Vowels
Like other alphasyllabaries, Devanagari writes out syllables by adding vowel diacritics to consonant bases. The table below includes all the vowel symbols used in Marathi, along with a transliteration of each sound into Latin script and IPA.
| Devanagari | अ | आ | इ | ई | उ | ऊ | ऋ | ए | ऐ | ओ | औ | अं | अः |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transliterated | a | āa | i | ī | u | ū | ṛ | e | ai | o | au | aṃ | aḥ |
| IPA | /ə/ | /a/ | /i/ | /u/ | /ru/ | /e/ | /əi/ | /o/ | /əu/ | /əⁿ/ | /əh/ | ||
| Pronunciation |
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There are two more vowels in Marathi to denote the pronunciations of English words such as of 'a' in act and 'a' in all. These are written as 'अॅ' and 'ऑ'. The IPA signs for these are /æ/ and /ɔ/, respectively.
Marathi retains several features of Sanskrit that have been lost in north-Indian Sanskrit-based languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in terms of pronunciation of vowels and consonants. For instance, Marathi retains the original Sanskrit pronunciation of अं /əⁿ/, ऐ /əi/, and औ /əu/. However, as was done in Gujarati, Marathi speakers tend to pronounce ऋ ṛ somewhat similar to /ru/, unlike most other Indic languages which changed it to /ri/ (e.g. the original Sanskrit pronunciation of the language's name was saṃskṛtam, while in day-to-day Marathi and Gujarati it is saṃskrut. In other Indic languages it is closer to sanskrit). Also, the Marathi pronunciation of ज्ञ (jña) very closely resembles Sanskrit pronunciation, compared to gya in Hindi. Interestingly, spoken Marathi allows for original Sanskrit pronunciations of words like राम (rama) with an emphasis on the ending vowel sound, a feature that has been lost in Hindi.
Read more about this topic: Marathi Phonology
Famous quotes containing the word vowels:
“These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Playing “bop” is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
—Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
“As no one can tell what was the Roman pronunciation, each nation makes the Latin conform, for the most part, to the rules of its own language; so that with us of the vowels only A has a peculiar sound.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)