, but trying to let the i sound influence the preceding n. This sound is found i.a. in Russian,  very commonly.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> The best way to practice their pronunciation is to say them with a vowel.  ङ is a common English consonant and is also used in Punjabi, so the articulation shouldn't give any problems whatsoever.
> ञ is a palatalized n, which contains an inherent vowel i, you can say to make things easy. So it's easy to give it a try with a following vowel i, but trying to let the i sound influence the preceding n. This sound is found i.a. in Russian,  very commonly.



Thank you marrish SaaHib but makes you think I have any Russian connections!


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## tonyspeed

QURESHPOR said:


> Thank you marrish SaaHib but makes you think I have any Russian connections!



I ignored the pronunciation of these by themself, but at least on the ANU Hindi  I course page, the recording of these sounds is just the "N" sound followed by the "a" vowel.

 So for ङ touch the back of your tongue and back of your throat together and say a "n" sounds followed by अ. 

For the ञ place your tongue flat along the roof of your mouth and say an 'n' sound followed again by अ. 

When I was practicing this, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. In the recording of ञ it sounds like the lady is saying "nya", very strange. I think this threw me off when I was first learning Hindi as well. If you put your tongue in the same position as an English speaker would say the "ch" in "chair" you don't hear the "y" sound, but if you move your tongue further forward it becomes natural to say "nya" instead - the "y" gets added in automatically. I might be going crazy, but I think this might illustrate a difference in tongue position of "ch" between Hindi and English.


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## sangam

nineth said:


> It took me a long time myself to understand how to correctly pronounce them standalone; it was in the nineth grade when I was able to finally formally deduce their pronunciation and figure it out. There are a few ways to explain it. The best I feel is as follows:
> 
> Step 1. Try to feel where you pronounce ta, tha, da, dha, na from; note that the tongue is exactly at the same position for 'na' as for ta, tha, da, dha; similarly, for pa, pha, ba, bha, ma.  Now this gives you an idea as to how to get to the right pronunciation for nga, nya, and ana.
> 
> Step 2. Now consider
> ka, kha, ga, gha, ङ
> cha, Cha, ja, Jha,  ञ
> Ta, Tha, Da, Dha, ana
> Now, for ङ,  try to pronounce like 'na' (nasal) but keeping your tongue at the same place and with the same position/shape as you would for 'ka', Kha, ga, Gha (i.e., velar plosives).
> For ञ, now again try to pronounce just like 'na' (nasal) but force your tongue to be exactly in the same way as for "cha, Cha, ja, jha" (affricates); you'll get something that sounds like 'nya'
> Similarly, one can deduce the pronunciation for 'aNa' or confirm that the above method works as expected.
> 
> I hope this helps you accurately pronounce them standalone. If not, let me know and I can describe another way you can get to them.




Could you suggest few sample words with this consonants?


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## nineth

sangam said:


> Could you suggest few sample words with this consonants?



For ङ, try

ganga
sangam (your screenname itself)
sankalp

In all these, the half nasal consonant that appears before the velar plosive is indeed the half ङ. For eg., गङ्गा is a technically accurate way of writing ganga. I don't know any words in Hindi that employ the full consonant nga or nya.

For ञ, 

chanchal (चञ्चल , चंचल)
sunchaar


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## Dib

sangam said:


> Could you suggest few sample words with this consonants?



Of course, nineth's examples are accurate. But you do not need any  special training to pronounce them as ञ्‌ and ङ्‌ occur there before  homorganic consonants making it natural for most (or all?) Indo-Aryan  language speakers in those contexts. Hardly any Indo-Aryan language  (including Sanskrit) has/had stand-alone ञ्‌, probably the only exception  being some Prakrits, e.g. Pali ञाति < Skt. ज्ञाति. It is common in  Dravidian languages like Malayalam, e.g. ञान्‌/ഞാന്‍ (I = 1st person  singular personal pronoun).

ङ्‌, on the other hand, occurs  stand-alone in a small set of (around 20) words in Sanskrit, viz. the  masculine nominative singular form of compound adjectives with the root  -अञ्च्‌ as the final member:
प्राङ्‌ - (turned) forward/eastward
 उदङ्‌ - (turned) upward/northward
 प्रत्यङ्‌ - (turned) towards
 सम्यङ्‌ - totally, united
 पराङ्‌ - (turned) backward, etc.

Hindi,  as far as I can tell, does not have stand-alone ङ्‌, though other  Indo-Aryan languages, like (Standard/Western) Bengali do. So, in Bengali  for example (ŋ = ङ्‌ = ঙ্‌):
1. rɔŋer (রঙের) = of colour / rɔŋger (রঙ্গের) = of fun
2. sɔŋer (সঙের) = of clown / sɔŋger (সঙ্গের) = accompanying (adjective)
3. bæŋer (ব্যাঙের) = of frog / bæŋger (ব্যঙ্গের) = of mockery, etc.


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## tonyspeed

Qureshpor said:


> I know how the words are articulated when consonants ङ and ञ form part of the word. I find that I struggle when I attempt to pronounce them on their own. Any assistance in this matter will be much appreciated.




This may be a dumb question, but if they never exist on their own then what is the benefit?


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> This may be a dumb question, but if they never exist on their own then what is the benefit?


No, it is not a dumb question and I don't think my question was dumb either.

As far as I know, there are no Urdu or Hindi words beginning with "R", "R" being the retroflex in "pakoRaa". Nevertheless I can articulate a "R" without any difficulty.

For Devanagri alphabet I try to remember the consonant order by saying out loud the order of letters.

 ka, kha, ga, gha, ?
cha, chha, ja, jha, ?
Ta, Tha, Da, Dha, NR
ta, tha, da, dha, n
pa, pha, ba, bha, m
ya, ra, la, va etc etc

So, I wanted to fill the gaps with question marks.


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## marrish

Dib said:


> Of course, nineth's examples are accurate. But you do not need any  special training to pronounce them as ञ्‌ and ङ्‌ occur there before  homorganic consonants making it natural for most (or all?) Indo-Aryan  language speakers in those contexts.


I'm replying keeping in mind the examples given by nineth. I have no doubt that they are accurate in Sanskrit but I just want to signalise that I am not so certain about Hindi. By this I mean that the consonants which are supposed to be assimilated to a following consonant, in my perception not necessarily do so in Hindi. I don't have any clear examples in mind but let me check it out for myself first.


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## Dib

marrish said:


> I'm replying keeping in mind the examples given by nineth. I have no doubt that they are accurate in Sanskrit but I just want to signalise that I am not so certain about Hindi. By this I mean that the consonants which are supposed to be assimilated to a following consonant, in my perception not necessarily do so in Hindi. I don't have any clear examples in mind but let me check it out for myself first.



I can give some examples: bunkar (weaver), inkaar (denial), etc. All I meant was that ङ्‌ and ञ् occur in Hindi (and likely most other IA languages, with some of the exceptions mentioned) only before homorganic consonants. Hindi allows (unassimilated) "n" to occur in some of the same environments too though. In my opinion, the only objection that may be raised against nineth's examples is his/her transcription scheme.


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## mundiya

^Yes, "inkaar" is इनकार and "bunkar" is बुनकर, both with a full dental nasal consonant.  They are pronounced differently than the examples provided by nineth jii.


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## Wolverine9

Are इंकार and बुंकर wrong spellings?


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## mundiya

इंकार and इन्कार are also used, but not बुंकर or बुन्कर.  I should have omitted "full".  My point was they are pronounced with dental n.


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