रूकना: Two syllables?

[Yogendra Joshi]

(IT IS IN HINDI; I HOPE INTERESTED PERSONS WOULD FOLLOW IT.)
 
यह टिप्पणी मैं Bob की syllable संबंधी समस्या पर लिख रहा हूं :
[I'm trying to write a TECkit map to break Devanagari words into syllables and had a question for native speakers.
In a word like रूकना, I would break this into two syllables: रुक.ना (i.e. ruk.naa) ...]

मैं syllable शब्द की परिभाषा से आरंभ करता हूं । Oxford Reference Dictionary इसे यूं परिभाषित करती है:
'A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound and forming all or a part of a word.'
इसी प्रकार http://www.thefreedictionary.com/syllable पर उपलब्ध Free Dictionary द्वारा दी गयी परिभाषा ये है:
'A unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant alone, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed, or surrounded by one or more consonants. One or more letters or phonetic symbols written or printed to approximate a spoken syllable.'

अन्य स्रोत भी कुछ इसी प्रकार की परिभाषाऐं देते हैं । उनके शब्दों में थोड़ा-बहुत अंतर मुझे दिखा, लेकिन मंतव्य (implication) सभी का वही है । परिभाषा स्पष्ट करती है कि शब्द को ऐसे खंडों में विभाजित किया जा सकता है जिनमें से प्रत्येक को स्वतंत्र रूप से बोला जा सकता है, किंतु जिन्हें उनसे छोटे खंडों में और नहीं बांटा जा सकता है । 

अब आइये दिये गये शब्द 'रुकना' पर । इसका उच्चारण क्या है ? इसे तीन हिस्सों में बांटा जा सकता है: रु+क+ना; पहले में ‍'उ' की (जैसा hook में है), दूसरे में 'अ' की (जैसा brother में), और तीसरे में 'आ' की (जैसा calm में है) स्वरध्वनियां हैं । ये तीनों ही का उच्चारण स्वतन्त्र रूप से (in isolation) किया जा सकता है । जाहिर है कि 'रुकना' में तीन syllable हैं । तो शंका क्यों है ?

मुझे लगता है कि 'रुकना' के गलत उच्चारण के कारण दो syllable का भ्रम हो गया है । कई लोग जल्दी में इसे 'रुक्ना' बोलते हैं जो सही नहीं । ऐसी गलती 'पढ़ना' में नही करते वे; 'ढ़' को 'अ' अलग करके 'ना' के साथ संयुक्ताक्षर के तौर पर बोल पाना शायद स्वभाविक नहीं है ।

हिन्दी में syllable के लिये 'अक्षर' शब्द है । ( अक्षर के और भी अर्थ होते हैं ।) अक्षर की इस परिभाषा में 'ं', 'ः' और '‌्', जैसे कं, कः, और क्‌ में मौजूद, नहीं शामिल हैं । कं, कः का उच्चारण स्पष्ट है 'अ' स्वर के कारण, अतः ये syllable हैं । किंतु 'क्‌' में स्वर न होने से इसका उच्चारण संयुक्ताक्षर अथवा स्वर के साथ ही संभव है, यथा 'अक्‌' या 'शक्ल = शक्‌+ल or श+क्ल' में । मेरी जानकारी में हिन्दी में अक्षर का syllable के अर्थ में खास महत्त्व नहीं है, क्योंकि उसमें accent की बात नहीं होती । हां intonation (उच्चारण में उतार-चढ़ाव) जरूर रहता है । 

उच्चारण दोष से भ्रमित हो जाना स्वाभाविक है । कई लोग गलती, जनता, आरती आदि का उच्चारण क्रमशः गल्ती, जन्ता, आर्ती आदि करते हैं । पर ऐसा करना अशुद्ध ही माना जाता है । अगर मानक उच्चारण होना चाहिए यह मानें तो 'रुकना' को 'रुक्ना' बोलना उचित नहीं कहा जा सकता । यूं देखा जाये तो, श-ष, ब-व, क्ष-छ आदि का भी समान उच्चारण सुनने को मिल जाता है । पर ये सही नहीं है । मेरा मत तो यही है कि ऐसे उच्चारण स्थानीय बोली के तौर पर स्वीकार्य हो सकते हैं, पर मानक के तौर पर नहीं । ये 'जैसा लि्खो वैसा बोलो' के सिद्धांत के विरुद्ध है । - योगेन्द्र

[Bob Eaton]

> अब आइये दिये गये शब्द 'रुकना' पर । इसका उच्चारण क्या है ? इसे तीन हिस्सों
> में बांटा जा सकता है: रु+क+ना; पहले में ‍'उ' की (जैसा hook में है), दूसरे
> में 'अ' की (जैसा brother में), और तीसरे में 'आ' की (जैसा calm में है)
> स्वरध्वनियां हैं । ये तीनों ही का उच्चारण स्वतन्त्र रूप से (in isolation)
> किया जा सकता है । जाहिर है कि 'रुकना' में तीन syllable हैं । तो शंका क्यों
> है ?

