# Urdu, Hindi: schwa deletion



## tonyspeed

In previous threads, it has been noted that the schwa deletion tendency is very strong in Hindi-Urdu and it is a sign of mother-tongue speakers.

If this is the case, how do we explain the existence of words like ikhatta/ikattha ? Are these merely exceptions?

What about pronunciation variations like galatii vs galtii ? Is the second to be preferred as more native? 


When it comes to verb conjugation, is samajhaa now completely obsolete and foreign sounding when compared to samjhaa? 
Are there any verbs that break this seeming schwa deletion rule?


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## greatbear

I would consider anyone pronouncing "galatii" and "samajhaa" as a non-native speaker. The tendency of schwa deletion doesn't mean that every schwa in every word has been deleted, so I don't see why "ikaTThaa" should be "ikTThaa" (I have heard the latter, though!).


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> In previous threads, it has been noted that the schwa deletion tendency is very strong in Hindi-Urdu and it is a sign of mother-tongue speakers.
> 
> If this is the case, how do we explain the existence of words like ikhatta/ikattha ? Are these merely exceptions?
> 
> What about pronunciation variations like galatii vs galtii ? Is the second to be preferred as more native?
> 
> 
> When it comes to verb conjugation, is samajhaa now completely obsolete and foreign sounding when compared to samjhaa?
> Are there any verbs that break this seeming schwa deletion rule?



 Tony, I think it was suggested that those who keep the "-a" in words like "maulavii" are non-native. This is of course not correct as has been plainly obvious from Faylassof SaaHib's posts.

Regarding ikhaTTaa vs ikaTThaa, I don't believe there is any connection with your thread topic.

galatii/galtii are wrong in Urdu. The correct word is Ghalatii. Ghaltii is also wrong. Ghalatii pronunciation has nothing to do with native/non-native pronunciation. Ghalatii is correct and Ghaltii is wrong no matter who the speaker is. As for "samajhaa", I don't believe any Urdu speaker would pronounce it in this way. samjhaa is the norm.


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## marrish

My opinion on _*Gh*al*a*tii_ and _m*au*l*a*vii_ is that these words are simply such as they are and any alternative pronunciation is deemed wrong, no matter who utters them. I believe it is not relevant if the speaker is native or not.

I'm not aware of any such word as _samajhaa_.


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## UrduMedium

I think the point of this thread is not to determine whether Ghaltii is right or wrong. Instead whether Ghalatii is "natural" for an Urdu-Hindi speaker given their strong tendency to delete the middle short-vowels in such cases. 

For Indic words such deletion seems to be the norm, as in ..

samajh --> naa samjhii
pakaR --> pakRii
phisal --> phislii
lapak --> lapkii
chhiRak --> chhiRkii

and so on.

Even for some non-Indic words this seems to be considered legit, e.g.

qalam --> qalmii nusxah/aam
safar --> safrii jaanamaaz
xabar --> xush xabrii
namak --> namkiin

The point being that if the schwa deletion is such a strong force, then even for native Urdu speakers (untrained) to speak Ghalatii is not as natural as Ghaltii. Which is why you would find a very large number of "untrained" native speakers calling it Ghaltii, as it comes much more naturally to an Urdu-Hindi mouth than Ghalatii, unless trained. 

I agree with you fully that the standard pronunciation is Ghalatii. However, I understand (or would like) the focus here to be on natural tendency, vs learned behavior, among native speakers.


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## tonyspeed

UrduMedium said:


> I agree with you fully that the standard pronunciation is Ghalatii. However, I understand (or would like) the focus here t be on natural tendency, vs learned behavior, among native speakers.



Now I understand why they say ghalati in movies. I found the idea that actors are given free reign to use their personal preferences in movies improbable , especially considering how much they usually do to match the dialect used to the supposed location of the movie.


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## hindiurdu

Please also note that HU isn't the only language that demonstrates schwa deletion. American English does too: camera is /kæmərə/ in British English and /kæmrə/ (cam.ra) in Am Eng. Similarly, chocolate → choc.late, family →  fam.ly. In HU if you retain schwas you will get constructs like 'Apani  Bachapan ki Ghalatiyaan Samajho' - which you do see in religious diction  and when people speak with emphasis. This is a subpar analogy, but  think of an American Pastor getting worked-up and saying "It is-a the  will-a of God-a!" To HU natives who speak naturally and don't see the  point of speaking any other way, "apani bachapan ki ghalatiyaan samajho'  will likely sound either non-native or pompous. Another imperfect  analogy would be to consider sentences like "it was a Bach performance  par excellence". The correct pronunciation would, I suppose be, 'it was a  Bax performance paar exsello(n)s" (approximating here). But most  English speakers would naturally say "it was a Baak performance par  eksellans." To say it correctly will be perceived as elitist and/or  unnatural. However, if you listen to, say, Marathi or Bengali native  speakers in Bollywood, they frequently will say things like 'apani  bachapan ki ghalatiyaan samajho' and it doesn't feel wrong because it  goes with the rest of how they speak. It's basically become a regional  lehja of speaking HU. Amol Palekar retains many medial schwas that a native speaker like, say, Naseeruddin Shah would drop.

On schwa deletion rules, the most general rules, which are (a) schwa deletion at syllable-ends and (b) a →  ø | (non-nasal)VC_CV for medial schwas. However, this is actually really maddening to speech synthesis folks because  these misfire about 15% of the time. There seem to be several reasons  for this, including idiopathy. One is v's becoming w's/glides. Astitv →  Astitwa → Astitua. This seems like Astitva and (at least) appears to  violate the  rule. Then, there is the situation with double consonants, where there  are several exceptions where schwa is retained. One is the example you  gave ikattha (vC-a-CCv). Another is pustak → pustaken (vCC-a-Cv).

BTW  there are also situations where HU seems to show a preference to  *insert* schwas. krishn → krishan, jashn → jashan, janm → janam, farsh →  farash. There are all considered wrong and have been for hundreds of  years. Afaik every school and every teacher teaches these are wrong.  Every dictionary will tell you they are wrong. In every case, every single root language (Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic) tells you they are wrong. Yet they persist.  Interestingly, the deletion/exclusion tendencies are so powerful that  the same person speaking natural/vulgar HU will say 'araz' (instead of  'arz') but then 'arzi' (and not what would consistently have been  'arazi', because vC-a-cV deletion applies). Similarly, jashn (correct) →  jashan (natural) → jashnon. janm → janam → janmon. varsh → baras →  barson. If a tendency has persisted for so long, uniquely surfaced in this descendant language in defiance of the ancestral languages and refuses to die in  the face of such massive educational disapproval, there is something  very intrinsic to the language causing it. There is some variation here.  Some words are mostly pronounced correctly by most urban speakers but  rural folk will lapse into natural vulgar-speak. dard (correct, urban) →  darad (vulgar, rural) → (sir-/ham-)dardi (universal). There is also  regional variation in this. 

BTW, as a related aside, Punjabi  seems to have other strong schwa deletion tendencies that HU does *not*  share. It seems like in C-a-CvC, Punjabi tends to delete or shorten that  initial schwa. I have not seen references on this and this is my  personal observation. Navaz → N'vaz, Bajaaj → B'jaaj. Sawaal → S'waal.  In some Punjabis, there is also this tendency (seems to vary  individually) with opening short vowels and schwas. Aziz → 'Ziz. Awaaz →  'Waaz. Akhrot → 'Khrot. Ijaazat → 'Jaazat. 'Akhrotaan da sawaal si'  becomes 'Khrotaan da swaaal si'. 'Azizi nun ijaazat deyo' becomes 'Zizi  nun jaazat deyo' (actually heard this on Hasb e Haal one time and it  struck me). All this is totally vulgar btw. You'd likely never see it in print  in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi. I also just realized in saying these to myself that there is a tone change in going from Azizi to Zizi. It feels similar to 'D → T' change (you know, how Punjabis say 'taaliyaan' instead of 'daaliyaan' for 'branches' of a tree). Unlike HU, Punjabi is a tonal language, so maybe there is something odder going on here than a simple schwa deletion.


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## tonyspeed

hindiurdu said:


> Please also note that HU isn't the only language that demonstrates schwa deletion. American English does too: camera is /kæmərə/ in British English and /kæmrə/ (cam.ra) in Am Eng. Similarly, chocolate → choc.late, family →  fam.ly. In HU if you retain schwas you will get constructs like 'Apani  Bachapan ki Ghalatiyaan Samajho' -
> 
> BTW  there are also situations where HU seems to show a preference to  *insert* schwas. krishn → krishan, jashn → jashan, janm → janam, farsh →  farash. There are all considered wrong and have been for hundreds of  years. Afaik every school and every teacher teaches these are wrong.  Every dictionary will tell you they are wrong. In every case, every single root language (Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic) tells you they are wrong. Yet they persist.





I think that saying that purely because of schwa deletion, speakers of Hindi went from:  'Apani  Bachapan ki Ghalatiyaan Samajho' to saying "apnii bachpan kii ghaltiyaan samjho" requires a great leap of faith. 
One, we have no proof that Hindi was ever spoken like this, not will we ever. We are at this point assuming that Hindi was at some point spoken like the artificial Sanskrit language we have today, which
is not even the pure Vedic Sanskrit. Secondly, it requires one to believe that words such as bachpan are directly derived from sanskrit by some process of erosion.

H بچپن बचपन _baćpan_,  = H بچپنا बचपना _baćpanā_, [S. वत्स+त्वं], s.m. Infancy, childhood; childishness, &c. (=_bāl-pan_, q.v.).
H اپنا अपना _apnā_ [gen. of آپ;—S. आत्मानं, acc. of  आत्मन्, pronom. adj. (f. -_ī_), Of or belonging to self, own

The derivations given above even by Platts are speculative and fairly unbelievable, requiring a stretch of the imagination.

That being said, I wonder if the tendency has to do with words that have 2 schwas back-to-back. Ghalatii is one such word. Samajhnaa is another such word.
 However, ikhattaa does not follow this pattern.
H اکهٿا इखट्टा _ikhaṭṭā_ [S. एक+स्थितः, rt. स्था], adj. & adv.(=اکٿها _ikaṭṭhā_), United, collected, assembled or gathered together; together, in one and the same place.


