Hindustani is the lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan, and through its two standardized registers, Hindi and Urdu, a co-official language of India and co-official and national language of Pakistan respectively. Phonological differences between the two standards are minimal.
Vowels
The oral vowel phonemes of Hindi according to Ohala (1999:102)
Hindustani natively possesses a symmetrical ten-vowel system.[1] The vowels [ə],[ɪ],[ʊ] are always short in length, while the vowels [aː], [iː], [uː], [eː], [oː], [ɛː], [ɔː] are usually considered long, in addition to an eleventh vowel /æː/ which is found in Englishloanwords. The distinction between short and long vowels is often described as tenseness, with short vowels being lax, and long vowels being tense.[2] Vowels are somewhat longer before voiced stops than before voiceless stops.[3] Additionally, [ɛ] and [ɔ] occur as conditional allophones of /ə/.
Vowel [ə]
/ə/ is often realized more open than mid [ə], i.e. as near-open [ɐ].[4] It is subject to schwa deletion word-medially in certain contexts.
Vowel [aː]
The open central vowel is transcribed in IPA by either [aː] or [ɑː].
In Urdu, there is further short [a] (spelled ہ, as in کمرہkamra[kəmra]) in word-final position, which contrasts with [aː] (spelled ا, as in لڑکاlaṛkā[ləɽkaː]). This contrast is often not realized by Urdu speakers, and always neutralized in Hindi (where both sounds uniformly correspond to [aː]).[5][6]
Vowels [ɪ],[ʊ], [iː], [uː]
Among the close vowels, what in Sanskrit are thought to have been primarily distinctions of vowel length (that is /i,iː/ and /u,uː/), have become in Hindustani distinctions of quality, or length accompanied by quality (that is, /ɪ,iː/ and /ʊ,uː/).[7] The opposition of length in the close vowels has been neutralized in word-final position, only allowing long close vowels in final position. As a result, Sanskrit loans which originally have a short close vowel are realized with a long close vowel, e.g. śakti (शक्ति – شَکتی 'energy') and vastu (वस्तु – وَستُو 'item') are [ʃəktiː] and [ʋəstuː], not *[ʃəktɪ] and *[ʋəstʊ].[8]
Vowels [ɛ], [ɛː]
The vowel represented graphically as ऐ – اَے (romanized as ai) has been variously transcribed as [ɛː] or [æː].[9] Among sources for this article, Ohala (1999), pictured to the right, uses [ɛː], while Shapiro (2003:258) and Masica (1991:110) use [æː]. Furthermore, an eleventh vowel /æː/ is found in English loanwords, such as /bæːʈ/ ('bat').[10] Hereafter, ऐ – اَے (romanized as ai) will be represented as [ɛː] to distinguish it from /æː/, the latter.
In addition, [ɛ] occurs as a conditioned allophone of /ə/ (schwa) within the sequence /əɦə/ (/əɦ/ before the next syllable or word-finally due to schwa deletion).[8] This change is part of the prestige dialect of Delhi, but may not occur for every speaker. Here are some examples of this process:
Hindi/Urdu
Transliteration
Phonemic
Phonetic
कहना / کہنا "to say"
kahnā
/kəɦ.nɑː/
[kɛɦ.nɑː]
शहर /شہر "city"
śahar
/ʃə.ɦəɾ/
[ʃɛ.ɦɛɾ]
ठहरना / ٹھہرنا "to wait"
ṭhaharnā
/ʈʰə.ɦəɾ.nɑː/
[ʈʰɛ.ɦɛɾ.nɑː]
However, the fronting of schwa does not occur in words with a schwa only on one side of the /ɦ/ such as kahānī/kəɦaːniː/ (कहानी – کَہانی 'a story') or bāhar/baːɦər/ (बाहर – باہَر 'outside').
