Marathi phonology
The phoneme inventory of the Marathi language is similar to that of many other Indo-Aryan languages. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
Vowels
Vowels in native words are:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | aː |
There are no nasal 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 | Transliterated | IPA | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|---|
| अ | a | /ə/ | |
| आ | ā | /aː/ | |
| इ | i | /i/ | |
| ई | ī | /iː/ | |
| उ | u | /u/ | |
| ऊ | ū | /uː/ | |
| ऋ | ṛ | /ru/ | |
| ए | e | /e/ | |
| ऐ | ai | /əi/ | |
| ओ | o | /o/ | |
| औ | au | /əu/ | |
| अं | aṃ | /əm/ | |
| अः | aḥ | /əɦə/ |
Marathi furthermore contrasts /əi, əu/ with /ai, au/.
There are two more vowels in Marathi to denote the pronunciations of English words such as of /æ/ in act and /ɔ/ in all. These are written as ⟨अॅ⟩ and ⟨ऑ⟩.
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). Spoken Marathi allows for conservative stress patterns in words like राम (rama) with an emphasis on the ending vowel sound, a feature that has been lost in Hindi.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ɳ | (ɲ) | (ŋ) | ||
| murmured | mʱ | nʱ | ɳʱ | |||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ts | ʈ | tɕ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ~f | tʰ | ʈʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | |||
| voiced | b | d | dz~z | ɖ | dʑ | ɡ | ||
| murmured | bʱ | dʱ | dzʱ~zʱ | ɖʱ | dʑʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| Fricative | s | ʂ | ɕ | ɦ | ||||
| Approximant | plain | ʋ | l | j | ||||
| murmured | ʋʱ | lʱ | (jʱ)[2] | |||||
| Flap/Trill | plain | ɾ~r | ɭ̆ | |||||
| murmured | ɾʱ~rʱ | |||||||
The table below includes all the consonant bases onto which vowel diacritics are placed. The lack of a vowel diacritic can either indicate the lack of a vowel, or the existence of the default, or "inherent", vowel, which in the case of Marathi is the schwa.
Unlike most Indian languages, the Marathi language has multiple pronunciations for certain consonants (च, ज, झ and फ). This generally applies to pronunciations that were imported from Persian or English, but were tied to the existing Devanagari alphabet. The letter ⟨ज⟩ may represent /dʑə/ (जग, jag 'world'), as well as /dzə/ (जागा, zāgā 'place'). It is not possible to determine which pronunciation is to be used without knowing the word or the context, unlike Hindi, where ⟨ज़⟩ was added to represent /zə/. This pronunciation inconsistency is one of the most prominent difficulties for Marathi learners.
| क | ख | ग | घ | ङ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ka /kə/ |
kha /kʰə/ |
ga /ɡə/ |
gha /ɡʱə/ |
ṅa (/ŋə/) |
|
| च | छ | ज | झ | ञ | |
| ca /tɕə/ or /tsə/ |
cha /tɕʰə/ |
ja /dʑə/ or /dzə/ |
jha /dʑʱə/ or /dzʱə/ |
ña /jə̃/ |
|
| ट | ठ | ड | ढ | ण | |
| ṭa /ʈə/ |
ṭha /ʈʰə/ |
ḍa /ɖə/ |
ḍha /ɖʱə/ |
ṇa /ɳə/ |
|
| त | थ | द | ध | न | |
| ta /tə/ |
tha /tʰə/ |
da /də/ |
dha /dʱə/ |
na /nə/ |
|
| प | फ | ब | भ | म | |
| pa /pə/ |
pha /pʰə/ or /fə/ |
ba /bə/ |
bha /bʱə/ |
ma /mə/ |
|
| य | र | ल | व | श | |
| ya /jə/ |
ra /rə/ |
la /lə/ |
va /ʋə/ |
śa /ʃə/ | |
| ष | स | ह | ळ | क्ष | ज्ञ |
| ṣa /ʂə/ |
sa /sə/ |
ha /ɦə/ |
ḷa /ɭə/ |
kṣa /kɕə/ |
jña /ɡɲə/ |
A defining feature of the Marathi language is the frequent substitution of the consonant ल (la) in Sanskrit words with the retroflex lateral flap ळ (ḷa). For instance, कुळ (kuḷa) for the Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam 'clan') and कमळ (kamaḷ) for Sanskrit कमलम् (kamalam 'lotus'). ळ is possibly an import in Marathi from Dravidian languages, although it may also have originated from Vedic Sanskrit.
Example of consonant–vowel combination
The combination of the vowels with the k-series
| Script | Pronunciation (IPA) |
|---|---|
| क | /kə/ |
| का | /kaː/ |
| कि | /ki/ |
| की | /kiː/ |
| कु | /ku/ |
| कू | /kuː/ |
| कृ | /kru/ |
| के | /ke/ |
| कै | /kəi̯/ |
| को | /ko/ |
| कौ | /kəu̯/ |
| कं | /kəm/ |
| कः | /kəɦ(ə)/ |
Consonant clusters
In Marathi, the consonants by default come with a schwa. Therefore, तयाचे will be 'təyāce', not 'tyāce'. To form 'tyāce', one should add त् to याचे, which would yield त्याचे.
References
- Colin Masica, 1991, The Indo-Aryan Languages
- In Kudali dialect