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I was googling whether Hindi is 100% phonetic. Is this accurate? https://old.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/hrl6lp/comment/fy86cck/ https://old.reddit.com/r

I was googling whether Hindi is 100% phonetic. Is this accurate? https://old.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/hrl6lp/comment/fy86cck/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IndiaSpeaks/comments/hrl6lp/comment... I thought to check because if you look into Spanish for example, it is often thought to be phonetic but it really isn't 100% phonetic either.

Arc_Orion 3y ago
I assume you're asking if the orthography is a completely accurate representation of the phonetic utterances? If so, then no language is 100% "phonetic". Spoken languages inherently adopt phonemes - which represent single perceived "sounds", which are actually represented in speech by several different sounds. The specific sounds will be different allophones of a single phoneme. These will vary for each speaker depending upon language, dialect, and other factors. A language might possibly have an orthography that is 100% accurate to the phonemic inventory, but only for a single dialect. As soon as the dialect changes or another dialect emerges, the orthography will have to change to be 100% accurate. For example, when I say "butter" with my North American English accent, I typically say the -tt- part with an voiced alveolar tap. It's represented by "ɾ" in IPA. This sounds close to a "d" sound, but faster. However, if you ask me to slow down and repeat "butter", I'll likely respond with a full on [voiceless alveolar plosive], represented by a "t" in IPA. (Look familiar?) Both [ɾ] and [t] are allophones of the /t/ morpheme in NA English. They're specific sounds that are perceived of as a "t". Now, I am not an expert on Hindi at all, so I cannot make any specific claims myself regarding particular sounds, but if Wikipedia is reliable here, an example of similar allophony is [w] and [v]. * Side note, I'm condensing a bunch of things in here, so it leaves out some complexity, but it should hopefully express the point that no language will have all of its sounds represented perfectly in orthography. Voice Alveolar Taps - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_tap... Voiceless Alveolar Plosives - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_plosives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_... w/v allophony in Hindi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Allophony_of_[v]_and_[w] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Allophony...
- yorwba 3y ago
  The comment you replied to links to a Reddit comment giving examples of schwa deletion in Hindi that is not represented orthographically. Nothing to do with allophony, just "if you were to read this word as written, you'd pronounce a vowel here, but you shouldn't". To give an English example, it's like writing "should not" even though you don't pronounce the "o" in "not".
  - gilcot 3y ago
    I do, as do many other non-native I know, unless you write it "shouldn't" :)
    - OJFord 3y ago
      In 'half-penny', however...
OJFord 3y ago
(Not a native speaker but learning Hindi.) Yes schwa deletion is a counter example, although it's a solid rule so you could easily say 'well that's just one thing to learn on top of the script, that it's written but not pronounced in that placement'. A better case for 'no not 100%' IMO is the behaviour of the 'h' sound, which converts 'aha' ('a's around it) it to sound something more like 'ehe'. बहन for example means sister, if you transliterated according to IAST it would be bahan, but most would write behen, and that's how it's pronounced (or something between e and ai anyway).
Asraelite 3y ago
Are the counterexamples in Spanish for native words, not just recent loanwords? If so could you tell me what they are? This is something I've looked into a bit before but I couldn't find any concrete counterexamples in Spanish.
- drivers99 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_orthography#Orthographic_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_orthography#Orthograph... x has the most different sounds (as an example for going from writing to sound) Going from sounds to writing, I'll focus on one writing difference (but there are more in the above link): For the /k/ sound, it's "qu" before e or i but "c" in other words. (ignoring the letter "k" in borrowed words) Examples: queso. casa. https://spanishroute.com/podcast/stage-10-letters-c-z-k-x-qu-ch/ https://spanishroute.com/podcast/stage-10-letters-c-z-k-x-qu...

Arc_Orion 3y ago

I assume you're asking if the orthography is a completely accurate representation of the phonetic utterances? If so, then no language is 100% "phonetic". Spoken languages inherently adopt phonemes - which represent single perceived "sounds", which are actually represented in speech by several different sounds. The specific sounds will be different allophones of a single phoneme. These will vary for each speaker depending upon language, dialect, and other factors. A language might possibly have an orthography that is 100% accurate to the phonemic inventory, but only for a single dialect. As soon as the dialect changes or another dialect emerges, the orthography will have to change to be 100% accurate. For example, when I say "butter" with my North American English accent, I typically say the -tt- part with an voiced alveolar tap. It's represented by "ɾ" in IPA. This sounds close to a "d" sound, but faster. However, if you ask me to slow down and repeat "butter", I'll likely respond with a full on [voiceless alveolar plosive], represented by a "t" in IPA. (Look familiar?) Both [ɾ] and [t] are allophones of the /t/ morpheme in NA English. They're specific sounds that are perceived of as a "t". Now, I am not an expert on Hindi at all, so I cannot make any specific claims myself regarding particular sounds, but if Wikipedia is reliable here, an example of similar allophony is [w] and [v]. * Side note, I'm condensing a bunch of things in here, so it leaves out some complexity, but it should hopefully express the point that no language will have all of its sounds represented perfectly in orthography. Voice Alveolar Taps - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_tap... Voiceless Alveolar Plosives - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_plosives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_... w/v allophony in Hindi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Allophony_of_[v]_and_[w] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_phonology#Allophony...

yorwba 3y ago
The comment you replied to links to a Reddit comment giving examples of schwa deletion in Hindi that is not represented orthographically. Nothing to do with allophony, just "if you were to read this word as written, you'd pronounce a vowel here, but you shouldn't". To give an English example, it's like writing "should not" even though you don't pronounce the "o" in "not".
- gilcot 3y ago
  I do, as do many other non-native I know, unless you write it "shouldn't" :)
  - OJFord 3y ago
    In 'half-penny', however...

OJFord 3y ago

(Not a native speaker but learning Hindi.) Yes schwa deletion is a counter example, although it's a solid rule so you could easily say 'well that's just one thing to learn on top of the script, that it's written but not pronounced in that placement'. A better case for 'no not 100%' IMO is the behaviour of the 'h' sound, which converts 'aha' ('a's around it) it to sound something more like 'ehe'. बहन for example means sister, if you transliterated according to IAST it would be bahan, but most would write behen, and that's how it's pronounced (or something between e and ai anyway).

Asraelite 3y ago

Are the counterexamples in Spanish for native words, not just recent loanwords? If so could you tell me what they are? This is something I've looked into a bit before but I couldn't find any concrete counterexamples in Spanish.

drivers99 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_orthography#Orthographic_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_orthography#Orthograph... x has the most different sounds (as an example for going from writing to sound) Going from sounds to writing, I'll focus on one writing difference (but there are more in the above link): For the /k/ sound, it's "qu" before e or i but "c" in other words. (ignoring the letter "k" in borrowed words) Examples: queso. casa. https://spanishroute.com/podcast/stage-10-letters-c-z-k-x-qu-ch/ https://spanishroute.com/podcast/stage-10-letters-c-z-k-x-qu...