Marathi phonology
The phoneme inventory of the Marathi language is similar to that of many other Indo-Āryan languages. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Marathi is provided below.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
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 | |||||||||||||
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.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-) palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | plain | m | n̪ | ɳ | ||||
| murmured | mʱ | n̪ʱ | ɳʱ | |||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t̪ | ts | ʈ | tʃ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ | t̪ʰ | tsʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | dz | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| murmured | bʱ | d̪ʱ | dzʱ | ɖʱ | dʒʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| Fricative | s | ʃ | h | |||||
| Approximant | plain | ʋ | l | ɭ | j | |||
| murmured | ʋʱ | lʱ | ||||||
| Rhotic | plain | ɾ | ||||||
| murmured | ɾʱ | |||||||
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 existing Devanagari alphabet. The letter 'ज' may be pronounced as '/ɟʝə/' (जग, jag meaning world), as well as '/zə/' (जागा, zāgā meaning place). It is not possible to grasp which pronunciation is to be used when from the written word alone, unlike Hindi, where the letter ज़ was added to represent the '/zə/' sound. 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 /tʃə/ or /tsə/ |
cha /tsʰə/ |
ja /ɟʝə/ or /zə/ |
jha /ɟʝʱə/ or /zʱə/ |
ña /ɲə/ |
||
| ट | ठ | ड | ढ | ण | ||
| ṭa /ʈə/ |
ṭha /ʈʰə/ |
ḍa /ɖə/ |
ḍha /ɖʱə/ |
ṇa /ɳə/ |
||
| त | थ | द | ध | न | ||
| ta /t̪ə/ |
tha /t̪ʰə/ |
da /d̪ə/ |
dha /d̪ʱə/ |
na /n̪ə/ |
||
| प | फ | ब | भ | म | ||
| pa /pə/ |
pha /pʰə/ or /fə/ |
ba /bə/ |
bha /bʱə/ |
ma /mə/ |
||
| य | र | ऱ | ल | व | श | |
| ya /jə/ |
ra /rə/ |
ṟa /ɽə/ |
la /lə/ |
va /və/ or /wə/ |
śa /ʃə/ |
|
| ष | स | ह | ळ | क्ष | ज्ञ | |
| ṣa /ʂə/ |
sa /sə/ |
ha /hə/ |
ḷa /ɭə/ |
kṣa /kʃə/ |
jña /ɟʝɲə/ |
A defining feature of the Marathi language is the frequent substitution of the consonant ल (la) in Sanskrit words with the retroflex lateral approximant ळ (ḷa). For instance, कुळ (kuḷa) for the Sanskrit कुलम् (kulam or clan) and कमळ (kamaḷ) for Sanskrit कमलम् (kamalam or lotus). ळ is possibly an import in Marathi from Dravidian languages.
Example of consonant-vowel combination
The combination of the vowels with the k-series
| Script | Pronunciation (IPA) |
|---|---|
| क | /kə/ |
| का | /ka/ |
| कि | /ki/ |
| की | |
| कु | /ku/ |
| कू | |
| कृ | /kru/ |
| के | /ke/ |
| कै | /kəi̯/ |
| को | /ko/ |
| कौ | /kəu̯/ |
| कं | /kəᵐ/ |
| कः | /kəh/ |
Consonant clusters
In Marathi, the consonants by default come with a schwa. Therefore, तयाचे will be 'təyāce', not 'tyāce'. To form 'tyāce', you will have to add त् + याचे, giving त्याचे.
Consonant clusters in speech
External links
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