Sounds
The phoneme inventory of Marathi is similar to that of many other Indo-Aryan languages, especially that of the Konkani language. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Alveopalatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stops |
p pʰ |
t̪ t̪ʰ |
ts |
ʈ ʈʰ |
tʃ tʃʰ |
k kʰ |
|
| Voiced stops |
b bʱ |
d̪ d̪ʱ |
dz dzʱ |
ɖ ɖʱ |
dʒ dʒʱ |
ɡ ɡʱ |
|
| Voiceless fricatives |
s | ʃ | h | ||||
| Nasals | m mʱ |
n̪ n̪ʱ |
ɳ |
||||
| Liquids | ʋ ʋʱ |
l ɾ lʱ ɾʱ |
ɭ | j |
Older aspirated *tsʰ, dzʱ have lost their onset, with *tsʰ merging with /s/ and *dzʱ being typically realized as an aspirated fricative, . This /ts, dz, zʱ/ series is not distinguished in writing from /tʃ, tʃʰ, dʒ, dʒʱ/.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
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 and, respectively. Marathi retains the original Sanskrit pronunciations of certain alphabets such as the anusvāra (for instance, saṃhar, compared to sanhar in Hindi). Moreover, Marathi preserves certain Sanskrit patterns of pronunciation, as in the words purṇa and rāma compared to purṇ and rām in Hindi.
Read more about this topic: Marathi Language
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—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated—serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)