# Hindi:  वह as /ʋɛɦə/



## MonsieurGonzalito

Friends,

  In a Hindi language podcast I listen to (LearnHindiOnTheGo), one of the speakers consistently pronounces the pronouns यह, वह  not as /je/ /ʋo/, but as /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/.
In other words, he not only doesn't transform the inherent _a_ into  /o/, but he also fully realizes the final /-ɦ/, to the point that those words sound almost as if they had 2 syllables.

Is that a valid (maybe antiquated or regional?) pronunciation, or he is trying to be overly didactic by following the Devanagari spelling more closely?


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> he is trying to be overly didactic by following the Devanagari spelling more closely?


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## Au101

I don't quite know about that, when I did an introductory Hindi course it was specifically said that these were _possible_ pronunciations in formal shuddh Hindi but unusual in normal speech.


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Friends,
> 
> In a Hindi language podcast I listen to (LearnHindiOnTheGo), one of the speakers consistently pronounces the pronouns यह, वह  not as /je/ /ʋo/, but as /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/.
> In other words, he not only doesn't transform the inherent _a_ into  /o/, but he also fully realizes the final /-ɦ/, to the point that those words sound almost as if they had 2 syllables.
> 
> Is that a valid (maybe antiquated or regional?) pronunciation, or he is trying to be overly didactic by following the Devanagari spelling more closely?



Those pronunciations do exist depending on where the speaker is from (region and milieu), except that I'd have expected [e] instead of [ɛ], but even then it doesn't raise an eyebrow.


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## Ali Smith

यह is almost always pronounced ये, and वह and वे are almost always pronounced वो in Hindi. However, in formal contexts you may hear them pronounced in a way that conforms to their orthography.


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## aevynn

Let me try to clarify my emoji response:

I have almost no experience with regional dialects, so it may very well be that there exist regions where यह/ये and वह/वे are pronounced "as spelled" (and, in particular, where the singular-plural distinction is maintained).

In the variety I've been most exposed to, it is invariably ये and वो (and each is used for both the singular and plural). And what I've experienced is that many people involved in Hindi pedagogy who conversationally speak the same variety as me will switch to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" in pedagogical (or "didactic") contexts. To me, this "didactic switch" feels extremely unfair to everyone who wants to learn the language as it is widely spoken (eg, as it is spoken in Bollywood). That category of students encompasses most of the students of the language that I've met here in the US, but this didactic switch by teachers of Hindi results in a situation where students attempting to speak as they are taught in the classroom end up sounding artificial. And I don't mean artificial because of the accent, which I don't care about; people speak the language with many accents even in South Asia. They sound artificial because of the lexical/syntactic choices they've been taught to make in the classroom. A sizable number of these students that I've met have been turned off from continuing their learning because they _themselves_ feel this mismatch.

I haven't heard this particular podcast nor do I know what variety is native to the person who made it. It may be that pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" is native to their variety. Just based on my experiences with this extremely frequent didactic switch by teachers of Hindi, I would be a little surprised if this was the case.

I also wonder about the use of the word "formal" to describe this switch. I have been privy to many extremely _polite_ conversations conducted in Hindi (and conducted by speakers like my parents, grandparents, etc, who grew up in India and have much more of an ear for sociolinguistic nuance than I do). No one has ever switched to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" even in these extremely polite contexts. The only times I've ever noticed encountering this switch is (a) the didactic context I've already described above, and (b) when someone is reading a Devanagari text out loud. In other words, at least as far as I've experienced the language, the word "formal" when used to describe this switch doesn't seem to mean "in accordance with rules of etiquette." It rather seems to mean nothing more than the literal "in accordance with established forms," where "established forms" just refers to what grammar books prescribe. (So, for what it's worth, words like "bookish" or "pedantic" feel like far more appropriate choices than "formal" for describing this switch to me.) But again, I'm just speaking just from my own limited experiences. It may very well be that there are people out there who switch to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" in _polite_ situations as well.


