# Hindi: Pronunciation of Go, Door etc



## Maharaj

Hi friends,

I've problem pronouncing the words like Door. I've referred to different dictionaries where I've also listened to voice recordings of pronunciations.
I can pronounce 'Go' and similar words having the same 'O' sounds.
I can also pronounce 'Mob'.


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## desi4life

In Indian English as used by Hindi speakers, the pronunciation of the words you mentioned are डोर, गो, and मॉब. So, if you can pronounce 'go' you should also be able to pronounce 'door'.


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## close call

What is the significance of the symbol above the "a" in मॉब? Wouldn't माब have been pronounced the same way?


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## desi4life

माब is māb, and मॉब is môb. The symbol is used to more accurately transliterate the pronunciation of the English sound in Hindi.


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## close call

Okay, but then my question is what is the difference between the pronunciation of मॉब and मौब ?


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## desi4life

मौब is maub.


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## aevynn

close call said:


> Okay, but then my question is what is the difference between the pronunciation of मॉब and मौब ?



I think the reason for this confusion is some vowel mergers present in many dialects of English (including many American and presumably also Canadian dialects). The relevant mergers here are called the "father-bother merger" and the "cot-caught merger." You'll find lots of references about this online, but here's a summary about what I understand, and then comparing to Hindi phonology / Devanagari orthography. 

In the "standard" British dialect of English (called "Received Pronunciation," or RP), speakers distinguish three vowels: the vowel in f*a*ther, the vowel in b*o*ther (which is the same as the vowel in word c*o*t), and the vowel in c*au*ght. 

The vowel in father and the vowel in bother are pronounced with the tongue in an identical position (low and in the back of the mouth), but father is pronounced with lips unrounded, and bother with the lips rounded. 

The vowel in bother (or cot) and the vowel in caught are both rounded vowels (ie, the lips are rounded when pronouncing them), but the vowel in caught is pronounced with the tongue a little higher in the mouth.
Many other dialects of English, though, merge some or all of these sounds. Dialects presenting the "father-bother merger" pronounce the vowels in father and bother identically. Dialects presenting the "cot-caught merger" pronounce the words cot and caught identically. It's quite common in American dialects of English to do _both_ of these mergers and collapse all three of these RP vowels into one (usually everything gets merged into the RP vowel in father) — at least, this seems to be the case both with most of my Californian friends, and also with my Midwestern boyfriend and his family. 

Now to compare to Hindi phonology...

The RP vowel in caught is almost identical to the the Hindi औ _au_.
The Hindi vowel आ _aa_ is _close_ to the RP vowel in father, but it's a little different — it's pronounced with the tongue a little bit further forward in the mouth.  
My understanding is that the symbol ऑ is _supposed_ to be used when transliterating English to denote the RP vowel in bother (then you could use औ for RP caught and आ for RP father). But, presumably because differently dialects of English pronounce these sounds differently, the symbol ऑ often gets used to transliterate all three of these RP vowels indiscriminately and the result is that isn't really a standard transliteration scheme.


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## close call

Thanks.


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## Maharaj

@desi4life @aevynn
I'm shocked to learn that Go and Door are similar, because as per OALD:
Door is dɔː(r)
Go is ɡəʊ


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## desi4life

^ Well, in Indian English the pronunciations are as I described above. In other forms of English there is a slight difference in pronunciation of the vowels: go door (and it may vary from one country/region to another). Some of the consonants are also pronounced differently (e.g. Hindi and Indian English have ड and र).


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## desi4life

@aevynn Very nice explanation.


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## aevynn

To my ear, OALD's IPA rendering of "go" as /ɡəʊ/ sounds very British, but I don't really know much about British English.