Vowels [ɔ], [ɔː]
The vowel [ɔ] occurs in proximity to /ɦ/ if the /ɦ/ is surrounded by one of the sides by a schwa and on other side by a round vowel (due to Hindustani phonotactics, this generally only occurs in the sequences /əɦʊ/ or /ʊɦə/). It differs from the vowel [ɔː] in that it is a short vowel. For example, in bahut/bəɦʊt/ the /ɦ/ is surrounded on one side by a schwa and a round vowel on the other side. One or both of the schwas will become [ɔ] giving the pronunciation [bɔɦɔt].
Some Eastern dialects kept /ɛː,ɔː/ as diphthongs, pronouncing them as [aɪ~əɪ, aʊ~əʊ].[11]
Nasalization of vowels
As in French and Portuguese, there are nasalized vowels in Hindustani. There is disagreement over the issue of the nature of nasalization (barring English-loaned /æ/ which is never nasalized[10]). Masica (1991:117) presents four differing viewpoints:
there are no *[ẽː] and *[õː], possibly because of the effect of nasalization on vowel quality;
there is phonemic nasalization of all vowels;
all vowel nasalization is predictable (i.e. allophonic);
Nasalized long vowel phonemes (/ɑ̃ːĩːũːẽːɛ̃ːõːɔ̃ː/) occur word-finally and before voiceless stops; instances of nasalized short vowels ([ə̃ɪ̃ʊ̃]) and of nasalized long vowels before voiced stops (the latter, presumably because of a deleted nasal consonant) are allophonic.
Hindustani has a core set of 28 consonants inherited from earlier Indo-Aryan. Supplementing these are two consonants that are internal developments in specific word-medial contexts,[21] and seven consonants originally found in loan words, whose expression is dependent on factors such as status (class, education, etc.) and cultural register (Modern Standard Hindi vs Urdu).
Most native consonants may occur geminate (doubled in length; exceptions are /bʱ,ɽ,ɽʱ,ɦ/). Geminate consonants are always medial and preceded by one of the interior vowels (that is, /ə/, /ɪ/, or /ʊ/). They all occur monomorphemically except [ʃː], which occurs only in a few Sanskrit loans where a morpheme boundary could be posited in between, e.g. /nɪʃ+ʃiːl/ for niśśīl[nɪˈʃːiːl] ('without shame').[10]
For the English speaker, a notable feature of the Hindustani consonants is that there is a four-way distinction of phonation among plosives, rather than the two-way distinction found in English. The phonations are:
The last is commonly called "voiced aspirate", though Shapiro (2003:260) notes that,
"Evidence from experimental phonetics, however, has demonstrated that the two types of sounds involve two distinct types of voicing and release mechanisms. The series of so-called voice aspirates should now properly be considered to involve the voicing mechanism of murmur, in which the air flow passes through an aperture between the arytenoid cartilages, as opposed to passing between the ligamental vocal bands."
The murmured consonants are believed to be a reflex of murmured consonants in Proto-Indo-European, a phonation that is absent in all branches of the Indo-European family except Indo-Aryan and Armenian.
/x/, /ɣ/, /z/, and /q/ are mostly replaced by /kʰ/, /g/, /d͡ʒ/, and /k/ in Hindi respectively, except in the careful speech of educated speakers.[24][25][26]/ʒ/ is found in Urdu and is rarer in Hindi, often being replaced with /z/ (or further by /d͡ʒ/) in the latter; an example of a word containing this sound is aždahā[əʒ.d̪ə.ɦɑː] (अझ़दहा – اژدہا 'dragon').[27][28][29]
Stops in final position are not released, although they continue to maintain the four-way phonation distinction in final position. /ʋ/ varies freely with [v], and can also be pronounced [w]. /r/ is usually flapped or trilled.[30] In intervocalic position, it may have a single contact and be described as a flap [ɾ],[31] but it may also be a clear trill, especially in word-initial and syllable-final positions, and geminate /rː/ is always a trill in Arabic and Persian loanwords, e.g. zarā[zəɾaː] (ज़रा – ذرا 'little') versus well-trilled zarrā[zəraː] (ज़र्रा – ذرّہ 'particle').[4] The palatal and velar nasals[ɲ,ŋ] occur only in consonant clusters, where each nasal is followed by a homorganic stop, as an allophone of a nasal vowel followed by a stop, and in Sanskrit loanwords.[21][4] However /n/ + velar clusters also occur, eg. /ʊn.kaː/ making /ŋ/ phonemic. There are murmured sonorants, [lʱ,rʱ,mʱ,nʱ], but these are considered to be consonant clusters with /ɦ/ in the analysis adopted by Ohala (1999).