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## pollohispanizado

Maybe I'm wrong, but seems particularly unnatural that they be pronounced /jɛɦə/ and /ʋɛɦə/ instead of /jɛɦɛ/ and /ʋɛɦɛ/.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

pollohispanizado said:


> Maybe I'm wrong, but seems particularly unnatural that they be pronounced /jɛɦə/ and /ʋɛɦə/ instead of /jɛɦɛ/ and /ʋɛɦɛ/.


Yes,  I wrote  /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/, because I was allowing for the speaker trying to pronounce a "fuller /ɦ/" (as it is usual in  Hindi, final consonants adding 1 "mora" to the syllable).

But if it is  /jɛɦɛ/, /ʋɛɦɛ/. it is even more weirdly "didactic": they are also doing away with the final inherent "a" suppression of modern Indo-Aryan languages! What is the aim, going back to Sanskrit ??
Also, if a person speaks like that, why circumscribe himself to the pronouns, and not extend this behavior to other words as well?


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## pollohispanizado

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Yes,  I wrote  /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/, because I was allowing for the speaker trying to pronounce a "fuller /ɦ/" (as it is usual in  Hindi, final consonants adding 1 "mora" to the syllable).
> 
> But if it is  /jɛɦɛ/, /ʋɛɦɛ/. it is even more weirdly "didactic": they are doing away with the final inherent "a" suppression of modern Indo-Aryan languages! What is the aim, going back to Sanskrit ??


An H flanked by schwas always makes the schwas into /ɛ/, which may be why it didn't get deleted in some dialects/isoglosses.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

I am no expert, but if this phenomenon were explained by some "regional/dialectal absence of schwa suppression", the one would expect to find it in all consonant-ended words. Or at least in all words ending in -ɦ. But it is neither. It looks more like an affectation limited to  यह, वह.


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## pollohispanizado

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> I am no expert, but if this phenomenon were explained by some "regional/dialectal absence of schwa suppression", the one would expect to find it in all consonant-ended words. Or at least in all words ending in -ɦ. But it is neither. It looks more like an affectation limited to  यह, वह.


Could be. However, languages and their development don't always follow the logic we expect or want to impose on them. Pronouns very rarely develop as all other nouns do (cf. the preserved cases of pronouns in languages that lost its declention, like in English and the Romance languages).


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## Pokeflute

aevynn said:


> In the variety I've been most exposed to, it is invariably ये and वो (and each is used for both the singular and plural). And what I've experienced is that many people involved in Hindi pedagogy who conversationally speak the same variety as me will switch to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" in pedagogical (or "didactic") contexts. To me, this "didactic switch" feels extremely unfair to everyone who wants to learn the language as it is widely spoken (eg, as it is spoken in Bollywood). That category of students encompasses most of the students of the language that I've met here in the US, but this didactic switch by teachers of Hindi results in a situation where students attempting to speak as they are taught in the classroom end up sounding artificial. And I don't mean artificial because of the accent, which I don't care about; people speak the language with many accents even in South Asia. They sound artificial because of the lexical/syntactic choices they've been taught to make in the classroom. A sizable number of these students that I've met have been turned off from continuing their learning because they _themselves_ feel this mismatch.



I can fully attest to this phenomenon - as part of the Indian diaspora, as a child I took Hindi classes offered by my local community. These classes were exactly as you describe - यह and वह were /jəɦə/ and /vəɦə/, the language was extremely overly sanskritized (I was taught the word वृक्ष for "tree". I learnt पेड़ on my own) The first time I tried speaking Hindi in India I was literally laughed out of the store (which is hilarious in hindsight, but as a kid it was deeply upsetting).

What's even more surprising is I was taught by adult volunteers - not formally trained teachers, not priests or propagandists. For whatever reason, dozens of normal well-intentioned native Hindi speakers settled on such a curriculum (and from what I've heard from other ABCDs - it's a universal phenomenon). This is not some random group of people - this is just (in my experience) how many Hindi natives unconsciously approach teaching foreigners.

