effects of hindI accentmmmmmmmmm ^ M+ C- 1683

You will notice the following quirks in the Sanskrit spoken by people from NW india. Not all of them are grammatically incorrect.

(1) Some people replace the e at the start of a word with ye.

This is common in Hindi, but very bad Sanskrit. Because eSAm means "of these" and yeSAm means "the ones whose".

(2) Most people will erase the final aH or a of a word.

This is fine when you speak Hindi, but it's a no-go in Sanskrit, first because it can get you misunderstood, and second because it makes your verses sound like prose.

(3) The v of Sanskrit is pronounced as English W before and after consonants, and as Hindi v elsewhere.

This is not incorrect. It is also not compulsory. Do that if you like, or pronounce that letter like English W everywhere, or like Hindi v everywhere. See also pronunciation of v .

(4) Some people mispronounce the Sanskrit ai au as if they were Hindi ai au.

That one is utter blasphemy. If anyone does that in my class, I make them say aloud "eye cow" in English a hundred and eight times.

(5) The r will be tapped in some positions, and rolled in others.

So rAm will have a rolled R, because here r starts a word, but param will have a tapped R, because the r is between two vowels.

No one knows if this is incorrect or not, but you will hear it often. Most veda reciters use the tapped r only.

Anyway, feel free to use a rolled r if it is easier to say for you. It might be incorrect technically, but it will not cause misunderstandings.

People from other regions of India have other quirks. For instance, Bengali people will more often than not mispronounce v as b. They will say bhogobAn (with short 'o') for bhagavAn. That b is good Bengali but bad Sanskrit. The short o sound is good Bengali, and very likely to be good Sanskrit too.

h plus echo in chantingmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1685

When chanting or singing verses or sUtras, the H sound that is before a pause MUST be replaced with an h plus echo .

This is against pANini, who said that an H sound before pause must be like an English H sound . Yet, if you obey pANini in this point, you are crazy. We have been taught to chant that way since forever, and we'll continue doing that, TYVM, and damn the apANinIyanM na prayujyeta thing.

Particularly, not doing this when chanting anything from the veda is sacrilegous. So if you see this in writing --

oM zAntizH zAntizH zAntiH

you MUST chant it as --

oMzAntizzAntizzAntihIIII

Transgressors will be summarily prosecuted, found guilty, and executed, not necessarily in this order.

This applies only to the H sound that is before pause. You are NOT allowed to replace the first z of onM namazH zivAya (which is a mantra) with h plus echo . Not even if your yoga teacher taught you to do that.

anusvAra soundmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1686

Nowadays, the anusvAra sound is mostly pronounced as a slightly lengthened m (when chanting the bhg and other holy non- vedic texts, some people lengthen it a lot, the longer it is the holier it sounds).

Examples.

The word saMskRtam will usually be pronounced as if it were sammskRtam,

siMhaH as simmhahA,

saMyamya as sammyamya.

For reasons that are quite long to explain, we can be very sure that this pronunciation of the anusvAra sound as mm is relatively recent, and that when pANini said anusvAra, he did not mean an mm sound said with lips completely closed.

Yet, nowadays, no one will ever say that you are wrong if you use the mm pronunciation for every M letter that is in front of y r l v z S s h. Also, remember this --

You should apply yaronu to every M letter that is before a Jay.

So, you should always pronounce samMpUrNam as sampUrNam, no matter if it is spelled samMpUrNam or sampUrNam.

An M letter in any other position, that is, before a pause or a vowel, is just a mispelling for the consonant m and you must pronounce it as m.

So, when the Sanskrit Wikipedia spells

svagRhaM ayodhyAM pratyavartata,

you MUST read that aloud with two ordinary m, namely as

svagRhamayodhyAmpratyavartata "he went back to ayodhyA his hometown".

It is important to remember that in the pANini rules, the word anusvAra means a particular sound, while most people nowadays take the word anusvAra to mean "any sound that is spelled with the letter topdot, no matter if in Sanskrit or Hindi". This misunderstanding causes lots of confusion, pain, and bad chanting.

H soundmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1687

The sound of the Sanskrit letter H (uppercased) is the same sound of English H. It is not the same as the h sound , so please pay attention to case.

pANini calls it visarjaNIya, and other grammarians visarga. According to the descriptions of ancient grammarians, it is an unvoiced sound. It is technically described here --

unvoiced glottal fricative -- Wikipedia

and described way better here --

How to pronounce English /h/ (aitch)

Yet, in modern India, it is rarely pronounced like that. It is usually pronounced with some constriction of the pharynx, or like a K, or like the Hindi h. Most often, it sounds like h plus echo .

In Indian alphabets, the sound H is written with a dotdot.

Many people always replace every written H letter with an h plus echo . Doing that is grammatically incorrect, but ninety percent of Sanskrit users believe it is the only correct way, and you will hear it everywhere, so be warned.

See also h plus echo in chanting .

jihvAmUlIya soundmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1688

The jihvAmUlIya ("tonguerootish") sound is a variant of the H sound. It is allowed by rule kupvoKkaFpauca before k and kh that are not followed by S.

It is a hissy sound made by forcing air between the tongue put in k-position, and the palate.

It is a "velar fricative", and it is voiceless. This description applies --

Voiceless velar fricative

The sound is near the "ch" of the German word "Ich", the"ch" of Scottish "loch", and most variants of the Spanish "j", excluding however the North Spain variant, which is much too gargly.

Sometimes, I write the K sound as K in this website, but no one else does that. Being a free variant, it is invariably written with the letter H -- except in editions of pANini, where it is written with some special letter in the rule kupvoKkaFpauca.

upadhmAnIya soundmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1689

The F (or upadhmAnIya "blowing sound"), technically a Wikipedia on Voiceless bilabial fricative, is a variant of the H sound.

It is allowed by rule kupvoKkaFpauca before p and ph.

It is a hissy sound made by forcing air between the lips (NOT between lower lip and upper teeth, like English F). It sounds sort of like the "f" of the German word "Pferd".

Sometimes I write this sound as F in this website, but no one else does that. It is always written with the letter H. Whenever you see the letter H, and it is before p ph, you may pronounce that H letter either as H or as F, your choice. Personally I use F because I find it easier to say.

You can hear a F in this verse, just before the word pArtha --

sacchabdaFpArthayucyate

If you just hear a small pause at that point, that's fine. I can hear the F sound, but it is real weak hiss, and some people can't hear it. The kid has been well taught, and so has Obi Wan.