I know that that is what they teach in school (i.e. that every full
consonant has an implicit schwa sound if it doesn't have an explicit
matra), but in practice (from an outsider looking in) only in songs do
people usually pronounce it that way.

The two violations of the "rule" (i.e. that the way it is written is
the way you say it) that come to mind are:
1) if you have three consonants in a row, followed by a fourth
consonant or a vowel, then the implicit schwa sound is dropped after
the 2nd consonant. e.g.: बचपन is pronounced /bach.pan/, and करता is
pronounced /kar.taa/

2) all word-final schwas are dropped e.g. बाप is pronounced /baap/;
not */baapa/

I think Michael Shipiro mentions this in one of his books.

And perhaps this brings up a point that's worth saying: somethings are
easier for outsiders to notice than insiders.

This is similar to the fact that the average (American, at least)
English speaker has no idea that he/she is saying two different sounds
with the 'p's in these words: /pin/ [phin] vs. /spin/ [spin]. whenever
a 'p' (or a 't' or 'k') follows an 's', it is pronounced as an
unaspirated stop [p], [t], or [k]. But elsewhere it is pronounced as
an aspirated stop [ph], [th], [kh]. Unless the American is trained in
linguistics, they wouldn't be able to tell you this is true, but it
is. And here's one place that I would think a Hindi speaker would be
able to tell this right away: /pin/ is [फिन], but /spin/ is [स्‍पिन].

The logic behind why we don't write these two sounds with different
letters is because they never occur in the same place at the same
time, so they are assumed to really be the same 'unit' (called a
phoneme) in our minds and we never get them confused.

Likewise, there are 'well-oiled' rules for when the schwa is dropped
in Hindi that people operate with without really knowing that they are
doing it (unless they notice the difference when singing :-)

Bob

[Yogendra Joshi]

Bob, you have raised a point that was already in my mind, but I left it unmentioned because I felt that the problem being faced was with वर्ण ‍'र' (and similarly other वर्णs, that have the 'अ' vowel sound included in these symbols) that occur somewhere in the 'middle' of a word.

Before I have more comments to make I should clarify that Hindi has descended from Sanskrit and it has adopted the same वर्णमाला (alphabet, as most people would like to call it) as has been used for Sanskrit, with two-three additions. (I have keen interest in Sanskrit, even though I had been professionally a physicist and Physics teacher.) The consonent set of Sanskrit invariably include the vowel sound of अ as their integral parts, अ being, in my opinion, the most 'neutral' vowel, demanding minimum effort and preparation on the part of the articulatory organs. (In Sanskrit, one refers to the specific sound associated with a given वर्ण by using 'कार' as a postfix, e.g., अकार, ऋकार, ककार, रकार etc. The हलन्त representation of a consonent is not a वर्ण and it has to be normally represented, for example, as क्‌, ख्‌ etc. in isoaltion, and also sometimes in a word as part of a संयुक्ताक्षर (example: उड्डयन, खट्वा) . You may be knowing these and other points.) In Sanskrit, one as to use a vowel मात्रा sign to refer to a consonent accompanied by a vowel sound other than that of अ. One is not allowed 
to pronounce a consonent with an accompanying अ sound, if it is written as a हलंत वर्ण. And similarly, if it is written without a हलन्त sign or a मात्रा, you cannot be allowed to pronounce it without the accompanying अ sound.

Here I am purposefully mentioning Sanskrit to bring home an important point. The word योग (and similarly other words like राम, कृष्ण, वेद etc)  is to pronounced य्‌+ओ+ग्‌+अ, no 'less' or 'more' than that. That is it cannot be pronounced as य्‌+ओ+ग्‌ (योग्‌) or as य्‌+ओ+ग्‌+आ (योगा‌). But most a Hindi speaker assigns to it a pronunciation य्‌+ओ+ग्‌. A new breed of Hindi speakers have now also appeared on the scene, who prefer य्‌+ओ+ग्‌+आ. The former does so because Hindi has almost (that is not always) lost the specific sound of अ that is implied in majority of words that end in मात्रा-less वर्णs. For example कल, कमल, चिन्तन. (exceptions: उन्मत्त, अनंत). The 'योगा'-speakers have perhaps learnt the new pronunciation from 'foreigners' who may have come across spellings like YOGA, RAMA, VEDA from roman text of Sanskrit literature, and who may have attempted to clearly incorporate the sound associated with the last A. 

