Phonology
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | (ɳ) | |||||||||||||
| Plosive | p pʰ |
b bʱ |
t̪ t̪ʰ |
d̪ d̪ʱ |
ʈ ʈʰ |
ɖ ɖʱ |
k kʰ |
ɡ ɡʱ |
q | |||||||
| Affricate | tʃ tʃʰ |
dʒ dʒʱ |
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| Fricative | f | s | z | ʃ | x | ɣ | ɦ | |||||||||
| Tap or Flap | ɾ | (ɽ) (ɽʱ) |
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| Approximant | ʋ | l | j | |||||||||||||
Bhojpuri speakers not acquainted with Hindi or Urdu would generally not be able to pronounce many of the above phonemes. The phonemes /q/, /ɣ/, /z/ and /f/ are not pronounced by most Bhojpuri-speakers, as they are loans from Persian.
Furthermore the labio-dental approximant /ʋ/ (va) is often realized as (ba), (y) is often merged with (j), while the palatal fricative /ʃ/ (sha) and the retroflex Fricative /ʂ/ (sha) are merged with /s/ by many speakers.
Read more about this topic: Bhojpuri Language