The second point you bring out has to do with the tendency of North Indians' tongue to rebel against certain foreign conjuncts they found unnatural, such as word-initial conjuncts beginning with 's',
so that 'skool' was originally pronounced 'iskool' and 'strii' was pronounced 'istrii'.


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## Alfaaz

UrduMedium said:
			
		

> qalam --> qalmii nusxah/aam
> safar --> safrii jaanamaaz
> xabar --> xush xabrii
> namak --> namkiin


For some unknown reason, the top three sound a bit awkward, but namkeen sounds fine...(also, the first reminds one of the famous dish made with kalmii shora )


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> For some unknown reason, the top three sound a bit awkward, but namkeen sounds fine...(also, the first reminds one of the famous dish made with kalmii shora )


 Awkward in what sense? Pronunciation wise? or just the word/term is unfamiliar?


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## Alfaaz

> Awkward in what sense? Pronunciation wise? or just the word/term is unfamiliar?


Pronunciation wise. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly, but I would think that there are slight _a_'s in the words...(might be wrong): qalamii, safarii, khabarii....?


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> For some unknown reason, the top three sound a bit awkward, but namkeen sounds fine...(also, the first reminds one of the famous dish made with kalmii shora )


qalmii nusxah = manuscript
qalmii aam = mangoes eaten sliced
safrii jaanamaaz = travel prayer rug
xush xabri = good news


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> Pronunciation wise. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly, but I would think that there are slight _a_'s in the words...(might be wrong): qalamii, safarii, khabarii....?


 These sounds sound alien to me (saying even at the risk of being declared wrong/non-standard)


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> I think that saying that purely because of schwa deletion, speakers of Hindi went from:  'Apani  Bachapan ki Ghalatiyaan Samajho' to saying "apnii bachpan kii ghaltiyaan samjho" requires a great leap of faith.



You are forgetting that each consonant in Hindi has an inherent schwa: that is what "hindiurdu" was talking about when he's talking about schwa deletions. Excellent post once again by hindiurdu.




tonyspeed said:


> ... like the artificial Sanskrit language we have today, which
> is not even the pure Vedic Sanskrit.




I find your labelling of the Sanskrit we have today as "artificial" quite objectionable. If you mean it to be artificial in the same way just as Urdu would be if one were to pronounce "maul*a*vii", then I quite agree with you, however.




tonyspeed said:


> The second point you bring out has to do with the tendency of North Indians' tongue to rebel against certain foreign conjuncts they found unnatural, such as word-initial conjuncts beginning with 's',
> so that 'skool' was originally pronounced 'iskool' and 'strii' was pronounced 'istrii'.



You certainly evince strong leaps of imagination, though: from where did you get the idea that North Indians' original pronunciation of "school" was "iskool" and that of "strii" was "istrii"? In fact, FYI, in north India, if someone pronounces these words in this manner, then one is thought to be Punjabi!


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## Alfaaz

> These sounds sound alien to me (saying even at the risk of being declared wrong/non-standard)


As I said before, maybe I'm not reading the words correctly off the screen....(sometimes it seems it would be helpful if there was sound in these forums  )!


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## greatbear

Alfaaz said:


> Pronunciation wise. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly, but I would think that there are slight _a_'s in the words...(might be wrong): qalamii, safarii, khabarii....?



I personally have always said and heard "qalmii aam" and "xush xabrii": with no slight "a"s.


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> I think the point of this thread is not to determine whether Ghaltii is right or wrong. Instead whether Ghalatii is "natural" for an Urdu-Hindi speaker given their strong tendency to delete the middle short-vowels in such cases.
> 
> This is up to Tony SaaHib to say what the real point of the thread is!
> 
> qalam --> qalmii nusxah/aam
> safar --> safrii jaanamaaz
> xabar --> xush xabrii
> namak --> namkiin
> 
> I would n't be so sure about these. One point, which marrish SaaHib has touched upon but it needs to be emphasised. Whatever process may be at play with regard to the removal of the short a (zabar, as far as Urdu is concerned), for words of Persian and Arabic origins our literary convention has been to preserve these vowels when speaking chaste Urdu. For this reason it is maulavii and not maulvii, Ghalatii and not Ghaltii and so on. I will readily confess that namakiin does sound "pedantic" but I would say that those who truly care about correct pronunciation of the language and do not wish it to go to the dogs would prefer to keep these pronunciations.
> 
> The point being that if the schwa deletion is such a strong force, then even for native Urdu speakers (untrained) to speak Ghalatii is not as natural as Ghaltii. Which is why you would find a very large number of "untrained" native speakers calling it Ghaltii, as it comes much more naturally to an Urdu-Hindi mouth than Ghalatii, unless trained.
> 
> If my memory serves me right, in another thread I thought you said that one's language training begins at home and not through teachers at school. So, if your parents utter Ghalatii and maulavii, you would follow suit. The "natives" would thus get their training and they could pass this on to us, the non-natives.
> 
> I agree with you fully that the standard pronunciation is Ghalatii. However, I understand (or would like) the focus here to be on natural tendency, vs learned behavior, among native speakers.
> 
> If as children one picks up correct pronunciation from one's parents instinctively then there would be no divide between "natural tendency vs learned behaviour"


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## Alfaaz

Qureshpor said:
			
		

> but I would say that those who truly care about correct pronunciation of the language and do not wish it to go to the dogs would prefer to keep these pronunciations.


Could you clarify which are "these pronunciations", the ones mentioned by UrduMedium or the ones with the a's? Thanks!



			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> Pronunciation wise. Maybe I'm not reading it correctly, but I would think that there are slight _a_'s in the words...(might be wrong): qalamii, safarii, khabarii....?


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## UrduMedium

ُْQP Wrote --




> I would n't be so sure about these. One point, which marrish SaaHib has touched upon but it needs to be emphasised. Whatever process may be at play with regard to the removal of the short a (zabar, as far as Urdu is concerned), for words of Persian and Arabic origins our literary convention has been to preserve these vowels when speaking chaste Urdu. For this reason it is maulavii and not maulvii, Ghalatii and not Ghaltii and so on. I will readily confess that namakiin does sound "pedantic" but I would say that those who truly care about correct pronunciation of the language and do not wish it to go to the dogs would prefer to keep these pronunciations.




The point I was making is that the "native speakers" speak these words the way I wrote them. I have never heard qalamii aam. Have you? Let's see those references. OUD dictionary lists several words/terms with qalmii (not qalamii) such as:

qalmii dost
qalmii nusxah
qalmii
qalmii shorah

What's the evidence for these all to be _qalamii_? Not that I need it, but perhaps to satisfy your concern. Even if some source shows it as such, have you ever heard these from even the Urdu luminaries of your own liking? Be they Iftikhar Arif, or anyone else. Let's hear them. For every luminary saying _maulavii_, I bet you may find nine (also luminaries) saying _maulvii_. Am I exaggerating? Hardly. Off-topic analogy: I went through this exercise on the _saahab/saahib_ (in standalone usage after a name) debate and the pristine _saahib _was as harder to find than a needle in a haystack.


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## UrduMedium

^ Also if this sticking to Perso-Arabic pronunciation of words like maulavii is so sacrosanct, let's at least be honest and not stop there but make sure we utter all the Arabic sounds properly as well, distinguishing all the shades of z and proper 3ain, H, and qaaf and duaad and so on. Half of the loan words would be officially be declared to have "wrong" pronunciations by 99.999% of the "native speakers" then. 

Funny thing is that Persians also borrowed from Arabic but never felt the need to blindly follow in pronunciation of Arabic sounds, and also freely mixed Persian and Arabic words to form beautiful phrases and terms, and applied Persian grammar elements (like izafat) to Arabic compounds. That to me is a sign of people who are proud of their linguistic heritage and are not afraid to borrow and make words part of their language on "their" terms. We in South Asia seem to have a "ghulaamanah" attitude to much of the same literary activities, and are belligerent in defending such linguistic apartheid.


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## BP.

UrduMedium said:


> ...xush xabri = good news


I understood it to be xush xabarii with the penultimate consonant appearing to disappear thanks to fast speech.


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## Qureshpor

Alfaaz said:


> Could you clarify which are "these pronunciations", the ones mentioned by UrduMedium or the ones with the a's? Thanks!



With the "a"s as in maulavii/Ghalatii.


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## Alfaaz

> With the "a"s as in maulavii/Ghalatii.


Thanks! 

معزز UM SaaHib, 

I'll briefly say that I would agree with some of your points, but would disagree with others. If a million people are saying juruurat, jindagi, and mojij, but only 220,000 are saying zaruurat, zindagi, mu'azziz, does that mean we all should start "blindly" following the majority...?


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> Thanks!
> 
> معزز UM SaaHib,
> 
> I'll briefly say that I would agree with some of your points, but would disagree with others. If a million people are saying juruurat, jindagi, and mojij, but only 220,000 are saying zaruurat, zindagi, mu'azziz, does that mean we all should start "blindly" following the majority...?



Thanks Alfaaz. Your example is interesting. If Arabic pronunciation is sacrosanct, then clearly zaruurat and mu'azziz are also wrong. As duaad != z and proper 3ain is almost never pronounced in mu3azziz in urdu. I hope you will agree. 

Also, I am talking about native Urdu speakers. They are not saying juruurat, jindagii, or mojij. Have you ever run in to such people?

Curious how you picked 220,000. Have you been keeping count?


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## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> I find your labelling of the Sanskrit we have today as "artificial" quite objectionable. If you mean it to be artificial in the same way just as Urdu would be if one were to pronounce "maul*a*vii", then I quite agree with you, however.
> 
> You certainly evince strong leaps of imagination, though: from where did you get the idea that North Indians' original pronunciation of "school" was "iskool" and that of "strii" was "istrii"? In fact, FYI, in north India, if someone pronounces these words in this manner, then one is thought to be Punjabi!



gb, I don't quite see how the pronunciation of "maulavii" is connected with Sanskrit being "artificial"! Unless of course you are merely looking for a confrontation and that would not be very helpful towards this discussion.

