Maithili phonology

This article describes the phonology of the Maithili language.

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	इ ɪ	ई iː			उ ʊ	ऊ uː
Mid	ऎ e	ए eː	अ ə~ɐ	अऽ əː	ऒ o	ओ oː
Open	ऍ æ~ɛ	ꣾ ɛː	ॴ ä	आ äː	अ^ऽ ɔ	ॵ ɔː
Diphthongs		ꣾ əɪ̯				ॵ əʊ̯
		ऐ aːɪ̯				औ aːʊ̯

• All vowels have nasal counterparts, represented by "~" in IPA and ँ on the vowels, like आँ ãː .
• All vowel sounds are realized as nasal when occurring before or after a nasal consonant.[1]
• Sounds ɛː and ɔː are often replaced by diphthongs əɪ̯ and əʊ̯ in most of the dialects.
• æ is a recent development.
• ɔ is replaced by a (short a) or even ə̯ in northern dialects and by o in southernmost dialects.
• There are three short vowels, as described by Grierson, but not counted by modern grammarians. But they could be understood as syllable break :- ॳ / ɘ̆ /, इऺ/ ɪ̆ /, उऺ/ ʊ̆ / . Or as syllable break ऺ in Devanagari and "." in IPA.
• ꣾ is a Unicode letter in Devanagari, (IPA /əɪ̯/) which is not supported currently on several browsers and operating systems, along with its mātrā (vowel sign).

Diphthongs

अय़(ꣾ) / əi̯ / ~ /ɛː/ - अय़सनऺ (ꣾ सनऺ) / əi̯sənᵊ / ~ /ɛːsɐnᵊ/ 'like this'
अव़(ॵ) / əu̯ / ~ /ɔː/- चव़मुुखऺ(चॏमुखऺ) / tɕəu̯mʊkʰᵊ / ~ /tɕɔːmʊkʰᵊ/ 'four faced'
अयॆ / əe̯ / - अयॆलाः / əe̯la:h / 'came'
अवॊ (अऒ) / əo̯ / - अवॊताः / əo̯ta:h / 'will come'
ऐ / a:i̯ / - ऐ / a:i̯ / 'today'
औ / a:u̯ / - औ / a:u̯ / 'come please'
आयॆ (आऎ) / a:e̯ / - आयॆलऺ / a:e̯l / 'came'
आवॊ (आऒ) / a:o̯ / - आवॊबऺ / a:o̯bᵊ / 'will come'
यु (इउ) / iu̯/ - घ्यु / ghiu̯ / 'ghee'
यॆ (इऎ) / ie̯ / - यॆः / ie̯h / 'only this'
यॊ (इऒ) / io̯ / - कह्यो / kəhio̯ / 'any day'
वि (उइ) / ui̯ / - द्वि / dui̯ / 'two'
वॆ (उऎ) /ue̯/ - वॆ: / ue̯h / 'only that'

Svarabhakti (Vowel Epenthesis)

A peculiar type of phonetic change is recently taking place in Maithili by way of epenthesis i.e. backward transposition of final i and u in all sort of words.[2] Thus:

Standard Colloquial - Common Pronunciation

अछि / əchi / - अइछऺ / əich / 'is'

रवि / rəbi / - रइबऺ / rəib / 'Sunday'

मधु / mədhu / - मउधऺ / məudh / 'honey'

बालु / ba:lu / - बाउलऺ / ba:ul / 'sand'

Consonants

Maithili has four classes of stops, one class of affricate, which is generally treated as a stop series, related nasals, fricatives and approximant.

Stops

There are four series of stops- bilabials, coronals, retroflex and velar, along with an affricate series. All of them show the four way contrast like most of the modern Indo-Aryan languages:

• tenuis, as /p/, which is like ⟨p⟩ in English spin
• voiced, as /b/, which is like ⟨b⟩ in English bin
• aspirated, as /pʰ/, which is like ⟨p⟩ in English pin, and
• murmured or aspirated voiced, as /bʱ/.

Apart from the retroflex series, all the rest four series show full phonological contrast in all positions.The retroflex tenius ʈ and ʈʰ show full contrast in all positions. ɖ and ɖʱ show phonological contrast mainly word-initially.[3] Both are defective phonemes, occurring intervocalically an word finally only if preceded by a nasal consonant. Word finally and postvocalically, ɖʱ surfaces as ɽʱ or rʱ.[1] Non-initially, both are interchangeable with ɽ or r and ɽʱ or rʱ respectively.[3]

Nasals

m and n are present in all phonological positions. ŋ occurs only non-initially and is followed by a homorganic stop, which may be deleted if voiced, which leads to the independent presence of ŋ. ɳ occurs non-initially, followed by a homorganic stop, and is independent only in tatsama words, which is often replaced with n. ɲ occurs only non-initially and is followed by a homorganic stop always. It is the only nasal which does not occur independently.

Fricatives

s and h are most common fricatives. They show full phonological opposition. ɕ and ʂ, which is present in tatsama words, is replaced by s most of the times, when independent. ɕ occurs before tɕ and ʂ before ʈ. x and f occurs in Perso-Arabic loanwords, generally replaced by kʰ and pʰ respectively. x and ɸ also occurs in Sanskrit words (jihvamuliya and upadhmaniya), which is peculiar to Maithili.

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	प p	त t	ट ʈ	च tɕ	क k
	aspirated	फ pʰ	थ tʰ	ठ ʈʰ	छ tɕʰ	ख kʰ
	voiced	ब b	द d	ड ɖ	ज dʑ	ग ɡ
	voiced aspirated	भ bʱ	ध dʱ	ढ ɖʱ	झ dʑʱ	घ ɡʱ
Fricative	voiceless	फ़ (ɸ~f)	स s	ष (ʂ)	श (ɕ)	ख़ (x)	ः -(h)*
	voiced		ज़ (z)		झ़ (ʑ)		ह (ɦ)
Nasal		म m	न n	ण ɳ	ञ (ɲ)	ङ ŋ
Flap and Trill consonants			र ɾ~r	ड़ (ɽ) ढ़ (ɽʱ)
Lateral			ल l
Approximant		व (ʋ~w)			य (j)

• Fricative sounds [ʂ, ɕ] only occur marginally, and are typically pronounced as a dental fricative /s/ in most styles of pronunciation.ः is always added after a vowel.
• In most styles of pronunciation, the retroflex flap [ɽ] occurs marginally, and is usually pronounced as an alveolar tap /r/ sound.
• A retroflex nasal sound [ɳ] only occurs before a voiced retroflex /ɖ/ sound.
• Approximant sounds [ʋ, w, j] and fricative sounds [ɸ, f, z, ʑ, x], mainly occur in words that are borrowed from Sanskrit or in words of Perso-Arabic origin. From Sanskrit, puʂp(ə) as puɸp(ə). Conjunct of ɦj as ɦʑ as in graɦjə as graɦʑə.[3]

Non syllabic Vowels

There are four non-syllabic vowels in Maithili- i̯, u̯, e̯, o̯ written in Devanagari as य़, व़, य़ॆ, व़ॊ. Most of the times, these are written without nukta.

References

1. Yadav, Ramawatar (1996). A Reference Grammar of Maithili. Trends in Linguistics: Documentation, 11.: Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 15–27.CS1 maint: location (link)
2. "Maithili". lisindia.ciil.org. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
3. Grierson, George Abraham; Asiatic Society (Calcutta, India) Journal and proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1909-). An introduction to the Maithili dialect of the Bihari language as spoken in North Bihar. University of California Libraries. Calcutta : Asiatic Society. Check date values in: |date= (help)