How a Bengali perceives a A post by Sumedha Sarvadaman followed by a long debate brings me to the distinction between what is said and what is heard. I deal with the special case of Bengalis. During my childhood and teens, I used to encounter some Biharis trying to mimic the Bengali way of speaking Hindi or English. In Delhi and in some Bollywood films, I notice some characters trying desperately to get the accent right. Once I had a tiff with a jocular journalist on Facebook on the same issue. When asked to explain, I found it a bit tricky, of course. How do Bengalis PERCEIVE a schwa, a Hindi अ and /ʌ/ and then reproduce them? Why is cup কাপ, and not কপ? To a Hindi ear, it is कप. Similarly, bus - বাস - बस muscle - মাসল - मसल tough - টাফ - टफ़ etc Does that mean what Hindi speakers perceive as अ becomes a short आ for Bengalis? Not really. About would be अबाउट to a Hindi speaker and অ্যাবাউট to a Bengali. The fact is, the duration of articulation of अ is too long for a schwa, and it is certainly not /æ/ as in act /ækt/. Some Hindi अs are indeed অ in Bengali. For example, अमित - অমিত अद्भुत - অদ্ভূত अशोक - অশোক This may lead us to the conclusion that an अ that is transliterated from English is আ or -- more precisely -- the English /ʌ/ is আ, but an अ from a word of Sanskrit origin is অ (obviously?). In terms of accuracy, I tend to believe a Hindi speaker perceives the schwa /ə/ closer to the British-American-Australian version while a Bengali perceives /ʌ/ better. Mind you, আ is of a shorter duration than its Hindi equivalent आ. But not every schwa is অ্যা /æ/ to the Bengali ear. Like other Indians, Bengalis perceive the terminal schwa as an open-mouthed termination. India - ইন্ডিয়া - इंडिया America - আমেরিকা - अमेरिका / अमरीका China - চায়না - चाइना / चायना Nigeria - নাইজেরিয়া / নাইজিরিয়া - नाइजीरिया And when it is not a proper noun, almost everybody is clueless. For instance, music composers of the Bombay film industry pronounce genre as /ˈʒɒnər/ instead of /ˈʒɒ̃rə/ or /ˈʒɒnrə/. I havent had an opportunity to hear a Bengali trying to pull this off. Comment. Dibyajyoti Jana, Vikram Achreja, Karthik Vaidhinathan, Parjanya Shukla, Shoaib Daniyal
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 10:51:17 +0000
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