I don't know of any Punjabi who would say "iskuul". In fact it would be "skuul". For "strii" it is more likely to be "istarii" in the Indian Punjab. For Pakistani Punjabis, this word would mean "iron" only!


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> ُْQP Wrote-
> 
> The point I was making is that the "native speakers" speak these words the way I wrote them. I have never heard qalamii aam. Have you? Let's see those references. OUD dictionary lists several words/terms with qalmii (not qalamii) such as:
> 
> qalmii dost
> qalmii nusxah
> qalmii
> qalmii shorah
> 
> What's the evidence for these all to be _qalamii_? Not that I need it, but perhaps to satisfy your concern. Even if some source shows it as such, have you ever heard these from even the Urdu luminaries of your own liking? Be they Iftikhar Arif, or anyone else. Let's hear them. For every luminary saying _maulavii_, I bet you may find nine (also luminaries) saying _maulvii_. Am I exaggerating? Hardly. Off-topic analogy: I went through this exercise on the _saahab/saahib_ (in standalone usage after a name) debate and the pristine _saahib _was as harder to find than a needle in a haystack.



UM SaaHib, I am away from my normal "station" and for this reason I am in a slightly difficult position. I am quite willing to meet your (or anyone else's) challenge but it is not easy to search for pieces of recorded speech that is likely to have words like 'qalamii' and 'xush-xabarii". At least three persons (excluding me) namely Faylasoof, marrish and BP SaaHibaan pronounce the word as "maulavii" and BP SaaHib has indicated that for him it is "xush-xabarii". If I get the opportunity I shall try to find instances where the "a" is preserved. I have already provided an example from Ghalib (talab > talaboN). May I ask how you would write and pronounce the word (Arabic) for disease?


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> ^ Also if this sticking to Perso-Arabic pronunciation of words like maulavii is so sacrosanct, let's at least be honest and not stop there but make sure we utter all the Arabic sounds properly as well, distinguishing all the shades of z and proper 3ain, H, and qaaf and duaad and so on. Half of the loan words would be officially be declared to have "wrong" pronunciations by 99.999% of the "native speakers" then .



I would like to reitterate that we are discussing the deletion/preservation of the "a" vowel and not the metamorphosis of consonants. Now that you have brought in the Persian speakers you might find this surprising but Farsi speakers, to the best of my knowledge, religiously preserve this vowel. You might like pronouncing the word as "naazniin" but they pronounce it as "naaz*​a*niin"! nam*a*kiin likewise! Platts has "qalmii" as vulgar and "qalamii" as the standard pronunciation. Here is a shi3r from a Siraj Aurangabadi Ghazal.

xabar-i-taHayyur-i-3ishq sun, nah junuuN rahaa nah p*a*rii rahii
nah to tuu rahaa nah to maiN rahaa, jo rahii so be-xab*a*rii rahii

And here is Hasrat Mohani

saath un ke jo aa'e the ham Beirut se Hasrat
yih rog natiijah hai usii ham-saf*a*rii kaa 

Just a curiosity. Do you pronounce such words minus the "a" under Punjabi influence as has been suggested by someone in another thread?


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> Also, I am talking about native Urdu speakers. They are not saying juruurat, jindagii, or mojij. Have you ever run in to such people.



The thread title encompasses both Urdu and Hindi and some of the examples you have quoted in your post/s are equally applicable to Hindi. With this in mind, Alfaaz's question is relevent and yes I have run into such people. On this forum!


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## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> You are forgetting that each consonant in Hindi has an inherent schwa: that is what "hindiurdu" was talking about when he's talking about schwa deletions.



This is based on the script, not the actual pronunciation. The decision to let there be an inherent schwa behind each character that does not have a matra is based on Sanskrit.
It has nothing at all to do with Hindi/Urdu in and of itself. When Perso-Arabic script was the de-facto standard people did not worry about schwa deletion after every consonant.
There are other completely different issues inherent to Perso-Arabic script like "is the vowel an i or an a"? 

Sanskrit has schwa (or some other vowel sound) after all consonants and consonant clusters. Hindi doesn't. There is no relation here. 

Hindi has only used the the Sanskrit syllabary since the 1800s, which is when schwa deletion came into play. It is not an inherent part of the language before the adoption of the Sanskrit syllabary.


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## Alfaaz

> I am quite willing to meet your (or anyone else's) challenge but it is not easy to search for pieces of recorded speech that is likely to have words like 'qalamii' and 'xush-xabarii". At least three persons (excluding me) namely Faylasoof, marrish and BP SaaHibaan pronounce the word as "maulavii" and BP SaaHib has indicated that for him it is "xush-xabarii". If I get the opportunity I shall try to find instances where the "a" is preserved.


I think I might also qualify to gain a place in this distinguished list ; I've heard khush-khabari and will try to locate specific examples and episodes of programs on YT (if and when time permits)...



> Thanks Alfaaz. Your example is interesting. If Arabic pronunciation is sacrosanct, then clearly zaruurat and mu'azziz are also wrong. As duaad != z and proper 3ain is almost never pronounced in mu3azziz in urdu. I hope you will agree.


You're welcome, but I thought we were speaking of Urdu convention here. If I'm not mistaken, Urdu proper wouldn't differentiate between all the z's as you have stated, but a'yin is pronounced (obviously not to the extent as would be in Arabic), as would shadds and separate zabars or zairs...? 



> Also, I am talking about native Urdu speakers. They are not saying juruurat, jindagii, or mojij. Have you ever run in to such people?


Rarely, but I think there was an episode of Loose Talk in which such an accent was used...(and the people identify as Urdu speakers, not as any other language speakers). When you correct them, they say that is how they've been speaking all their life, so its hard to change. This is why in the other thread in response to QP, I said that environmental influences might have an effect. An interesting thing that I noticed is that these people have the right pronunciation when singing a song or reciting Quranic verses. 
An oft-quoted example (at least it seems from seeing Indian media) is Lata M. While speaking she makes mistakes here and there, but while singing she has perfect pronunciation (_almost always, not always of course--no one's perfect_). 


> Curious how you picked 220,000. Have you been keeping count?



I'm still searching for the answer and will reply when I have one....(it was just a random number, but might have some significance)


----------



## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> You certainly evince strong leaps of imagination, though: from where did you get the idea that North Indians' original pronunciation of "school" was "iskool" and that of "strii" was "istrii"? In fact, FYI, in north India, if someone pronounces these words in this manner, then one is thought to be Punjabi!





From Platts: 

H استري इस्त्री _istrī_ [S. स्त्री], s.f. Woman; wife:—_istrī-barg_, _istrī-jāt_, s.f. Woman-kind:—_istrī-dhan_, s.m. Settlement made on a wife by her father; jointure; wife's  property or paraphernalia:—_istrī karnā_, v.t. To take a wife, to marry:—_istrī_ - _gāmī_, s.m. One who goes after women, an adulterer:—_istrī-ling_, (in Gram.) the feminine gender.

S ستري स्त्री _strī_, s.f. A woman; a wife:—_strī-bodhak_, adj.  (in Gram.) Of the feminine gender, feminine


Notice how it labels istrii as Hindi and strii as Sanskrit? That's because North Indians did not like the word-initial consonant-clusters beginning with 's'. We did not start using strii until whole-sale Sanskritisation ensued, wiping out the native forms.


----------



## tonyspeed

If one wants a thorough examination of this issue please see _"Aspects of Hindi Phonology" _- Ohala, 1983. 
It addressed many of the concerns I had regarding this issue and painted it as a "complicated matter". (p.139)
Proving this is the fact that not all the test subjects responded similarly and some test subjects even varied between responses.
This would eliminate the idea that non-schwa deletion is a non-native trait. It is more complicated than that.
Mentioned repetatively as a factor is whether or not a speaker is familiar with the resulting consonant cluster. So it seems
prior familiarity with the resulting sound is a factor that will also determine whether or not a speaker schwa-deletes.

My main concerns was whether we are dealing with a merely script issue or not. On page 127 she says
"Of course this assumes the schwa-deletion rule used by Hindi speakers for reading the Devanagari orthography
is the same as the schwa-deletion rule they have internalized for spoken Hindi. I think this assumption is justified,
since the environments in which the schwa is deleted are the same." (p.127)

On the matter of Urdu words it says: 

"If the word is a Sanskrit or Urdu loan, speakers aspiring to the most pretigious pronunciation will render these words as they were
rendered in the original language" (p.138) and also "In the case of the PA loans of Table 6.2, Urdu speakers retain the /schwa/ - at least
in formal style; I am not sure if they retain the /schwa/ in casual styles of speaking. However, all non-Urdu speakers delete the /schwa/".

Said PA loans in Table 6.2 were _bagal, daulat, nazar, naukar, biraadar, *Xabar*, suurat, xushaamad, *ghalat*, guzar, zaxam, jigar, zewar, zaram, muugal, resham, rogan, wazan, sharaarat, shaayar, safar, adaalat, *arab*, aadam, kaagaz_. 


Other guidelines given on 138 and 139 are:

- schwas tend to be deleted in casual style of speaking and retained in formal style
- schwas tend to be deleted in a faster tempo of speaking

-whether the speaker has posited a morpheme boundary in the environment preceding schwa and "the (psychological) reality  of the morpheme boundary for the average native speaker" p.122
- whether the resulting cluster violates the constraints of the language
-whether or not the suffix providing the environment is a blocking suffix, i.e. a suffix marked


Finally, Ohala mentions that "In the case of forms derived from verbs, e.g., [nikal]...,[niklaa], etc., the schwa seems to be lost without question for all speakers I know of. These forms have been in the language for a long time. Also, almost all the verbs of Hindi are native words, and therefore the question of 'status' involved in retaining the schwa does not arise."


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> UM SaaHib, I am away from my normal "station" and for this reason I am in a slightly difficult position. I am quite willing to meet your (or anyone else's) challenge but it is not easy to search for pieces of recorded speech that is likely to have words like 'qalamii' and 'xush-xabarii". At least three persons (excluding me) namely Faylasoof, marrish and BP SaaHibaan pronounce the word as "maulavii" and BP SaaHib has indicated that for him it is "xush-xabarii". If I get the opportunity I shall try to find instances where the "a" is preserved. I have already provided an example from Ghalib (talab > talaboN). May I ask how you would write and pronounce the word (Arabic) for disease?