(The amount of times I've had to tell a tutor on iTalki - "I know this is not how you actually talk. Please speak normally with me." is quite surprising)

Not to digress too much, but that's a long way of saying I fully agree - I am quite skeptical of many Hindi learning materials or courses as a result of personal experience. Especially those made with foreigners in mind.


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## pollohispanizado

Pokeflute said:


> I can fully attest to this phenomenon - as part of the Indian diaspora, as a child I took Hindi classes offered by my local community. These classes were exactly describe - यह and वह were /jəɦə/ and /vəɦə/, the language was extremely overly sanskritized (I was taught the word वृक्ष for "tree". I learnt पेड़ on my own) The first time I tried speaking Hindi in India I was literally laughed out of the store (which is hilarious in hindsight, but as a kid it was deeply upsetting).
> 
> What's even more surprising is I was taught by adult volunteers - not formally trained teachers, not priests or propagandists. For whatever reason, dozens of normal well-intentioned native Hindi speakers settled on such a curriculum (and from what I've heard from other ABCDs - it's a universal phenomenon). This is not some random group of people - this is just (in my experience) how many Hindi natives unconsciously approach teaching foreigners.
> 
> (The amount of times I've had to tell a tutor on iTalki - "I know this is not how you actually talk. Please speak normally with me." is quite surprising
> 
> Not to digress too much, but that's a long way of saying I fully agree - I am quite skeptical of many Hindi learning materials or courses as a result of personal experience. Especially those made with foreigners in mind.


Very interesting. It seems that Hindi speakers, especially those who interact with foreigners (and presumibly have some education), are very aware of their language and how it is perceived.

I can say, though, that, as an English speaker, I do the same thing when I speak to foreigners (especially those who don't speak English at a high level). The colloquial pronounciation versus the written word is so different that I feel compelled to speak more slowly and more clearly, which means that I pronounce full letters where I would usually pronounce a schwa, for example.


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## Pokeflute

Yeah, my personal dialect of English is actually very close to Standard American English, so learning Hindi was really the first time I encountered such a vast difference in registers.

From my understanding, diglossia is actually the norm world-wide (including in other Indian languages - folks may identify with this learner's experience learning Tamil and encountering a similar, but more extreme, situation).


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## Simple1234

aevynn said:


> Let me try to clarify my emoji response:
> 
> I have almost no experience with regional dialects, so it may very well be that there exist regions where यह/ये and वह/वे are pronounced "as spelled" (and, in particular, where the singular-plural distinction is maintained).
> 
> In the variety I've been most exposed to, it is invariably ये and वो (and each is used for both the singular and plural). And what I've experienced is that many people involved in Hindi pedagogy who conversationally speak the same variety as me will switch to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" in pedagogical (or "didactic") contexts. To me, this "didactic switch" feels extremely unfair to everyone who wants to learn the language as it is widely spoken (eg, as it is spoken in Bollywood). That category of students encompasses most of the students of the language that I've met here in the US, but this didactic switch by teachers of Hindi results in a situation where students attempting to speak as they are taught in the classroom end up sounding artificial. And I don't mean artificial because of the accent, which I don't care about; people speak the language with many accents even in South Asia. They sound artificial because of the lexical/syntactic choices they've been taught to make in the classroom. A sizable number of these students that I've met have been turned off from continuing their learning because they _themselves_ feel this mismatch.
> 
> I haven't heard this particular podcast nor do I know what variety is native to the person who made it. It may be that pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" is native to their variety. Just based on my experiences with this extremely frequent didactic switch by teachers of Hindi, I would be a little surprised if this was the case.
> 
> I also wonder about the use of the word "formal" to describe this switch. I have been privy to many extremely _polite_ conversations conducted in Hindi (and conducted by speakers like my parents, grandparents, etc, who grew up in India and have much more of an ear for sociolinguistic nuance than I do). No one has ever switched to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" even in these extremely polite contexts. The only times I've ever noticed encountering this switch is (a) the didactic context I've already described above, and (b) when someone is reading a Devanagari text out loud. In other words, at least as far as I've experienced the language, the word "formal" when used to describe this switch doesn't seem to mean "in accordance with rules of etiquette." It rather seems to mean nothing more than the literal "in accordance with established forms," where "established forms" just refers to what grammar books prescribe. (So, for what it's worth, words like "bookish" or "pedantic" feel like far more appropriate choices than "formal" for describing this switch to me.) But again, I'm just speaking just from my own limited experiences. It may very well be that there are people out there who switch to pronouncing यह/ये and वह/वे "as spelled" in _polite_ situations as well.