Most Americans tend to say something more like /ɡoʊ/ (transcribing in Devanagari, this is a little bit like saying गोउ, but the उ is kind of subtle). This seems to always be true — in American English, words don't really ever contain a pure /o/ sound, and any word that has an /o/ actually has the diphthong /oʊ/ (this is also sometimes called a "gliding vowel," which is a nice phrase because it very aptly describes how the vowel "glides" smoothly from one sound into another). For example, "foam" is /foʊm/ (फ़ोउम), "home" is /hoʊm/ (होउम), etc. 

As far as the vowel in "door" being rendered as an IPA /ɔ/ as opposed to /o/, I think this might be an effect of r-coloring — when English vowels are preceded by the letter "r," they undergo a shift and they get pronounced slightly lower in the mouth than they otherwise are.

By the way, there's a lot of useful information on Wikipedia about phonology, but it's all phrased very technically using lots of linguistic terminology...


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## Maharaj

Thank you very much @desi4life @aevynn  got it, "it's not similar it's the same"


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## desi4life

@Maharaj They are the same in Indian English but not necessarily in other forms of English as you can see from the links I posted (where you can listen to British & American pronunciations) and as explained by @aevynn


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## Dib

aevynn said:


> Now to compare to Hindi phonology...
> 
> The RP vowel in caught is almost identical to the the Hindi औ _au_.
> The Hindi vowel आ _aa_ is _close_ to the RP vowel in father, but it's a little different — it's pronounced with the tongue a little bit further forward in the mouth.
> My understanding is that the symbol ऑ is _supposed_ to be used when transliterating English to denote the RP vowel in bother (then you could use औ for RP caught and आ for RP father). But, presumably because differently dialects of English pronounce these sounds differently, the symbol ऑ often gets used to transliterate all three of these RP vowels indiscriminately and the result is that isn't really a standard transliteration scheme.



My understanding is a bit different. The shift in Hindi pronunciation of औ from /əʊ/ to /ɔ/ is still far from complete, and arguably the offglide is still present in careful standard speech. The shift is essentially complete in Punjabi, and presumably it is spreading into Hindi territory from there. In Delhi also it is quite advanced, but not complete (-my observation. If there is any academic study, that would be more interesting). Farther east, it may not have even started (e.g. Bihar). This shift is also unknown in some of the other languages written in Devanagari, e.g. Marathi (where ऑ is very consistently used). So, in my opinion औ for /ɔ/ in foreign words would not be a great choice. That's where the new ऑ comes in handy. In Hindi, I doubt anybody would write father with ऑ though. But bother and caught - sure. It takes a lot of training for Indians to hear the difference between these English vowels.



Maharaj said:


> @desi4life @aevynn
> I'm shocked to learn that Go and Door are similar, because as per OALD:
> Door is dɔː(r)
> Go is ɡəʊ



aevynn has mentioned above the cot-caught and father-bother mergers. Pronunciation of "door" as /dɔː(r)/ is the result of another merger, called "horse-hoarse" (or "north-force") merger, which is by now "mainstream" in most native varieties of English. Indian English, however, invariably uses the older pre-merger vowels. So, in India "door" should be /dəʊ(r)/* if mimicking the older British-like pronunciation. But in practice, it is more often Indianized as /do:r/.

*EDIT: Probably /doə(r)/ would be more appropriate?


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## aevynn

@Dib — Cool, thanks for this! This is all very good to know  My personal interactions in Hindi are _mostly_ with people from Delhi, Punjab, and the whereabouts, and I've almost always heard /ɔ/ for औ (except, I guess, in the few fixed words where /əʊ/ occurs invariably, like कौवा). I also don't remember ever noticing the diphthong /əʊ/ in the casual speech of the few friends and relatives I have from outside this area, but that could very well just have been me not being observant, so I'll try to pay attention. I also wasn't aware that the Nagari औ denoted the diphthong in other modern languages like Marathi (though in retrospect that shouldn't have been that surprising since I knew it was used to denote a diphthong in Sanskrit...)

Also, it seems like "door" is traditionally in the /oɹ/ category just like "hoarse," so the common Indianization to /ɖor/ seems to mostly be affecting the consonants rather than the vowel.


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