QP saahab, I did not intend to challenge you, nor give you homework. _maiN is jasaarat kaa mutaHammil nahiN ho saktaa_ 

My questions should have sounded less excited, as it serves no one to engage in an endless back and forth references where we may lose the forest for the trees. I am not suggesting to prove you or anyone wrong. However, I do like to suggest what I speak and hear is representative of an overwhelming number of native speakers. These two statements need not be contradictory. If you do like to look for examples, please do count both _maulvii _and _maulavii_, not only the latter. I'll be curious to see the results. 

I assume you are referring to the word maraz? I do use it just like that at times, but at other times just marz. Not sure how this dynamic works. From my family I learned maraz.


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> I would like to reitterate that we are discussing the deletion/preservation of the "a" vowel and not the metamorphosis of consonants. Now that you have brought in the Persian speakers you might find this surprising but Farsi speakers, to the best of my knowledge, religiously preserve this vowel. You might like pronouncing the word as "naazniin" but they pronounce it as "naaz*​a*niin"! nam*a*kiin likewise! Platts has "qalmii" as vulgar and "qalamii" as the standard pronunciation. Here is a shi3r from a Siraj Aurangabadi Ghazal.
> 
> xabar-i-taHayyur-i-3ishq sun, nah junuuN rahaa nah p*a*rii rahii
> nah to tuu rahaa nah to maiN rahaa, jo rahii so be-xab*a*rii rahii
> 
> And here is Hasrat Mohani
> 
> saath un ke jo aa'e the ham Beirut se Hasrat
> yih rog natiijah hai usii ham-saf*a*rii kaa
> 
> Just a curiosity. Do you pronounce such words minus the "a" under Punjabi influence as has been suggested by someone in another thread?



I agree with you that the thread is not about consonants. However the bottom-line justification I heard for the a-vowel in _maulavii _was that it must be preserved because that's how it is in Arabic and that pronunciation _must _be preserved. So my logical question was, why not preserve the Arabic pronunciation all the way? Why can't we utter all the consonant sounds "correctly" also. It is after all not impossible, we we learned to say the _qaaf _just fine. Why not _zaal, zu'e, zuaad, suaad, the, He, 3ain_ and so on as well? Why be selective in preserving the purity of Arabic pronunciation? This is how I justify my consonant discussion here. Hope it makes sense to you. 

I did not suggest _xush-xabarii_ is _wrong _(please go back and check). All I said is that based on my hearing majority of native speakers,  I do not hear it. I do not know what _vulgar _means in lexical context, but good to see it is there. I sent a dictionary link earlier too that lists several variations of _qalmii_. Ferozul-Lughaat lists qalam all the way but switches to _qalmeN _(sideburns). Would you call _qalameN _instead? Do you pronounce _badlah _as _badalah_ also, since _badal _is Arabic? How about calling _xarch xarj/xaraj_ since it is also rooted in Arabic?

Aside from this forum, I'm curious if you are commonly hearing things like _qalami dost_ and _xush-xabarii_ in everyday conversations? It sounds so alien to me that I could not have missed it, if I heard it even 20% of the time. 

So to summarize, I am not calling _maulavii _or _qalamii _wrong (who am I to talk like that any way!). What I am questioning this unwavering allegiance to inviolability of Arabic pronunciation as long as the Urdu compond has any Arabic stem. I have given several examples where actually it is not so above. And I am very thankful it is not so. 

In poetic context I am not surprised to see xabarii, as obviously it is not _wrong_. In fact, allow me to quote Faraz ...

xalq kii be _xabarii _hai kih mirii ruswaa'ii
log mujhko hii sunate haiN fasane mere

And no, I do not think this is Punjabi influence on my speech. I have heard it the same way from a wide spectrum of native Urdu speakers. Thanks for throwing me that lifeline, though.  I appreciate it.


----------



## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> I think I might also qualify to gain a place in this distinguished list ; I've heard khush-khabari and will try to locate specific examples and episodes of programs on YT (if and when time permits)...
> 
> Thanks Alfaaz, for your research. Please count both xush-xabrii and xush-xabarii in your research and report back. I would greatly appreciate it.
> 
> You're welcome, but I thought we were speaking of Urdu convention here. If I'm not mistaken, Urdu proper wouldn't differentiate between all the z's as you have stated, but a'yin is pronounced (obviously not to the extent as would be in Arabic), as would shadds and separate zabars or zairs...?
> 
> Sorry I did that because the reason given to preserve the short a-vowel in maulavii was to preserve Arabic pronunciation at any cost. I took it to its logical ridiculous extreme by suggesting we should learn to say suaad, zuaad, the, He, zaal, zu'e also, like we learned qaaf. After all if Arabic pronunciation is sacred then why stop half way? But you are right, this was an inappropriate direct response to your question.
> 
> Rarely, but I think there was an episode of Loose Talk in which such an accent was used...(and the people identify as Urdu speakers, not as any other language speakers). When you correct them, they say that is how they've been speaking all their life, so its hard to change. This is why in the other thread in response to QP, I said that environmental influences might have an effect. An interesting thing that I noticed is that these people have the right pronunciation when singing a song or reciting Quranic verses.
> An oft-quoted example (at least it seems from seeing Indian media) is Lata M. While speaking she makes mistakes here and there, but while singing she has perfect pronunciation (_almost always, not always of course--no one's perfect_).
> 
> I'm still searching for the answer and will reply when I have one....(it was just a random number, but might have some significance)


----------



## hindiurdu

tonyspeed said:


> If one wants a thorough examination of this issue please see _"Aspects of Hindi Phonology" _- Ohala, 1983, etc



Tonyspeed, I am a bit confused as to the point you are making. Could you  clarify? Basically, what I was able to tease out is that -
(a) people who want prestige comply with non-native pronunciation. AGREED. This is always true in any language.
(b) schwa deletion rules have exceptions. AGREED. This is also true of most linguistic rules.
(c) there is variation among speakers of the language. AGREED. This is also true in any language spoken in scale.

I am not sure if I missed something here. On inherent schwas in  lettering, yes this is dependent on script. Schwa deletion refers to  this as well as the deletion as words change form (nazar → nazrana). Do  we know that schwas were pronounced in Vedic Sanskrit? No idea.  Although, as you may know, Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan Persian were very  close languages and I have seen some transforms between them, e.g. look  at http://books.google.com/books?id=lZxGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA323 -
_yō yaθā puθrəm taurunəm, haoməm vanadaēta mašyō, frā ābyō tanubyō, haomō visāite baēšazai_ (in Avestan)
_yō yáthā putráṃ táruṇaṃ, sōmáṃ vandēta mártyaḥ, prá ābhyas tanubhyaḥ, sōmō viśatē bhēṩajāya_ (in Vedic Sanskrit)​
Two things. First, if Northern India and Iran were speaking such close  languages, how could they possibly be artificial. They, or close forms  of them, must have been natural at some point - so I am not sure I agree  with your contention there. Second, I don't really see any more schwas  in Vedic Sanskrit compared to Avestan Persian. I am no expert and could  be wrong on this, but schwa deletion in IA seems like a post-Sanskrit  phenomenon. Also, remember we can compare the bazillion cognates in  Sanskrit and Avestan/Persian for this too for medial schwas present in  one but not the other - buland/brihat, jaan (life)/jana (person/being),  doxtar/duhitr (daughter), biradar/bhratr (brother), pidar/pitr (father),  asp-asb/ashv (horse), dast/hast (hand), dand/dant (tooth),  xshathra/kshetra (area). The list is endless and I have trouble finding  very many where Sanskrit has an extra schwa in the middle that Avestan  or Persian don't. So, I have trouble agreeing with what seems to be your  contention, though maybe I misunderstood you. BTW interesting and  disconnected aside here is that xshathra → sheher in Persian where  kshetra → khet in Hindi. Interesting that those two words should have a  common root.


----------



## UrduMedium

tonyspeed said:


> If one wants a thorough examination of this issue please see _"Aspects of Hindi Phonology" _- Ohala, 1983.
> It addressed many of the concerns I had regarding this issue and painted it as a "complicated matter". (p.139)
> Proving this is the fact that not all the test subjects responded similarly and some test subjects even varied between responses.
> This would eliminate the idea that non-schwa deletion is a non-native trait. It is more complicated than that.
> Mentioned repetatively as a factor is whether or not a speaker is familiar with the resulting consonant cluster. So it seems
> prior familiarity with the resulting sound is a factor that will also determine whether or not a speaker schwa-deletes.
> 
> My main concerns was whether we are dealing with a merely script issue or not. On page 127 she says
> "Of course this assumes the schwa-deletion rule used by Hindi speakers for reading the Devanagari orthography
> is the same as the schwa-deletion rule they have internalized for spoken Hindi. I think this assumption is justified,
> since the environments in which the schwa is deleted are the same." (p.127)
> 
> On the matter of Urdu words it says:
> 
> "If the word is a Sanskrit or Urdu loan, speakers aspiring to the most pretigious pronunciation will render these words as they were
> rendered in the original language" (p.138) and also "In the case of the PA loans of Table 6.2, Urdu speakers retain the /schwa/ - at least
> in formal style; I am not sure if they retain the /schwa/ in casual styles of speaking. However, all non-Urdu speakers delete the /schwa/".
> 
> Said PA loans in Table 6.2 were _bagal, daulat, nazar, naukar, biraadar, *Xabar*, suurat, xushaamad, *ghalat*, guzar, zaxam, jigar, zewar, zaram, muugal, resham, rogan, wazan, sharaarat, shaayar, safar, adaalat, *arab*, aadam, kaagaz_.
> 
> 
> Other guidelines given on 138 and 139 are:
> 
> - schwas tend to be deleted in casual style of speaking and retained in formal style
> - schwas tend to be deleted in a faster tempo of speaking
> 
> -whether the speaker has posited a morpheme boundary in the environment preceding schwa and "the (psychological) reality  of the morpheme boundary for the average native speaker" p.122
> - whether the resulting cluster violates the constraints of the language
> -whether or not the suffix providing the environment is a blocking suffix, i.e. a suffix marked
> 
> 
> Finally, Ohala mentions that "In the case of forms derived from verbs, e.g., [nikal]...,[niklaa], etc., the schwa seems to be lost without question for all speakers I know of. These forms have been in the language for a long time. Also, almost all the verbs of Hindi are native words, and therefore the question of 'status' involved in retaining the schwa does not arise."