The fricative /ɦ/ in Hindustani is typically voiced (as [ɦ]), especially when surrounded by vowels, but there is no phonemic difference between this voiced fricative and its voiceless counterpart [h].
Hindustani also has a phonemic difference between the dental plosives and the so-called retroflex plosives. The dental plosives in Hindustani are laminal-denti alveolar as in Spanish, and the tongue-tip must be well in contact with the back of the upper front teeth. The retroflex series is not purely retroflex; it actually has an apico-postalveolar (also described as apico-pre-palatal) articulation, and sometimes in words such as ṭūṭā/ʈuːʈaː/ (टूटा – ٹُوٹا 'broken') it even becomes alveolar.[32]
In some Indo-Aryan languages, the plosives [ɖ,ɖʱ] and the flaps[ɽ,ɽʱ] are allophones in complementary distribution, with the former occurring in initial, geminate and postnasal positions and the latter occurring in intervocalic and final positions. However, in Standard Hindi they contrast in similar positions, as in nīṛaj (नीड़ज – نیڑج 'bird') vs niḍar (निडर – نڈر 'fearless').[33]
Allophony of [v] and [w]
Hindustani does not distinguish between [v] and [w], specifically Hindi. These are distinct phonemes in English, but conditionalallophones of the phoneme /ʋ/ in Hindustani (written ⟨व⟩ in Hindi or ⟨و⟩ in Urdu), meaning that contextual rules determine when it is pronounced as [v] and when it is pronounced as [w]. /ʋ/ is pronounced [w] in onglide position, i.e. between an onset consonant and a following vowel, as in pakwān (पकवानپکوان, 'food dish'), and [v] elsewhere, as in vrat (व्रतورت, 'vow'). Native Hindi speakers are usually unaware of the allophonic distinctions, though these are apparent to native English speakers.[34]
In most situations, the allophony is non-conditional, i.e. the speaker can choose [v], [w], or an intermediate sound based on personal habit and preference, and still be perfectly intelligible, as long as the meaning is constant. This includes words such as advait (अद्वैतادویت) (pronounced [əd̪ˈʋɛːt̪]), which can be pronounced equally correctly as [əd̪ˈwɛːt̪] or [əd̪ˈvɛːt̪].[34]
External borrowing
Sanskrit borrowing has reintroduced /ɳ/ and /ʂ/ into formal Modern Standard Hindi. They occur primarily in Sanskrit loanwords and proper nouns. In casual speech, they are sometimes replaced with /n/ and /ʃ/.[10]/ɳ/ does not occur word-initially and has a nasalized flap [ɽ̃] as a common allophone.[21]
Loanwords from Persian (including some words which Persian itself borrowed from Arabic or Turkish) introduced six consonants, /f,z,ʒ,q,x,ɣ/. Being Persian in origin, these are seen as a defining feature of Urdu, although these sounds officially exist in Hindi and modified Devanagari characters are available to represent them.[35][36] Among these, /f,z/, also found in English and Portuguese loanwords, are now considered well-established in Hindi; indeed, /f/ appears to be encroaching upon and replacing /pʰ/ even in native (non-Persian, non-English, non-Portuguese) Hindi words as well as many other Indian languages such as Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi, as happened in Greek with phi.[21] This /pʰ/ to /f/ shift also occasionally occurs in Urdu.[37] While [z] is a foreign sound, it is also natively found as an allophone of /s/ beside voiced consonants.
