New

Indo-Aryan Phonology

Typologically, NIA languages can be said to be characterized by the non-
universal phonological features of distinctive retroflexion, aspiration and
nasalized vowels, despite the fact that a few NIA languages are lacking (generally
because of loss) one or more of these.

1. NIA Consonants
1.1 Stop positions
The basic Indo-Aryan stops (which is also that of Sanskrit) theoretically
involves five distinctive tongue positions: labial, dental, retroflex, palatal,
and velar: /p, t, ,c,k/.
There is a tendency in some languages and dialects to pronounce the /c/
as an alveolar (or dental) affricte [ts], e.g., in Nepali, Eastern and Nrthern
dialects of Bengali, the Lamani and Northwestern Marwari dalects of
Rajasthani, the Kagani dialects of northern Lahnda, Kumauni, and Many
West Pahari dialects. This does not affect the basic number of
articulations that remain five in these languages.

In Marathi and Konkani there is a c/ts contrast.

Marathi
/car/ four


/tsara/ fodder

There is thus a system with six distinctive stop/affricated stop
articulations instead of five.

The [ts] pronunciation of /c/ in some NIA dialects has progressed to [s],
in which case we can no longer speak of a stop articulation and, barring
other developments, the inventory is reduced by one.

Assamese, alon among NIA languages except Romany, has also lost the
characteristic IA denta/retroflex contrast (although it is retained in
spelling), reducting the number of articulations, with the loss of /c/, to
three.

1.2 Nasals
The ancient Indian phoneticians accurately observed that there were five
nasal stop articulations [m,n,,,] corresponding to the five oral
stops of Sanskrit. Although five alphabetic symbols were duly provided,
these were not all equally functional. Among modern languages and
dialects Dogri, Kacchi, Kalasha, Rudhari, Shina, Saurashtri, and Sindhi
have been analyzed as having a full complement of five nasals.

1.3 Latreals and Flaps
Although OIA was allegedly once divided into three dialects, a
Northwestern dialect will only /r/ (exemplified with early Vedic), an
Eastern dialect will only /l/ (exemplified byMagadhi Prakrit), and a

Central dialect with both /r/ and /l/ (exemplified by Classical Sanskrit),
such a situation did not continue typologically, and all NIA dialects have
both sounds. Some have expanded inventories in this area. These include
/,/.
The retroflex flap / /is often taken as an allophone of //, with which it
often stands in complementary distribution.: initial, geminate, and
postnasal for //; intervocalic, final, and before or after other consonants
for //.

1.4 Fricatives
Indo-Aryan languages are notoriously poor in native fricatives. In NIA the
most widespread pattern consists of one voiceless sibilant, generally [s],
plus /h/. In standard Bengali, the dominant sibilant allophone is []
(becoming [s] before dental consonants). Although this is a Magadhan
inheritance, it is not maintained in other modern Magadhan (Eastern NIA)
languages. However, there is perhaps a trace of it in the free variation of
[] and [s] in modern Maithili.

/h/ occurs in almost all NIA languages (one exception being the
Chittagong dialect of Bengali) but is much more frequent in some (certain
Rajasthani dialects) than in other (Punjabi), due to historical
developments.

1.5 Semivowels
The semivowels /y/ and /w/ are a somewhat shaky part of the NIA
inventory. In a number of languages their occurrence is practically
restricted to semi-predictable intervocalic glides. Their position is
weakest in the east (where in Bengali the two are confused in writing),
strongest in the west.

1.6 Voicing
A voicing opposition in the basic stop series /b, d, , j, g/ vs /p,t, ,c,k/, is
found among all NIA languages without exception.

In Assamese, at least, the situation is clear: the affricates, both voiced and
voiceless, have passed over completely to fricative status, and the system
has been restructured into one with s/z instead of *c/j.

Nasals, flaps, laterals, and semivowels all occur only in voiced versions.

1.7 Aspiration
An aspirated series of both voiceless and voiced stops, producing a four-
way contrast /p, p, b, b/ at all five basic points of articulation, is the
normal (and distinctive) NIA as well as Sanskrit pattern.