Tonyspeed, thank you for sharing this research. Very helpful. So retaining the schwa in question seems to be a sign of formality? Interesting. I better practice it for special occasions


----------



## Alfaaz

> Sorry I did that because the reason given to preserve the short a-vowel in maulavii was to preserve Arabic pronunciation at any cost. I took it to its logical ridiculous extreme by suggesting we should learn to say suaad, zuaad, the, He, zaal, zu'e also, like we learned qaaf. After all if Arabic pronunciation is sacred then why stop half way?


I guess here is the part where we might be thinking differently. According to your post, it is preservation of Arabic pronunciation. According to me, it was preservation of Urdu pronunciation....as (probably most) of our ancestors speaking proper Urdu would have said maulawi and frowned upon something like molvi (mole-vii)...or maybe not  ? Maybe that was too stereotypic of a thought as Urdu has many varieties...;


----------



## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> I guess here is the part where we might be thinking differently. According to your post, it is preservation of Arabic pronunciation. According to me, it was preservation of Urdu pronunciation....as (probably most) of our ancestors speaking proper Urdu would have said maulawi and frowned upon something like molvi (mole-vii)...or maybe not  ? Maybe that was too stereotypic of a thought as Urdu has many varieties...;



I contend that most of them (ancestors) said _maulvii_, instead. No one is arguing for molvii (mole-vii) BTW. 

Ever heard baba-i-Urdu _maulavii _abdul haq? I haven't, as of yet. Search YT for "maulvi abdul haq" and you'll find a couple of good starting points.

Also would Urdu plural of _maulavii _be _maulaviyoN _or _maulviyoN_? I have never heard the former from anyone. The latter is ubiquitous.


----------



## UrduMedium

hindiurdu said:


> T
> I am not sure if I missed something here. On inherent schwas in  lettering, yes this is dependent on script. Schwa deletion refers to  this as well as the deletion as words change form (nazar → nazrana).



HU, what leads to nazraanah (نذرانہ) is not nazar (نظر), but nazr (نذر).


----------



## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> From Platts:
> 
> H استري इस्त्री _istrī_ [S. स्त्री], s.f. Woman; wife:—_istrī-barg_, _istrī-jāt_, s.f. Woman-kind:—_istrī-dhan_, s.m. Settlement made on a wife by her father; jointure; wife's  property or paraphernalia:—_istrī karnā_, v.t. To take a wife, to marry:—_istrī_ - _gāmī_, s.m. One who goes after women, an adulterer:—_istrī-ling_, (in Gram.) the feminine gender.
> 
> S ستري स्त्री _strī_, s.f. A woman; a wife:—_strī-bodhak_, adj.  (in Gram.) Of the feminine gender, feminine
> 
> 
> Notice how it labels istrii as Hindi and strii as Sanskrit? That's because North Indians did not like the word-initial consonant-clusters beginning with 's'. We did not start using strii until whole-sale Sanskritisation ensued, wiping out the native forms.



If Platts says so, that becomes reality? Laughable, indeed. You are welcome to live in your Platts-defined world, but I prefer to live in the actual world. I am a north Indian myself and I've never heard these. The only "istrii" I know is the iron for ironing clothes.



			
				QURESHPOR said:
			
		

> gb, I don't quite see how the pronunciation of "maulavii" is connected  with Sanskrit being "artificial"! Unless of course you are merely  looking for a confrontation and that would not be very helpful towards  this discussion.
> 
> I don't know of any Punjabi who would say "iskuul". In fact it would be  "skuul". For "strii" it is more likely to be "istarii" in the Indian  Punjab. For Pakistani Punjabis, this word would mean "iron" only!



I don't know what happens in western Punjab, but at least in India there are many Punjabi speakers who do pronounce "school" as "iskuul". This is in fact one of the stereotypes in people's minds about Punjabi pronunciation.

As for the connection, you should ask tonyspeed, since according to him schwa deletion is somehow linked to Sanskrit, even if the same tendency is being exhibited as strongly by Urdu as Hindi - and there are not too many Sanskrit-origin words in Urdu, I guess. Anyone saying "maulavii" and "ghalatii" does come across to me as one of the three: artificial, pretentious / non-native / having been born or having lived in that artificial environment where they were spoken like that. I am not saying that these are wrong, but they are not "natural" to me. I have never even heard "ghalatii" or "xabarii" in my whole life, including TV, films, etc. They might very well exist somewhere - I am sure you've already quoted some couplets from somewhere to prove that - but what I am talking about is how the overwhelming majority speaks them. And contrary to Faylasoof's opinions, that is what language is to me, not some rose petals clasped holy and sheathed from the world in a young girl's prayer books. "Ghalatii" and "xabarii" might very well be correct of course, just as some of the "artificial" Sanskrit that tonyspeed mentions might be. Got the connection?

By the way, I was wondering if tonyspeed has some recordings from the Vedic era, since he spoke so confidently of how Sanskrit of today is not spoken the same way it was. I would be glad to get some of them if he has! 

_EDIT:_ I noticed that according to tonyspeed north Indians were originally supposed to say "istrii" but that tendency has been wiped out due to some "Sanskritisation" (I do wonder though how did this drive affect even uneducated Hindi speakers, how did this so-called Sanskritisation really occur ... well, anyway!). So I guess that "sthaan" was "isthaan", "score" was "iscore" (since maybe cricket happened before Sanskritisation, whenever the latter took place?), and so on? By the way, where's the foreign conjunct in "strii" - what's foreign to it?


----------



## greatbear

UrduMedium said:


> I assume you are referring to the word maraz? I do use it just like that at times, but at other times just marz. Not sure how this dynamic works. From my family I learned maraz.



There are many such words across Hindi-Urdu, which are common in both their non-schwa-deleted and schwa-deleted forms: maraz/marz, rakam/rakm, dharam/dharm, garam/garm, hukam/hukum/hukm, charam/charm, sharam/sharm, etc.
I use "marz" by the way.


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> UM SaaHib, I am away from my normal "station" and for this reason I am in a slightly difficult position. I am quite willing to meet your (or anyone else's) challenge but it is not easy to search for pieces of recorded speech that is likely to have words like 'qalamii' and 'xush-xabarii". At least three persons (excluding me) namely Faylasoof, marrish and BP SaaHibaan pronounce the word as "maulavii" and BP SaaHib has indicated that for him it is "xush-xabarii". If I get the opportunity I shall try to find instances where the "a" is preserved. I have already provided an example from Ghalib (talab > talaboN). May I ask how you would write and pronounce the word (Arabic) for disease?



Speaking of literary luminaries, I just spotted janaab Iftikhar Arif in the "Jashn-e-Iftikhar Arif III" youtube video using the word _maulvii _few times. Fast forward to about 59:45 and listen for a couple of minutes.


----------



## hindiurdu

UrduMedium said:


> HU, what leads to nazraanah (نذرانہ) is not nazar (نظر), but nazr (نذر).



Thank you and good catch. I stand corrected.


----------



## hindiurdu

Hmmm ... I don't think I have ever heard any Punjabi say istrii or strii, so can't really picture how that would go. The traditional word for women is 'naar' or 'rann'. People with Pahari influence (Dogri, Punchhi, Mirpuri) might say 'nuaar'. And when they say 'skool' it's usually 'sakool' or 'askool'. 'iskool' is more UP. I think Persians do 'eskool'. This is all very odd given that Sanskrit has 'skand', 'stan', 'sneh' and lots of such combinations. Why was this lost in HU and Punjabi? I wonder. I totally disagree that rural West Punjabis say 'skool' - they do not. I am actually reminded of an old PTV public service ad here 'Nai Roshni Sakool, Nai Roshni Sakool' (mid 1980s, it started 'Ai watan key logon, ye baat tumhe samjhana hai ...', wonder if anyone here remembers it). The guy singing it had a clear Punjabi lilt to his voice, though he spoke Urdu very well. Punjabi has lots of other schwa insertions too - mulk → mulak is common enough. Just search for 'NAWAN AYAN AE SOHNIA - Pakistani Punjabi Stage Drama Full' on YT at 1:30 - I am sure there are zillions more examples.


----------



## hindiurdu

BTW be cautious using British studies from the pre-1900 timeframe. The reason is that they expanded from Calcutta westwards. Most of their initial studies of Hindi-Urdu were of the Eastern Hindi region. You will notice several things about this, including the fact that their Nagri vowel pronunciations are usually diphthongal and many of their location examples involve places like Bhagalpur  On Molvi vs Maulvi vs Maulavi, Molvi is wrong in HU and no natives say it that way that I am aware of - I cannot imagine a rural HU speaker saying this. When Punjabis speak HU non-natively they do sometimes say it that way (gave a specific YT clip on this earlier). However, Western (i.e. standard) HU uses Maulvi. Eastern HU might be Maulavi, but that is not the standard Khariboli dialect.


----------



## greatbear

hindiurdu said:


> Hmmm ... I don't think I have ever heard any Punjabi say istrii or strii, so can't really picture how that would go. The traditional word for women is 'naar' or 'rann'. People with Pahari influence (Dogri, Punchhi, Mirpuri) might say 'nuaar'. And when they say 'skool' it's usually 'sakool' or 'askool'. 'iskool' is more UP. I think Persians do 'eskool'.



I think you're right, since in my very limited interaction with a few Punjabis, I've heard "sakool" and "askool"; however, there does exist a perception in certain sections that "iskool" is Punjabi, which is what I've heard, not the Punjabis themselves. Maybe I didn't hear from the right people. However, I've never heard "iskool" in at least western UP, where I've spent large portions of my life.

As for "strii", well, actually, it's anyway not a word that's commonly used even in Hindi. One would say "aurat" or "naarii".