The other three Persian loans, /q,x,ɣ/, are still considered to fall under the domain of Urdu, and are also used by some Hindi speakers; however, other Hindi speakers may assimilate these sounds to /k,kʰ,g/ respectively.[25][35][38] The sibilant /ʃ/ is found in loanwords from all sources (Arabic, English, Portuguese, Persian, Sanskrit) and is well-established.[10] Some Hindi speakers (especially those from rural areas) pronounce the /f,z,ʃ/ sounds as /pʰ,dʒ,s/), though these same speakers, having a Sanskritic education, may hyperformally uphold /ɳ/ and [ʂ].[39][24] In contrast, for native speakers of Urdu, the maintenance of /f,z,ʃ/ is not commensurate with education and sophistication, but is characteristic of all social levels.[38] The sibilant /ʒ/ is very rare and is found in loanwords from Persian, Portuguese, and English and is considered to fall under the domain of Urdu and although it is officially present in Hindi, many speakers of Hindi assimilate it to /z/ or /dʒ/.[27][24]
Being the main sources from which Hindustani draws its higher, learned terms– English, Sanskrit, Arabic, and to a lesser extent Persian provide loanwords with a rich array of consonant clusters. The introduction of these clusters into the language contravenes a historical tendency within its native core vocabulary to eliminate clusters through processes such as cluster reduction and epenthesis.[40]Schmidt (2003:293) lists distinctively Sanskrit/Hindi biconsonantal clusters of initial /kr,kʃ,st,sʋ,ʃr,sn,nj/ and final /tʋ,ʃʋ,nj,lj,rʋ,dʒj,rj/, and distinctively Perso-Arabic/Urdu biconsonantal clusters of final /ft,rf,mt,mr,ms,kl,tl,bl,sl,tm,lm,ɦm,ɦr/.
Suprasegmental features
Hindustani has a stress accent, but it is not as important as in English. To predict stress placement, the concept of syllable weight is needed:
A light syllable (one mora) ends in a short vowel /ə,ɪ,ʊ/: V
A heavy syllable (two moras) ends in a long vowel /aː,iː,uː,eː,ɛː,oː,ɔː/ or in a short vowel and a consonant: VV, VC
An extra-heavy syllable (three moras) ends in a long vowel and a consonant, or a short vowel and two consonants: VVC, VCC
Stress is on the heaviest syllable of the word, and in the event of a tie, on the last such syllable. If all syllables are light, the penultimate is stressed. However, the final mora of the word is ignored when making this assignment (Hussein 1997) [or, equivalently, the final syllable is stressed either if it is extra-heavy, and there is no other extra-heavy syllable in the word or if it is heavy, and there is no other heavy or extra-heavy syllable in the word]. For example, with the ignored mora in parentheses:[41]
Content words in Hindustani normally begin on a low pitch, followed by a rise in pitch.[42][43] Strictly speaking, Hindustani, like most other Indian languages, is rather a syllable-timed language. The schwa/ə/ has a strong tendency to vanish into nothing (syncopated) if its syllable is unaccented.
^Diacritics in Urdu are normally not written and usually implied and interpreted based on the context of the sentence
^Hindi does not have a diacritic to represent /ə/ as it is the inherent vowel of the Devanagari script. However, there does exist a diacritic, ्, for suppressing /ə/, also though it is not often used or needed in modern Hindi orthography.
^ abHindi has individual letters for each of the aspirated consonants, whereas Urdu has a specific letter to represent aspiration after any consonant
^As this is a diacritic affecting the preceding vowel, it cannot be the initial character of a word.
^In Urdu the initial form (letter) for representing a nasalised word[clarification needed] is: ن٘ (nūn + small nūn ghunna diacritic)
^As this symbol can represents any nasal consonant phoneme depending on which consonant it is followed by, the particular IPA character used to represent this sound depends on the context.
^This character does not have an initial form and is not used for initial nasals in Hindi
^ abcKulshreshtha, Manisha; Mathur, Ramkumar (24 March 2012). Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity: A Case Study. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 19. ISBN978-1-4614-1137-6. A few sounds, borrowed from the other languages like Persian and Arabic, are written with a dot (bindu or nukta) as shown in Table 2.2. …those who come from rural backgrounds and do not speak really good Khariboli, pronounce these sounds as the nearest equivalents in Hindi.