Now is य्‌+ओ+ग् or य्‌+ओ+ग्‌+आ the pronunciation on the lips of all Indians? I guess, no. South Indians, as far as I know, explicitly pronounce the ending vowel sound implied in योग. This is because, unlike Hindi speakers, they are in the habit of doing so in their native languages. Their Sanskrit speech is thus somewhat superior to that of North Indians. (I am a North Indian.) I have a question, "Which pronunciation for योग, and for that matter for other similar words, would you recommend for योग?"

My point is that there are always overtones and local/regional variations in the pronunciation of words of perhaps all languages. But in any event, a standard has to be defined and a document must be based on that standard. Mention of variations or departures could definitely form supplementary information. Take British English itself, I understand that Londeners' or BBC English is regarded as standard European English. Indians follow that and not American English. I have again a question. I think less that 1% English-knowing Indians (numbering nearly 100 millians - almost double the British population!) do not know that the pronunciation of 'of' is approximately 'औव्‌' (in isolation) or 'अव्‌' in a sentence (unemphasised) and not 'औफ़्‌'. But does not a standard dictionary just ignore the last one?

Some Indians pronounce क्षमा as छ्मा and षष्ठी as खष्ठी and so on. But that is considered wrong. A standard has to be set, even if people have speech variations. And Hindi has खड़ी बोली as its standard.

This has turned out to be an unexpectedly long narration. Since a point was raised and since that interested me, I ventured to express my opinion for others to give a thought to. (Closed.) - योगेन्द्र 

2008/11/16 Bob Eaton <pete_de...@hotmail.com>

[Bob Eaton]

Dear Yogendra,
Thanks for elaborating on your point. My comments below.

On Nov 17, 10:31 am, "Yogendra Joshi" <yogendrapjo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> [...]

> Now is य्‌+ओ+ग् or य्‌+ओ+ग्‌+आ the pronunciation on the lips of all Indians?
> I guess, no. South Indians, as far as I know, explicitly pronounce the
> ending vowel sound implied in योग. This is because, unlike Hindi speakers,
> they are in the habit of doing so in their native languages. Their Sanskrit
> speech is thus somewhat superior to that of North Indians.

I don't know that from a linguistic point of view such a value
statement could be made... Perhaps I would just say, "Their speech
more closely approximates the way Sanskrit pronunciation has been
standardized."

> "Which pronunciation for योग, and for that
> matter for other similar words, would you recommend for योग?"

There's no way that I could recommend anything... I only meant to show
what I notice from experience. If there are any graduate students out
there in search of a dissertation topic, perhaps you might go to Delhi
(or I've heard that UP is a good place to hear/learn what is
considered "good Hindi") and ask 100 people how they would pronounce
the word. My guess is that people would read that word as य्‌+ओ+ग्.
But even if they don't, perhaps it would be because of the influences
you mentioned and not from an interpretation of the orthographic
symbols. (so maybe it would be better to use a less ambiguous word).

So my question to you is, when you listen to the news, and when the
announcer says a word that has three consonants followed by a vowel
matra (e.g. /करता/), do they drop the 2nd अ (i.e. [kar.taa]) or not
(i.e. [ka.ra.taa])? It could very well be a hearing problem on my
part, but I'm not the first one to notice it, so...

Or go into a school where the kids are reciting Hindi words and see
what the teacher teaches them. My guess is that (s)he will say
"करता" (as [kar.taa]) fully thinking that (s)he is teaching the kids
the standard.

Notice again that I'm not saying what it should be, but rather what it
seems to be to me.

> Some Indians pronounce क्षमा as छ्मा and षष्ठी as खष्ठी and so on. But that
> is considered wrong. A standard has to be set, even if people have speech
> variations. And Hindi has खड़ी बोली as its standard.

Granted... and so my question is, for those people who consider
themselves to be speaking the standard, do they leave out the 2nd
schwa or not?

Because I get the impression that they leave it out even though they
fully think they are speaking the standard, in which case, we'd have
to say, "Hindi doesn't follow the same pronunciation rules as
Sanskrit. There's nothing (at least from a linguistic perspective)
wrong with that.

Nepali, for example, has dipthongs where Hindi doesn't: e.g. औ is
pronounced in Nepali like an 'o' followed by an 'u' (sorry, I can't
type in IPA on this computer to be more precise) and similarly with ऐ
as an 'a' followed by an 'i'.

That's not *wrong*, per se, but just a different use of the alphabet
than in Sanskrit and Hindi.

Bob