देवनागरी लिपि: Difference between revisions

* The "r" of Sanskrit is as in Standard American English. In modern Sanskrit pronunciation, the vowel "{{Unicode|ṛ}}" is sometimes realised as {{IPA|/ri/}} or {{IPA|/ru/}}, although many people (especially if their native language retains the original Sanskrit sounds, as is the case in [[Malayalam]]) do make the {{IPA|/r/}} sound. In Hindi, {{IPA|/r/}} is pronounced as in Spanish pe'''rr'''o. Also note that both ऋ and ड़ use "{{Unicode|ṛ}}" in [[IAST]] transliteration.

* There is no retroflex flap in Sanskrit. In modern Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages, they have sprung up as the allophonic flap variants of Sanskrit's simple voiced retroflex plosives. The {{IPA|/ɳ/}} ({{Unicode|ṇ}} or ण) in Sanskrit is not a flap but a simple nasal stop, although it is pronounced by modern pundits while chanting as a nasal variant of the voiced retroflex flap. Hindi has two proper retroflex flaps.

* Aspiration is actually a puff of breath that may follow a plosive consonant. English speakers could try pronouncing the words "kite", "take", "chip" and "pat" with a greater-than-usual puff of breath after the first consonant. The corresponding unaspirated plosives must be pronounced with no significant puff of breath at all.

* For practicing the voiced aspirates, one could try: "drag him", "said him", "enrage him", "grab him". The voiced aspirated plosives (also called murmur stops) are extremely important and frequent in Sanskrit. Sanskrit (and its daughters) is the only language that has faithfully preserved these original Proto-Indo-European stops.

* The dental consonants in Sanskrit are as in Spanish or French. They can be pronounced by pronouncing {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}} (of English) by pressing the tip of the tongue against the back of the teeth rather than against the back of the alveolar ridge as done by English speakers. The normal "t" and "d" in [[IAST]] transliteration are the dental stops; and they occur much, much more frequently than the retroflex stops.

* The retroflex consonants are the most difficult to pronounce. They are pronounced by curling the tongue such that its tip touches the roof of the mouth, like how Americans pronounce "r". The retroflex flaps are pronounced in a similar way, by bringing the tongue's tip to the roof of the mouth and giving it a sharp flap downwards. However, bringing the tip of the tongue a bit above the normal alveolar ridge would also work fine. The normal alveolar plosives of English {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}} do not exist as such in Sanskrit/Hindi.

* The palatal plosives of Sanskrit/Hindi do not have a sharp frictional sound following them, as what happened in English '''ch'''ips and '''j'''am. These are more of pure plosives than affricates.

* Sanskrit/Hindi has no {{IPA|/v/}}. Its nearest equivalent is {{IPA|/ʋ/}}, which is very close to {{IPA|/v/}}, but does not a friction or buzzing sound associated with it. But in consonant clusters, this may allophonically change to {{IPA|/w/}}.

* The palatal sibilant of Sanskrit ([[IAST]]: ś) is very close to like the English ''sh'' in '''sh'''ip (although the Sanskrit phoneme is the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative {{IPA|/ɕ/}}) while the English phoneme is the voiceless postalveolar fricative {{IPA|/ʃ/}} with lip rounding). Today, speakers of Sanskrit vary the palatal fricative from {{IPA|/ɕ/}} to {{IPA|/ʃ/}}. In Hindi, it is always pronounced as in '''sh'''ip.

* The retroflex sibilant {{IPA|/ʂ/}} is pronounced like {{IPA|/ʃ/}}, but with the tongue curled upwards towards the roof of the mouth. In Mādhyandini branch of Yajurveda, this phoneme is allowed to be pronounced at certain places as {{IPA|/ kʰ/}}. In Hindi, this is pronounced as the English ''sh'' in '''sh'''ip.

* The Sanskrit {{IPA|/ɦ/}} is a voiced allophone of the normal h. In Hindi, it is pronounced as in '''h'''ome.

* अं (called ''[[anusvāra]]''), pronounced as {{IPA|/ⁿ/}} ([[IAST]]: {{Unicode|ṃ}}) is used for nasalizing the vowel in the syllable, the word-final allophone of /m/ and /n/. The diacritic {{Unicode|ँ}} (called ''chandrabindu''/''anunāsika'') is used in certain shakhas instead of the ''anusvāra'' in certain phonetic contexts.

* अः (called ''[[visarga]]''), pronounced as {{IPA|/əh/}} ([[IAST]]: {{Unicode|ḥ}}) is the word-final allophone of {{IPA|/s/}} and {{IPA|/r/}}.

* If a lonely consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a ''halanta/[[virāma]]'' diacritic below (प्).

* [[avagraha]] ऽ is used in western editions to mark elision of a word-initial {{IPA|/a/}} in [[sandhi]].

* [[विकिपिडिया:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts]]

* [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deonagari/ Discussion Group and email List Devanāgarī.]

* [http://pratibhaas.blogspot.com/2006/01/blog-post_25.html A compilation of Tools and Techniques for Hindi Computing]

* [http://www.giitaayan.com/x.htm HiTrans - Roman-Nagari transliteration scheme and conversion tool]

[[tr:Hint Alfabesialfabesi]]