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- "नेहा चिट्ठी ख़रीदती है ।"
33 Comments
189
According to my wife who is a native speaker, ख़ is commonly pronounced as ख in Hindi. The fricative sound is mainly used in Urdu.
Yep. Adding a little nuance: There's also variation based on region, urban vs. rural background, level of education, religion, other languages spoken, etc. India has 22 official languages so for many people Hindi is their second or third language, and which sounds they actually say can depend on what their first language is. :)
You'll hear the original fricative pronunciation more often in cities in the north, in communities where there are large Urdu-bolnewale populations, etc., and less in rural areas or wherever there's a very strong preference for Sanskrit-origin words and pronunciations.
Same happens to most letters with the nuqta (the little dot under the letter); e.g. people from rural areas or different Indian language background are likely to say "sabji" instead of "sabzi" for vegetables.
Interestingly I've heard that the opposite is happening with फ -- more and more people in India are pronouncing it always as an "f" sound rather than "ph".
154
It would be interesting seeing it adapted for a non-alphabetic system.
Do you have separate spaces for the attached vowels? What if you buy a vowel and its corresponding consonant isn't yet revealed? How do you not give away ि when showing blanks, since it's the only vowel that comes before the consonant when writing?
913
Maybe in India there are prestamped forms that you can write on and fold over then post; similar to what used to be called an aerogramme used up to the 1980s ...?
913
See this from Wikipedia on an "aerogramme" which is a letter-form that you had to buy, write up and send via airmail without having to enclose in an envelope, buy stamps etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogram.
See my comment above: Maybe in India there are prestamped forms that you can write on and fold over then post; similar to what used to be called an aerogramme used up to the 1980s ...?