Hindi pronunciation irregularities

[Daniel]

Its tricky.   I think all the tips presented at the beginning of this threat are very accurate, and to go by any of them could only help the learner.

[ber]

I've tought of other examples of words for which consonant clusters are splitted because "it would be too difficult to pronounce otherwise" : ख़त्म is pronounced /ख़तम/, ज़ख़्म is pronounced ज़ख़म, ख़्याल is pronounced /ख़याल/ (but this last one has been adopted widely even when written).
In the "various exceptions" category, I'd add बहुत, which is often pronounced /बोहुत/.

[panjabigator]

I've tought of other examples of words for which consonant clusters are splitted because "it would be too difficult to pronounce otherwise" : ख़त्म is pronounced /ख़तम/, ज़ख़्म is pronounced ज़ख़म, ख़्याल is pronounced /ख़याल/ (but this last one has been adopted widely even when written).
In the "various exceptions" category, I'd add बहुत, which is often pronounced /बोहुत/.

Every region has their own way of pronouncing things.  I think punjabi's alot of times pronounce half sounds as full ones.  ex:  Vaqt becomes vaqat,

[Daniel]

Well, all of the words you have mentioned here, as I am sure you have noticed, are arabic.  Hindi and sanskrit are much more rythmic langauges than Arabic is so the natural tendancy is to put in vowels for CV alternation.  This is especially prevalant in songs, where you will notice that many arabic words will have extra vowels added to conform with indian aesthetics. 

[ber]

Well, all of the words you have mentioned here, as I am sure you have noticed, are arabic.  Hindi and sanskrit are much more rythmic langauges than Arabic is so the natural tendancy is to put in vowels for CV alternation.  This is especially prevalant in songs, where you will notice that many arabic words will have extra vowels added to conform with indian aesthetics. 

I agree with you on what you said about Hindi but I thought it wasn't true for Sanskrit. For me impressive consonant clusters are one of the way to identify Hindi words that come from Sanskrit. For example राष्ट्र, स्वास्थ्य or प्रश्न.

[bollyscot]

I notice Rupert Snell's books fail to state that "vah" is pronounced "vo" and "yah" as "ye"; the Colloquial Hindi makes this point early on.  Are the former pronunciations archaic, or dialectal?

I asked a local Hindi speaker about this recently, and she pronounced "vah" as "vaha" which has only further confused the issue for me!

[bollyscot]

ber wrote:

- Isolated ह
When ह is preceded by an अ, this अ is pronounced /ए/. Examples : सुबह -> /सुबेह/, रहना -> /रेहना/, गहराई -> /गेहराई/. It seems there are exceptions, like रहना when used as an auxiliary for the present and past progressive tenses, यहाँ, कहाँ, तरह, etc.

__________
I was picking up on the रहना thing myself lately.  I asked and was told that it is the /आ/ following the /ह/ that stops the vowel change.  Hence:

रहना : <rahna> but /rehna/

रहा: <rahaa> and /rahaa/

[birdcall]

Shouldn't the Arabic-derived word Taswiir also be pronounced Taswiir in Hindi, as opposed to Tasviir (which I hear people say) since the Sa and the Va are conjuncted together in the Devanagari script? The word "Swaast" has this same conjunct and the Va is pronounced as a Wa.

Another question: is the letter Va always pronounced as a W at the end of words, or only in words that end in -aaw like "chunaaw" (choice) and "gaanw/gaaon" (village)? Would "sambhav" (possible) end in a V or W?