Re: weekly vocab

There are Hindi samples available online. If you go to
http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/handbook/
You will find a series of sound files for download that are
coordinated to the examples in the official IPA handbook. I plan to
order this book soon, but the samples are good in any case.

The Hindi "aspirates" are written in the book as superscript voiced
and unvoiced glottal fricatives. That is /h/ and h with a hook on the
top of the vertical pointing to the right.

I've become fascinated with Bollywood movies and music recently; In
listening to a lot of songs and speeches, there also seem to be times
that vowels are breathy-voiced. I suspect that there's significant
variation depending on speed of speech.

What's funny is that you can actually get very close by just
pronouncing an /h/ wherever one is written in the romanization.

Most Hindi on the web, unfortunately, is written in a weird "folk
romanization" that is not consistent.

I believe that the traditional pronunciation of Sanskrit consonants
is quite close to the educated pronunciation of Hindi. [I don't have
any real knowledge about dialects, etc. except that they (obviously)
exist].

    -- David


>Anthony Miles wrote:
>(snip interesting vocab.)
>
>>ObLang: What are the voiced aspirates in Sanskrit, if they are not
>aspirates
>   >phonetically?
>
>Perhaps breathy?  (Think Marilyn Monroe)  Just guessing-- are there any
>sound files anywhere for Hindi or its relatives?

--
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