I absolutely agree to this. Couldn't have expressed it in better way.


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## pollohispanizado

Pokeflute said:


> From my understanding, diglossia is actually the norm world-wide (including in other Indian languages - folks may identify with this learner's experience learning Tamil and encountering a similar, but more extreme, situation).


The linguistic situation in India is so complex and unique.


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## Qureshpor

Can anyone possibly cite the earliest occurrence of यह and वह for the singular and ये and वे for the plural in any KhaRii-Bolii based Hindi literature. I am asking this question because "ye" and "ve" (as well as their singular counter parts yah and vah) did exist in older Urdu literature but as time went by only "yah" and "vah" remained both for the singular and plural, which we know began to be pronounced as yih/vuh (or similar) at some later stage.


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## littlepond

pollohispanizado said:


> I can say, though, that, as an English speaker, I do the same thing when I speak to foreigners (especially those who don't speak English at a high level). The colloquial pronounciation versus the written word is so different that I feel compelled to speak more slowly and more clearly, which means that I pronounce full letters where I would usually pronounce a schwa, for example.



That is not the case in Hindi, though, nor is that described, at least as it seems to me, in Post 12. For example, it's not that a person would write "vriksh/vraksh" but speak "peR" for _tree_: this is, rather, a case of over-sentimentalising, if such a word exists. Many non-residents, in search of their identities, over-sentimentalise their nation of origin, language, culture, etc., and in certain settings, for example, teaching a kid of their culture, they tend to emphasise what they perceive as the "shuddh" ("pure") aspects. (This is true for all non-resident communities, not just non-resident Indians.)

It is no surprise that many (a majority of?) non-resident Indians favour a particular right-wing party of India, because that meshes in with their over-sentimentalisation of India and their origins/past.

By the way, @Pokeflute jii, were those teachers in any way influenced by a life spent among Gujarati speakers or community, given that you yourself seem to have Gujarati origins? Because "vriksh" ("vruksh" in Gujarati) is the usual word for a tree in Gujarati, not "peR."

Also note that /jəɦə/ and /vəɦə/ are very common pronunciations: in fact, many native speakers from eastern UP and Bihar speak like that _only_. There's nothing unnatural or non-colloquial in these pronunciations. The OP had /jɛɦə/ and /ʋɛɦə/, rather, which are the more strange pronunciations.



Pokeflute said:


> Yeah, my personal dialect of English is actually very close to Standard American English, so learning Hindi was really the first time I encountered such a vast difference in registers.
> 
> From my understanding, diglossia is actually the norm world-wide (including in other Indian languages - folks may identify with this learner's experience learning Tamil and encountering a similar, but more extreme, situation).



Again, there's not much of a diglossia in Hindi. A situation like German or Arabic does not exist in Hindi: the written and the spoken don't differ much, except in the hands of certain writers (but, then, that's their personal style), and the formal and informal, too, don't differ much (of course, one wouldn't use swear words on formal occasions, in general).


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## Pokeflute

littlepond said:


> By the way, @Pokeflute jii, were those teachers in any way influenced by a life spent among Gujarati speakers or community, given that you yourself seem to have Gujarati origins? Because "vriksh" ("vruksh" in Gujarati) is the usual word for a tree in Gujarati, not "peR."