----------



## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> If Platts says so, that becomes reality? Laughable, indeed. You are welcome to live in your Platts-defined world, but I prefer to live in the actual world. I am a north Indian myself and I've never heard these. The only "istrii" I know is the iron for ironing clothes.



If I could define my entire knowledge of the history of Hindi off of one Dr. Who who could travel back in time in a telephone box and that person was you, you'd have a point. And you'd have a reason for vehemence, if not belligerence. Until then, I will trust researchers who actually lived back then and heard 1800s Hindi first hand.


----------



## marrish

Not being sure of its relevance to the topic, I thought to come to know it by asking the question.

How do you hear or pronounce the Urdu word متعلقہ ?


----------



## UrduMedium

_muta3alliqah_


----------



## UrduMedium

Found an interesting example of the short-a deletion from a very old Lucknow recording ...at UChicago DSL. A very interesting archive.

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK

Hear the pronunciation of the word _kaaravaaN/kaaravaan_ and notice at 1:06 and 2:27 how the person drops the medial short vowel.

Impressive title Lisan-ul-Qaum 

Its catalogued as:

Language Family: *Indo-Aryan central group*
Language: *Urdū*
Recording Number: *6975AK*
Narrator: *Līsānulqaum Maulānā Safī*
Narrator District: *Lucknow*
Narrator Province: *United Provinces*
Year: *1920*


----------



## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> If I could define my entire knowledge of the history of Hindi off of one Dr. Who who could travel back in time in a telephone box and that person was you, you'd have a point. And you'd have a reason for vehemence, if not belligerence. Until then, I will trust researchers who actually lived back then and heard 1800s Hindi first hand.



The respect and tone with which you address those who don't agree with your views is evident in your post cited above; there is no need for me to respond. It is you by the way who's gung-ho about your Sanskritisation drives, etc., and you seem to know what was 1800s Hindi like - I have never claimed it was thus or was not thus. It is only the lack of credibility of your sources that I've always pointed out - after all you could even consider a poorly-written Osho article to be some example of _modern-day_ Hindi.


----------



## greatbear

UrduMedium said:


> Found an interesting example of the short-a deletion from a very old Lucknow recording ...at UChicago DSL. A very interesting archive.
> 
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK
> 
> Hear the pronunciation of the word _kaaravaaN/kaaravaan_ and notice at 1:08 and 2:27 how the person drops the medial short vowel.
> 
> Impressive title Lisan-ul-Qaum
> 
> Its catalogued as:
> 
> Language Family: *Indo-Aryan central group*
> Language: *Urdū*
> Recording Number: *6975AK*
> Narrator: *Līsānulqaum Maulānā Safī*
> Narrator District: *Lucknow*
> Narrator Province: *United Provinces*
> Year: *1920*



Thanks a lot, UM! Interesting to hear as well.


----------



## marrish

UrduMedium said:


> Found an interesting example of the short-a deletion from a very old Lucknow recording ...at UChicago DSL. A very interesting archive.
> 
> http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK
> 
> Hear the pronunciation of the word _kaaravaaN/kaaravaan_ and notice at 1:08 and 2:27 how the person drops the medial short vowel.
> 
> Impressive title Lisan-ul-Qaum
> 
> Its catalogued as:
> 
> Language Family: *Indo-Aryan central group*
> Language: *Urdū*
> Recording Number: *6975AK*
> Narrator: *Līsānulqaum Maulānā Safī*
> Narrator District: *Lucknow*
> Narrator Province: *United Provinces*
> Year: *1920*



UM SaaHib, I'm afraid I'm not able to follow you here, although your post seemed interesting.


----------



## marrish

UrduMedium said:


> _muta3alliqah_


Thanks for sharing; this is also how this word has been known to me. Well, I posed this question because I heard '_*'muta3lqah' [mutalqa]*_ pronunciation as well!


----------



## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> UM SaaHib, I'm afraid I'm not able to follow you here, although your post seemed interesting.



marrish saahab, Sorry perhaps I was not clear. It is an audio link. If you play and listen to it (http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lsi/6975AK), at the stated time-markers, you may notice a short-a deletion in the word _kaaravaan_.


----------



## marrish

UM SaaHib, I beg your pardon, you have mis-presumed I hadn't understood how to listen to that reference or that I couldn't put connection between your idea and the reference. 

The two don't pose any difficulty to comprehend but I fail to see the link between a short-a deletion and the example you have given.


----------



## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> UM SaaHib, I beg your pardon, you have mis-presumed I hadn't understood how to listen to that reference or that I couldn't put connection between your idea and the reference.
> 
> The two don't pose any difficulty to comprehend but I fail to see the link between a short-a deletion and the example you have given.



marrish saahab- paheliaN kyuuN bujhwate haiN? seedhaa seedha bata deN hum se kahaaN Ghalatii ho ga'ii he, taa ke hum xataa maan leN aur baat aage baRhe


----------



## marrish

UrduMedium said:


> marrish saahab- paheliaN kyuuN bujhwate haiN? seedhaa seedha bata deN hum se kahaaN Ghalatii ho ga'ii he, taa ke hum xataa maan leN aur baat aage baRhe


UM SaaHib, yaad rahii to maiN aap kii yih dii hu'ii ijaazat kisii aur mauqa3 par bah ruu-e kaar laa'uuN gaa jis kii vajh maHz is naa-chiiz kii hii xaamii hai. ta3alluq kahaaN hai zabar-kushii aur aap ke lafz kaa?


----------



## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> There are many such words across Hindi-Urdu, which are common in both their non-schwa-deleted and schwa-deleted forms: maraz/marz, rakam/rakm, dharam/dharm, garam/garm, hukam/hukum/hukm, charam/charm, sharam/sharm, etc.
> I use "marz" by the way.



As for as Urdu is concerned they are garm/Hukm/sharm and maraz!


----------



## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> UM SaaHib, yaad rahii to maiN aap kii yih dii hu'ii ijaazat kisii aur mauqa3 par bah ruu-e kaar laa'uuN gaa jis kii vajh maHz is naa-chiiz kii hii xaamii hai. ta3alluq kahaaN hai zabar-kushii aur aap ke lafz kaa?



ab samjhaa! to aap farmaate haiN kih kaaravaaN me _re _par zabar nahiN ... 

Just checked here http://www.clepk.org/oud/ViewWord.aspx?refid=6778 and it seems to be there. But perhaps, _kaarvaaN _is also _musta3mal_?


----------



## Alfaaz

_*Another off-topic question*_: Is it raqam or raqm...? Just noticed Platts gives raqm (and raqam as vulg.) while this gives raqam.


----------



## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> UM SaaHib, yaad rahii to maiN aap kii yih dii hu'ii ijaazat kisii aur mauqa3 par bah ruu-e kaar laa'uuN gaa jis kii vajh maHz is naa-chiiz kii hii xaamii hai. ta3alluq kahaaN hai zabar-kushii aur aap ke lafz kaa?



marrish saahab,

I poked about a bit more, and you are absolutely right that _kaarvaaN _is a perfectly fine pronunciation. May be even more accurate than _kaaravaaN_. 

I stand corrected. Thanks for the correction.

Hope the audio clip was still interesting to hear  There's many more there ...


----------



## Qureshpor

^ UM SaaHib. Regarding the letter "qaaf", you know my views as we have discussed this consonant in another thread. One thing that you and other friends in this forum need to take heed of is that a language is not a mathematical equation where everything fits perfectly like a glove. The consonants have travelled in one path (via Farsi) and the Urdu speakers have adopted mainly that pronunciation. The vlowels once again have traced another path and Urdu "luminaries" such as Siraj Aurangabadi and Hasrat Mohani have set certain conventions which careful users of the language follow and this is how it has been. Now you are asking me if "qalam" goes to "qalamii", why does not "badal" change to "badalah". My simple answer is I don't know. This is the path Urdu language has taken and there is no logical reason behind every formation. "qalamii" and the like may die soon thanks to UM SaaHib and his supporters but then so be it. It will not be the end of the world.

I have already given three examples of our top poets and therefore do not feel the need to complete my homework by posting Youtube links. In poetry, a poet gets caught out if he/she is not aware of the correct pronunciation. I am not versed in prosody (yet) but the examples that I have quoted have been provided by those who know this science. The transliteration that I have used is based on theirs. I did n't just add the "a" because I felt like it. It is there because this is the correct format; otherwise the verses would not be in metre.

I am "glad" to hear the "downfall" of Urdu is through its native speakers and not as a consequence of any other "adversaries"!


----------



## marrish

UrduMedium said:


> marrish saahab,
> 
> I poked about a bit more, and you are absolutely right that _kaarvaaN _is a perfectly fine pronunciation. May be even more accurate than _kaaravaaN_.
> 
> I stand corrected. Thanks for the correction.
> 
> Hope the audio clip was still interesting to hear  There's many more there ...



I think we have seen a case of ''schwa insertion''! By the way, I've never come across *_kaaravaan/kaaravaaN_ before but maybe I didn't pay heed. However when I'm thinking that I'm familiar with this word mostly from the poetry, it seems this has always been _kaarvaaN/kaarvaan_, because people who recite poetry try to pronounce words correctly.

Now the discussion has taken such a stance that I'm not sure if it be deemed relevant, but even in Persian, which is scrupulous regarding the middle zabars, as stated before somewhere in the thread, this word is pronounced kaarvaan, and I never heard it pronounced with a zabar on re. Even good poets don't recite it this way when presenting their pieces in a slow tempo.


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> ^ UM SaaHib. Regarding the letter "qaaf", you know my views as we have discussed this consonant in another thread. One thing that you and other friends in this forum need to take heed of is that a language is not a mathematical equation where everything fits perfectly like a glove. The consonants have travelled in one path (via Farsi) and the Urdu speakers have adopted mainly that pronunciation. The vlowels once again have traced another path and Urdu "luminaries" such as Siraj Aurangabadi and Hasrat Mohani have set certain conventions which careful users of the language follow and this is how it has been. Now you are asking me if "qalam" goes to "qalamii", why does not "badal" change to "badalah". My simple answer is I don't know. This is the path Urdu language has taken and there is no logical reason behind every formation. "qalamii" and the like may die soon thanks to UM SaaHib and his supporters but then so be it. It will not be the end of the world.
> 
> I have already given three examples of our top poets and therefore do not feel the need to complete my homework by posting Youtube links. In poetry, a poet gets caught out if he/she is not aware of the correct pronunciation. I am not versed in prosody (yet) but the examples that I have quoted have been provided by those who know this science. The transliteration that I have used is based on theirs. I did n't just add the "a" because I felt like it. It is there because this is the correct format; otherwise the verses would not be in metre.
> 
> I am "glad" to hear the "downfall" of Urdu is through its native speakers and not as a consequence of any other "adversaries"!



