Marathi phonology

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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 in native words are:

There is almost no phonemic length distinction, even though it is indicated in the script. Some educated speakers try to maintain a length distinction in learned borrowings (tatsamas) from Sanskrit.^[1]

Unlike Konkani or Hindustani, there are no phonemic nasal vowels in Marathi.^[2]

Marathi only has four phonemic diphthongs: /əi, əu, ai, au/.

There are two more vowel signs used when writing 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⟩.

Furthermore, ɤ and ʌ occur as allophones of ə, with words such as कळ (kaḷa) being pronounced as [kɤː𝼈 ] rather than [kə𝼈 ] and others such as महाराज (mahārāja) being pronounced as [mʌɦa.raːd͡z].^[3]

Marathi retains several features of Sanskrit that have been lost in other Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in terms of pronunciation of vowels and consonants. For instance, Marathi retains the original diphthong qualities of ⟨ऐ⟩ [əi], and ⟨औ⟩ [əu] which became monophthongs in Hindi. However, similar to speakers of Western Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages, Marathi speakers tend to pronounce syllabic consonant ऋ ṛ as [ru], unlike Northern Indo-Aryan languages which changed it to [ri] (e.g. the original Sanskrit pronunciation of the language's name-root saṃskṛta was [sɐ̃skr̩t̪ɐ], while in day-to-day Marathi it is [səw̃.skrut̪]; in the aforementioned Northern Indo-Aryan languages, it is [sən.skrɪt̪]). While Marathi has also undegone schwa deletion like other Indo-Aryan languages in word-final positions, it has conserved the schwas after consonant clusters in words like शब्द (śabda, word) and also reintroduced it for certain words.

Notes

• Marathi used to have a /t͡sʰ/ but it merged with /s/.^[4]
• Some speakers pronounce /d͡z, d͡zʱ/ as fricatives but the aspiration is maintained in /zʱ/.^[4]
• Spoken Marathi in Marathwada-Vidarbha regions frequently simplifies the retroflexes /ɳ/, and /ʂ/ to /n/ and /s/; for example, आणि (āṇi, 'and') will be pronounced as [aːn] instead of [aːɳi].^[8]
• Unlike in Hindustani, Marathi does not contrast /ɖ/ and /ɽ/ or /ɖʱ/ and /ɽʱ/. Instead, the pairs are conditional allophones, being realized as stops in word-initial or post-nasal positions and as flaps in all other positions. ^[7]

In Marathi, the Indo-Aryan ल /la/ split into a retroflex lateral flap ळ (ḷa) and alveolar ल (la). It shares this feature with Punjabi, Gujarati, and other Western Indo-Aryan languages. For example, Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam, 'clan') becomes कुळ (kuḷa) and Sanskrit कमलम् (kamalam, 'lotus') becomes कमळ (kamaḷa). Marathi may have gotten ळ due to the areal influence of the neighbouring Dravidian languages; there are some ḷ words loaned from Kannada like ṭhaḷak from taḷaku but most of the words are native. Vedic Sanskrit also had /𝼈, 𝼈ʱ/, but they merged with /ɖ, ɖʱ/ by the time of classical Sanskrit. Marathi maintains this split for some words where even classical Sanskrit did not: for example, the दाडिम (dāḍima, 'pomegranate') of classical Sanskrit is डाळिंब (ḍāḷimba) in Marathi. ^[4]

Palatalization is phonemic for some consonants, but it has not been well studied.^[9] Furthermore, palatalization is only denoted for र (r) in writing through the usage of the eyelash reph/raphar, further complicating analysis. The following table gives two minimal pairs (in Standard Marathi) as examples:^[10]

Additionally, an anusvara may be pronounced as a nasalized approximant in certain locations. When preceding श (ś), ष (ṣ), स (s), ह (h), or र (r), it is rendered as w̃. For example, the words संशय (saṁśaya, 'doubt') and संरक्षण (saṁrakṣaṇa, 'protection') are pronounced as [səw̃.ɕəj] and [səw̃rəkʂəɳ] respectively. Before य (y), the anusvara is rendered as j̃: for example, संयुक्त (saṁyukta, 'joint') is pronounced as [səj̃jukt̪ə].^[11]

Some dialects tend to simplify consonant clusters that are otherwise plentiful in standard Marathi. This might be an adaptation to a faster speaking pace. For example, "त्यांच्यासाठी" is often pronounced as "त्यांसनी", eliminating the "chya" cluster.^[12]

• Ghatage, A.M (1970). Marathi Of Kasargod. Mumbai.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Sardesai, V.N. Some Problems in the Nasalization of Marathi, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
• Ghatage, M.M. Pronunciation Problems of the Marathi Speakers, Language in India.

• Marathi language sounds