A more significant variation is the absence of the voiced aspirate series

in some languages, reducing the system to a three way contrast /p, p,
b/. This is the pattern in Punjabi, some Northern Lahnda dialects,

Kashmiri and most other Dardic languages, a few West Pahari dialects,
and Romany. Voiced aspirates are absent from non-initial positions in
several varieties of Rajasthani.
Contrastive aspiration has extended its domain to nasals, laterals,

flaps, and even semivowels in a number of NIA languages. Here again

analytical opinions differ, but initial /m-, n-/ occur in Marathi,
Konkani, most dialects of rajasthani, Kumauni, Braj, and the
Saurashtra language, and the sounds are found non-initially also in

Gujarati, Sindhi, other Hindi dialects, Bihari languages, Kalasha, and

most West pahari dialects. A // occurs in Gujarati and some West
Pahari dialects, and a // occurs in Maithili, Bhojpuri and
Chattisgarhi.
An aspirated /l/ is found in Maithili, Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi, Braj,
Standard Hindi, Nepali, Kumauni, Gujarati, various Bhili and Rajsthani
dialects, Konkani, certain Marathi dialects, Sindhi, Siraki and Kalasha.
An aspirated /r/ occurs in Maithili, Bhojpuri, Braj, Bundeli,

Chattishgarhi, Gujarati, Bhili, Hindi, Kumauni, Nepali, Marathi, and

Siraki.
1.8 Other correlations, and special sounds

Perhaps the most famous set of additional consonants are the

implosive voiced stops of Sindhi: /, , , /. Such an opposition is not
quite confined to Sindhi, but is found only in NIA dialects immediately
adjacent to it. In Kacchi and Siraki, there is the same set as in Sindhi;
in dialects of Marwari a slightly different one: /, , , /.
Another famous set of exotic sounds are the prenasalized stops of
Sinhalese, usually transcribed as /mb, nd, n, ng/. In the Sinhalese

writing system, there is a unitary symbol for / mb / but /nd, n, ng /

are written with symbols analyzed into nasal+stop consonants.
Kashmiri is unique in subcontinental NIA in possessing an almost
complete set of palatalized consonants, including stops, nasals, flaps,
laterals, and sibilants.
1.9 Secondary Consonants

Borrowed consonants fall chiefly into three subsets, partially

overlapping:
1. those from Persian: f, v, , z, , ,q, fairly well established in the

languages of predominantly Muslim populations and in the case of

f, v, , z, preeminently common in Hindi; all seven of the sounds
mentioned are characteristic of Urdu.

2. those from Sanskrit, confined by contrast to careful and somewhat

artificial pronunciations of rather restricted educated circles of

mainly Hindi and Marathi speakers: in some languages which do

not normally have it (such as Hindi and Maithili), and , when
there is an attempt to differentiate it from s.
3. those from English, fairly widespread in educated urban speech,
especially in the north and west, where English and Persian

influences reinforce each other: f, v, , z; it should be noted that not

all the exotic consonants in originally English loanwords are
incorporated into NIA speech:*, , are almost always replaced
by NIA /t, d, j or j; the last happens to have in a Marathi an
intervocalic allophone approximating the English sound.
2. NIA Vowels
Vowel descriptions often disagree more than consonant descriptions.

Vowels are describable along what is essentially a continuum, and merge

into one another in a way consonants do not.

It should be noted that NIA orthographies sometimes diverge considerably

from the phonologies, and it is sometimes difficult for educated
investigator to disengage his or her perceptions from written norms.
The subcontinental six-vowel system has two subtypes: one is the Oriya
type, with parallel front and back vowels /i, e, a; u, o, /; it is also fund in
Bishnupriya. The other is the Nepali/Marathi type, with a height contrast
in the central vowels: /i,e; a, ; o, u/. It is also found in Lamani and
Sadani.

Otherwise the quintessential seven vowel system is that of Bengali, with

differentiation of lower-mid vowels both front and back: /i, e, ; a; , o,
u/.

There are several type of eight-vowel systems, chief among which are the
Gujarati (/i, e, ; a, ; , o, u/) and, with four parallel front and back
vowels, the Assamese (/i, e, , a; , o, u/).
The symmetrical ten-vowel system of Hindi and Punjabi (/i, I, e, ; a, ; u,
U, o, / is considered the normative NIA system, in that it is closest to
Sanskrit.
An authentic thirteen-vowel system is found in Sinhalese, however. It is
based mainly on quantity: /i, i:, e, e:, , :, a, a:, , o, o:, u, u:/.
From the standpoint of an historical typology, the NIA languages may be
subcategorized rather differently: those that have preserved what might

be called the basic system (Standard Hindi and Punjabi); those that have
reduced that system (the Eastern group, Marathi, and Gujarati), mainly by
collapsing the distinctions in the high front and back vowels; and those
that have expanded that system in various ways (Sinhalese, Kashmiri,
many Pahari dialects).

Nasalized vowels are a very prominent characteristic of most NIA

languages. There are two kinds of vowel nasalization in NIA, namely the

predictable (in the neighborhood of nasal consonants, nonfunctional but

often noted in Indian descriptions in keeping with traditional attention to
syntagmatic phonetic detail) and the unpredictable or contrastive.
In general nasalization is stronger, phonetically and systematically, in the
west (where it tends to play not only a lexical but also a morphological
role, e.g., in Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Nepali and
Konkani) than in the east. Nasalization is absent from Sinhalese and from
most Marathi dialects. It is also absent from Romany.