Hahaha! I have a feeling the "adversaries" will be the ones to "rescue" from the "downfall" 

Thanks QP saahab, for a very fair comment above. 

I agree with the theory that it is the tradition that sets the direction of the language, and not some "kitabii" rules. Earlier what I heard was a rule-like, blind sacrosanct preservation of pronunciation of anything Arabic. Period. Glad to see that's not the case. Also glad to see the coexistence of _qalamii, qalmii, qalmeN_ and the like. Like one big happy family


----------



## Alfaaz

> _kaarvaaN_


Reminds me of a song, (acutally many songs, but only 4 lines of quotes are allowed ):
ابھی خیالوں میں تھوڑا سا رنگ آیا ہے
ابھی تو راستہ منزل کا تھمنے پایا ہے 
یہ کارواں کہیں راستے میں ہی نہ رہجائے 
میری خوشی کو کسی کی نظر نہ لگجائے، نہ جانے کیوں مجھے احساس ہونے لگتا ہے


----------



## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> Anyone saying "maulavii" and "ghalatii" does come across to me as one of the three: artificial, pretentious / non-native / having been born or having lived in that artificial environment where they were spoken like that. I am not saying that these are wrong, but they are not "natural" to me. I have never even heard "ghalatii" or "xabarii" in my whole life, including TV, films, etc. They might very well exist somewhere - I am sure you've already quoted some couplets from somewhere to prove that - but what I am talking about is how the overwhelming majority speaks them. And contrary to Faylasoof's opinions, that is what language is to me, not some rose petals clasped holy and sheathed from the world in a young girl's prayer books.



Thank you. I would still insist that "maulavii"/"Ghalatii (not "ghalatii") is not relevant to Sanskrit being artificial or not because those who pronounce these words in this manner were pronouncing them so even before they had any contact with Sanskrit. If they are continuing to pronounce them with the "a", then just because you have n't come across this pronunciation does not constitute their speakers being 'artificial/pretentious/non-native". Perhaps you have lived a sheltered life, I don't know.

For those of us who care about their language, even rose petals may not be fragrant enough to equate with it! If Urdu speakers are attempting to stop their language falling into a gutter, I don't really blame them. I would say rose-fragrance is much more preferable than gutter stench!


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> _muta3alliqah_



I find this quite strange that you hear and pronounce this word as "mu3alliqah"!!I was under the impression that (according to you) the 3ain pronunciation di


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## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> marrish saahab- paheliaN kyuuN bujhwate haiN? seedhaa seedha bata deN hum se kahaaN Ghalatii ho ga'ii *he*, taa ke hum xataa maan leN aur baat aage baRhe



This is an example of a diphtong changing to a straight vowel (ai > e). Now, UM SaaHib, don't tell me this was a typo as well! If it is, then Freudian slips are getting too numerous for comfort!


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> This is an example of a diphtong changing to a straight vowel (ai > e). Now, UM SaaHib, don't tell me this was a typo as well! If it is, then Freudian slips are getting too numerous for comfort!


 I'm glad to provide you some comic relief! But the Roman transcription just doesn't come natural to me. Still working at it. And I am a poor reviewer of what I type. By the way, even when I type _hai_, it is without diphthong, rhyming with "ha" in "handle".


----------



## BP.

Alfaaz said:


> _*Another off-topic question*_: Is it raqam or raqm...? Just noticed Platts gives raqm (and raqam as vulg.) while this gives raqam.


raqm.

Btw in its original meaning it means number.


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## Alfaaz

> raqm.
> Btw in its original meaning it means number.


Thanks!


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## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> I have never even heard "ghalatii" or "xabarii" in my whole life, including TV, films, etc.



I've heard ghalatii twice in the past month in movies. It's amazing in a whole lifetime you have not heard it once...
It stood out distinctly to me because I had concluded long ago it was pronounced ghaltii.



greatbear said:


> Anyone saying "maulavii" and "ghalatii" does  come across to me as one of the three: artificial, pretentious /  non-native /



Strange. I wonder if you would feel the same way about people who say "jal pralaya" instead of "jal pralai" or "ananta" instead of "anant" or "ngyaan" instead of "gyaan".


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> I've heard ghalatii twice in the past month in movies. It's amazing in a whole lifetime you have not heard it once...
> It stood out distinctly to me because I had concluded long ago it was pronounced ghaltii.



There are too many non-native speakers of Hindi in movies, so that doesn't surprise me. I rarely watch Hindi movies, so I guess I missed your "ghalatii" movies.



tonyspeed said:


> Strange. I wonder if you would feel the same way about people who say "jal pralaya" instead of "jal pralai" or "ananta" instead of "anant" or "ngyaan" instead of "gyaan".



Yes, I would feel the same. Pretentious or non-native. By the way, deluge is pronounced mostly as "pralae" or "prale", not as "pralai". "Gyaan" could also be "gnaan", which is fine.


----------



## hindiurdu

tonyspeed said:


> I wonder if you would feel the same way about people who say "jal pralaya" instead of "jal pralai" or "ananta" instead of "anant" or "ngyaan" instead of "gyaan".



I don't know what greatbear will say (the question was addressed to him), but I definitely think that anyone who says 'pralaya', 'ananta' or 'ngyaan' in Hindi sounds either like a nonnative speaker, a pompous twit or a religious preacher. Normal Western HU speakers are highly unlikely to say 'ananta' in everyday speech! This is HU, not Sanskrit or Persian. Wordforms are different in this language and there is absolutely no call to be apologetic about it.

BTW in a related relevant point, you know that people who speak Eastern and Southern HU dialects began calling Khariboli that in part because they perceived it to be aggressive ('khade hokar bolne vaali boli"). It is meant to be an insulting term. Part of the deal is that it eliminates schwas more aggressively than Eastern HU does. Ghalati and ananta sound overly ornate and soft to Khari speakers. Khari is in that sense a more masculine and ruder language. Ghalti, anant sound 'tougher' and 'firmer'. This is all a matter of perspective. Khari speakers sometimes used to call the other dialects 'Pari boli' (پڑی بولی). In some ways, the argument someone made here that schwa deletion sounds like language is in the gutter isn't far off of what has always been said about Khari by Easterners.

Ref: Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity (http://books.google.com/books?id=xHmARyhRoNYC&pg=PA18) - _The schwa in Hindi is usually dropped (syncopated) in Khariboli even at certain instances in word-middle positions, where the orthography would otherwise dictate so. For example, रकना (to stay) is normally pronounced as /ruknα:/_


----------



## hindiurdu

greatbear said:


> There are too many non-native speakers of Hindi in movies, so that doesn't surprise me. I rarely watch Hindi movies, so I guess I missed your "ghalatii" movies



I agree with this. I think South Indian language speakers would pronounce this word as 'g(h)alati' and find 'ghalti' to be incorrect. Ghalati is definitely very compliant with preferred Sanskrit structures.


----------



## greatbear

BTW, FYI, tonyspeed, deluge colloquially is pronounced as "prɨle" mostly.


----------



## marrish

QURESHPOR said:


> I find this quite strange that you hear and pronounce this word as "mu3alliqah"!!I was under the impression that (according to you) the 3ain pronunciation di


QP SaaHib, could you please finish your sentence?


----------



## tonyspeed

hindiurdu said:


> Ref: Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity (http://books.google.com/books?id=xHmARyhRoNYC&pg=PA18) - _The schwa in Hindi is usually dropped (syncopated) in Khariboli even at certain instances in word-middle positions, where the orthography would otherwise dictate so. For example, रकना (to stay) is normally pronounced as /ruknα:/_



I think we are limiting our discussion to nouns here. Both Hindi speakers and Urdu speakers do not ever say rukanaa. That pronounciation has probably not been heard since Old Hindi (if it existed - according to Indo-Aryan Laguages, Masaca it did). 

Even the study on Hindi phonology suggested that all native speakers pronounce verbs the same.


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> I think we have seen a case of ''schwa insertion''! By the way, I've never come across *_kaaravaan/kaaravaaN_ before but maybe I didn't pay heed. However when I'm thinking that I'm familiar with this word mostly from the poetry, it seems this has always been _kaarvaaN/kaarvaan_, because people who recite poetry try to pronounce words correctly.
> 
> Now the discussion has taken such a stance that I'm not sure if it be deemed relevant, but even in Persian, which is scrupulous regarding the middle zabars, as stated before somewhere in the thread, this word is pronounced kaarvaan, and I never heard it pronounced with a zabar on re. Even good poets don't recite it this way when presenting their pieces in a slow tempo.



marrish SaaHib, without fully grasping the rules of prosody, I am aware of the insertion of an extra "a" in Urdu/Persian poetry. I remember reading about this in a book on prosody where this vowel was described as a "niim fatHah" (half a zabar/half schwa). I hope this helps.


----------



## marrish

Well, in reference to the word kaarvaaN my indication is that not a half zabar is inserted there. In the link that UM saahab sent, if you have a look at the English translation of this word, ''carvan'' is given, following probably the correct and most common pronunciation at place. 

Later on this word got to be written ''caravan'' in English and it seems the ''a'' following ''r'' serves the English phonology because ''carvan'' would be read in approximation like ''kaa-vən''.


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> QP SaaHib, could you please finish your sentence?





> I find this quite strange that you hear and pronounce this word as "mu3alliqah"!!I was under the impression that (according to you) the 3ain pronunciation di



Apologies UM and marrish SaaHibaan. I must have been rudely interrupted by someone. 