That's an interesting point, and I'm not too sure how the curriculum was devised. It could be.



littlepond said:


> Again, there's not much of a diglossia in Hindi. A situation like German or Arabic does not exist in Hindi: the written and the spoken don't differ much, except in the hands of certain writers (but, then, that's their personal style), and the formal and informal, too, don't differ much (of course, one wouldn't use swear words on formal occasions, in general).



I don't disagree. The vocabulary difference between registers of Hindi definitely strikes me as larger than in English (the amount of pairs of Hindi synonyms for even basic concepts always astounds me) but I agree it's not to the extent of something like Arabic or German.

I have _a lot_ of thoughts on this matter actually (as you can probably tell haha), but I don't want to soapbox so I'll stop here


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## aevynn

littlepond said:


> Also note that /jəɦə/ and /vəɦə/ are very common pronunciations: in fact, many native speakers from eastern UP and Bihar speak like that _only_.


Thanks! That's good to know!



littlepond said:


> Many non-residents, in search of their identities, over-sentimentalise their nation of origin, language, culture, etc., and in certain settings, for example, teaching a kid of their culture, they tend to emphasise what they perceive as the "shuddh" ("pure") aspects... It is no surprise that many (a majority of?) non-resident Indians favour a particular right-wing party of India, because that meshes in with their over-sentimentalisation of India and their origins/past.


I agree with this. I've watched some relatives immigrate from India in adulthood and then become "conservative" over the course of several years. There's also an insightful chapter in Amartya Sen's book "The Argumentative Indian" about this issue that some of you may already have read, titled "The Diaspora and the World." Here's a quick quote from towards the beginning of this chapter:


> There has been a systematic effort to encourage non-resident Indians of Hindu background to identify themselves, not primarily as ‘Indians’, but particularly as ‘Hindus’ (or, at least, to see themselves as Indians within a Hinduized conception). The campaign has worked effectively over parts of the diaspora, and the Sangh Parivar – including its more aggressive components – receives large remittances from Indians overseas.


That being said, I'm a little skeptical if the assertion is that the "didactic switch" of Hindi teachers towards the shuddh version of the language is exclusively a phenomenon in the diaspora. Of course, I don't know and can't provide any hard data to back anything up, but it seems like the shuddh-Hindi-speaking Hindi teacher is a common trope even in media produced in India for Indian consumers. Two examples of this trope come to mind right away:

(1) There's a cute TV show called "Yeh Meri Family." It used to be on Netflix, but isn't any more, so I don't have access to it and can't provide exact quotes. In any case, a key plot point is that the main character ends up needing to be tutored by a shuddh-Hindi-speaking Hindi teacher ("Verma sir"). It was readily apparent (to me, at least)  throughout the series that Verma sir's Hindi was rather different from any other character's.

(2) This article on scroll.in (that I'm pretty sure I've linked us to before on this forum) begins as follows:


> I thought I had written a great essay in the Hindi test, but while returning my paper the Hindi teacher singled me out in the class. "You are using too many Farsi words," she said in chaste Hindi. She had circled each Farsi word and given me poor marks. For days I wondered what she had meant because I don't know Farsi.



I'm sure there are many more examples of this trope that I'm not thinking of right now.

Anyway, this "didactic switch" by Hindi teachers is maybe a less serious pedagogical problem for students growing up in a Hindi-speaking environment, for basically the same reasons that are described in the blog post that @Pokeflute linked us to above:


> Tamil kids learn spoken Tamil at home as their first language before studying written Tamil at school. This means that written Tamil is taught through the medium of spoken Tamil, to children who already know a very similar variety: it's more like an 'upgrade' than an entirely new language.


The "didactic switch" becomes a more serious pedagogical problem abroad, where people want to learn a down-to-earth version of the language (eg, descendants of immigrants who want access to their heritage language) but don't have access to a "broader society" that speaks that version and can't easily find resources that address that version.


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