^ abSay It in Hindi. Dover Publications. 1981. ISBN9780486137919. These letters—q, kh, gh, z, f—occur in words of Arabic or Persian origin. Many speakers maintain these sounds in their speech, but others often pronounce them as k, kh, g, j and ph, respectively.
^ abMorelli, Sarah (20 December 2019). A Guru’s Journey: Pandit Chitresh Das and Indian Classical Dance in Diaspora. University of Illinois Press. ISBN978-0-252-05172-2. Hindi has a nasal sound roughly equivalent to the n in the English sang, transliterated here as ṅ or ṁ, and has two slightly differing sh sounds, transliterated as ś and ṣ. ... A few words contain consonants…from Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, and English: क़ (ق) is transliterated as q, ख़ (خ) as kh, ग़ (غ) as g, ज़ (ظ ,ز, or ض) as z, झ़ (ژ) as zh, and फ़ (ف) as f.
^Pandey, Dipti; Mondal, Tapabrata; Agrawal, S. S.; Bangalore, Srinivas (2013). "Development and suitability of Indian languages speech database for building watson based ASR system". 2013 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA held jointly with 2013 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation (O-COCOSDA/CASLRE). p. 3. doi:10.1109/ICSDA.2013.6709861. ISBN978-1-4799-2378-6. S2CID26461938. Only in Hindi 10 Phonemes व /v/ क़ /q/ ञ /ɲ/ य /j/ ष /ʂ/ ख़ /x/ ग़ /ɣ/ ज़ /z/ झ़ /ʒ/ फ़ /f/
^Nazir Hassan (1980) Urdu phonetic reader, Omkar Nath Koul (1994) Hindi Phonetic Reader, Indian Institute of Language Studies; Foreign Service Institute (1957) Hindi: Basic Course
^"r is a tip dental trill, and often has but one flap", Thomas Cummings (1915) An Urdu Manual of the Phonetic, Inductive Or Direct Method
^Tiwari, Bholanath ([1966] 2004) हिन्दी भाषा (Hindī Bhāshā), Kitāb Mahal, Allahabad, ISBN81-225-0017-X.
^ abJanet Pierrehumbert; Rami Nair (1996). "Implications of Hindi Prosodic Structure". In Jacques Durand; Bernard Laks (eds.). Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods. European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford Press. ISBN978-1-901471-02-1. ... showed extremely regular patterns. As is not uncommon in a study of subphonemic detail, the objective data patterned much more cleanly than intuitive judgments ... [w] occurs when /वو/ is in onglide position ... [v] occurs otherwise ...
^Shapiro, Michael C. (1989). A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 20. ISBN978-81-208-0508-8. In addition to the basic consonantal sounds discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2, many speakers use any or all five additional consonants (क़ ḳ, ख़ ḳh,ग़ ġ, ज़ z, फ़ f) in words of foreign origin (primarily from Persian, Arabic, English, and Portuguese). The last two of these, ज़ z and फ़ f, are the initial sounds in English zig and fig respectively. The consonant क़ ḳ is a voiceless uvular stop, somewhat like k, but pronounced further back in the mouth. ख़ ḳh is a voiceless fricative similar in pronunciation to the final sound of the German ach. ग़ ġ is generally pronounced as a voiceless uvular fricative, although it is occasionally heard as a stop rather than a fricative. In devanāgari each of these five sounds is represented by the use of a subscript dot under one of the basic consonant signs.
Kelkar, Ashok R. (1968). Studies in Hindi-Urdu, I: Introduction and Word Phonology. Building Centenary and Silver Jubilee Series, 35. Poona: Deccan College.
Ohala, Manjari (1999), "Hindi", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: a Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 100–103, ISBN978-0-521-63751-0
Schmidt, Ruth Laila (2003), "Urdu", in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 286–350, ISBN978-0-415-77294-5.
Shapiro, Michael C. (2003), "Hindi", in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 250–285, ISBN978-0-415-77294-5.