I find this quite strange that you hear and pronounce this word as "mu3alliqah"!!I was under the impression that (according to you) the 3ain pronunciation did not exist. And what is the "h" doing at the end? Do you (UM SaaHib) pronounce this?


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> Well, in reference to the word kaarvaaN my indication is that not a half zabar is inserted there. In the link that UM saahab sent, if you have a look at the English translation of this word, ''carvan'' is given, following probably the correct and most common pronunciation at place.
> 
> Later on this word got to be written ''caravan'' in English and it seems the ''a'' following ''r'' serves the English phonology because ''carvan'' would be read in approximation like ''kaa-vən''.



marrish SaaHib, you may have missed my point. The word, as far as Urdu is concerned, is indeed "kaarvaan/N" but in poetry there is this concept of "niim fatHah". When the "taqtii3" of a misra3 is carried out, these extra vowels provide the correct "vazn" of the lines. That's all that I meant to say.


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> Apologies UM and marrish SaaHibaan. I must have been rudely interrupted by someone.
> 
> I find this quite strange that you hear and pronounce this word as "mu3alliqah"!!I was under the impression that (according to you) the 3ain pronunciation did not exist. And what is the "h" doing at the end? Do you (UM SaaHib) pronounce this?



I did not write _mu3alliqah_, but _muta3alliqah_. I guessed I just spelled it rather than pronounce it. You are right, the pronunciation would be _muta'alliqa_.


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> I did not write _mu3alliqah_, but _muta3alliqah_. I guessed I just spelled it rather than pronounce it. You are right, the pronunciation would be _muta'alliqa_.



Thank you UM SaaHib for the correction. Of course we all try to write in the forum as the language is written and not necessarily as it is pronounced. I mentioned the word "naazniin/naazaniin" in another post. Here is where it all started.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2200269


----------



## UrduMedium

This post inspired by the thread "Urdu-Punjabi-Hindi: Ramzaan Kariim!" 

Question for QP saahab: Curious to see your consistent use of Ramzaan (vs Ramazaan). Is this a selective case of schwa deletion, unlike the maul*a*vii/maulvii scenario? I ask because indeed from a usage perspective both Ramzaan and Ramazaan are found in Urdu usage. People who would typically make the additional effort to say maulavii, I would have guessed them to say Ramazaan.


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> This post inspired by the thread "Urdu-Punjabi-Hindi: Ramzaan Kariim!"
> 
> Question for QP saahab: Curious to see your consistent use of Ramzaan (vs Ramazaan). Is this a selective case of schwa deletion, unlike the maul*a*vii/maulvii scenario? I ask because indeed from a usage perspective both Ramzaan and Ramazaan are found in Urdu usage. People who would typically make the additional effort to say maulavii, I would have guessed them to say Ramazaan.



Good question UM SaaHib. My personal experience of this word amongst Urdu speakers' speech and writing is "Ramzaan" although I must confess, I have uttered and written Ramazaan too.

Here is a shi3r from Iqbal's javaab-i-shikvah. Perhaps Faylasoof SaaHib might be able to tell us how the poet has used it here.

tab3-i-aazaad pih qaid-i-RamzaaN bhaarii hai
tumhiiN kah do yahii aa'iin-i-vafaa-daarii hai


----------



## Faylasoof

QURESHPOR said:


> Originally Posted by *UrduMedium
> *This post inspired by the thread "Urdu-Punjabi-Hindi: Ramzaan Kariim!"
> 
> Question for QP saahab: Curious to see your consistent use of Ramzaan (vs Ramazaan). Is this a selective case of schwa deletion, unlike the maul*a*vii/maulvii scenario? I ask because indeed from a usage perspective both Ramzaan and Ramazaan are found in Urdu usage. People who would typically make the additional effort to say maulavii, I would have guessed them to say Ramazaan.
> 
> 
> 
> Good question UM SaaHib. My personal experience of this word amongst Urdu speakers' speech and writing is "Ramzaan" although I must confess, I have uttered and written Ramazaan too.
> 
> Here is a shi3r from Iqbal's javaab-i-shikvah. Perhaps Faylasoof SaaHib might be able to tell us how the poet has used it here.
> 
> tab3-i-aazaad pih qaid-i-RamzaaN bhaarii hai
> tumhiiN kah do yahii aa'iin-i-vafaa-daarii hai
Click to expand...

 I must agree with you QP SaaHib that '_ramzaan_' is very common amongst Urduphones of nearly all shades but some of us _do not _drop the middle 'a'. So for us too it is 'ram*a*zaan'! As for 3allamah SaaHib's _she3r_, I would read it _with_ the middle 'a', i.e. ‘_ram*a*zaan_’. How he himself would have pronounced it is anybody's guess though judging by the frequency of '_ramzaan_' over '_ramazaan_', which I believe has been around a long time, one would guess that he used the former rather than the latter form. The former is certainly very common now and perhaps was already so in his times – may be even earlier! But I can't be sure!


----------



## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> Good question UM SaaHib. My personal experience of this word amongst Urdu speakers' speech and writing is "Ramzaan" although I must confess, I have uttered and written Ramazaan too.
> 
> Here is a shi3r from Iqbal's javaab-i-shikvah. Perhaps Faylasoof SaaHib might be able to tell us how the poet has used it here.
> 
> tab3-i-aazaad pih qaid-i-RamzaaN bhaarii hai
> tumhiiN kah do yahii aa'iin-i-vafaa-daarii hai



From my reading of the meter this is clearly ramazaaN. Curious to hear other opinions.


----------



## Qureshpor

UrduMedium said:


> From my reading of the meter this is clearly ramazaaN. Curious to hear other opinions.



You may well be right. I did n't quote the couplet to "prove" that the word was "Ramzaan". It was merely a query.


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## Faylasoof

UrduMedium said:


> From my reading of the meter this is clearly ramazaaN. Curious to hear other opinions.


 UM SaaHib, I'm not as confident as you as regards using the meter to prove that it is 'ramazaan' and not 'ramzaan'. Both can fit! Just that we use 'ram*a*zaan' and find it better though schwa deletion is all too common now!


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## tonyspeed

We have words like khabar and aafat which contain a central schwa. Now if we make these plural do we pronounce them as 
khab-reN and aaf-teN or khabareN and aafateN? Does aafateN sound more right than khabareN or are both akward in your experience?


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## marrish

tonyspeed said:


> We have words like khabar and aafat which contain a central schwa. Now if we make these plural do we pronounce them as khab-reN and aaf-teN or khabareN and aafateN? Does aafateN sound more right than khabareN or are both akward in your experience?


Answering from the Urdu point of view, the words are _xabar_ and _aafat, _which in both cases contain a schwa sound in the last syllable, so it is not central as far as my undestanding can reach. When plurals are needed, we get _xa-ba-reN_ and _aa-fa-teN_. In the case of these, we deal with a medial schwa indeed. Replying to the second question, both sound just perfect and no-one seems more right than the other. I don't think they sound awkward in any way; *_aafteN _does_ and xabreN_ can be heard in speedy speech_._


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> Does aafateN sound more right than khabareN or are both akward in your experience?



The usual pronunciations are aafateN and khabreN.


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## UrduMedium

tonyspeed said:


> We have words like khabar and aafat which contain a central schwa. Now if we make these plural do we pronounce them as
> khab-reN and aaf-teN or khabareN and aafateN? Does aafateN sound more right than khabareN or are both akward in your experience?



True that xabareN may be the correct pronunciation, but it is rare to hear it said this way. Almost 90+% you may only hear xabreN. The same is not true in case of aafateN as it remains aafateN in spoken Urdu too.


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## Wolverine9

UrduMedium said:


> True that xabareN may be the correct pronunciation, but it is rare to hear it said this way. Almost 90+% you may only hear xabreN. The same is not true in case of aafateN as it remains aafateN in spoken Urdu too.



That's what I've noticed too.


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## tonyspeed

UrduMedium said:


> True that xabareN may be the correct pronunciation, but it is rare to hear it said this way. Almost 90+% you may only hear xabreN. The same is not true in case of aafateN as it remains aafateN in spoken Urdu too.



Can we concoct an explanation for this? Why the difference? I wonder if it has to do with the juxtaposition of f and t seeming strange to Hindi-Urdu speakers.


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> Can we concoct an explanation for this? Why the difference? I wonder if it has to do with the juxtaposition of f and t seeming strange to Hindi-Urdu speakers.



It's the "t", I guess, that is leading to preservation of the schwa: similar thing happens with words like rahmat, fursat, etc.


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## tonyspeed

harakat (commonly pronounced harkat) when pluralised becomes harakateN.

How do you pronounce this is in _common _Urdu/Hindi with schwa-deletion?

What seems right to me is harkateN. Comments?


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## marrish

tonyspeed said:


> harakat (commonly pronounced harkat) when pluralised becomes harakateN.
> 
> How do you pronounce this is in _common _Urdu/Hindi with schwa-deletion?
> 
> What seems right to me is harkateN. Comments?


[Urdu:] Yes, you are right it is _HarakateN_ and also _Harakaat_ in Urdu, when put in plural. In common (that is to say conversional Urdu) it is indeed often pronounced _HarkateN_, without ''schwa'' afer ''r'' but it is not different in the singular too: _Harkat_! This is with schwa deletion but I think this deletion is not a result of pluralisation and the change of syllable structure through that but because of using the common pronunciation Harkat in the singuar (which Platts for example describes as vulgar - this holds in that it is 'common' and 'belonging to ordinary people' (ordinary people might be well described as illiterates in times of Platts - a gross majority back then - not offensive or explicit).
Also in conversional Urdu there are many who say _Harakat_ in singular and then do the same in plural (_HarakateN_, _Harakaat_).
Considering that _Harakaat_ is generally not thought of as belonging to the 'common speech of common folks' - but you can hear it too, it does not occur with schwa deletion.

It is quite amusing that you brought this word to this thread because it also means 'a short vowel mark' in Urdu and it is quite on topic


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## littlepond

In Hindi, "harkaten".


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## MonsieurGonzalito

For what it is worth, I use this algorithm to suppress schwas.
(Despite all the notation mumbo-jumbo it boils down to 4 or 5 simple rules, applied recursively).

It seems to work notoriously well.


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