Re: Sound of 'j' and 'z' in Hindi films and songs

On Jul 22, 5:05 am, UVR <u...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 21, 8:17 am, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





UVR wrote:
so here's one straight
from the horse's mouth:
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/insrot.pdf

Perhaps Afzal Khan saahib would care to explain why, if it is indeed
"Official Policy" to remove the dots from j-dot etc, it appears in
this document alongside the 'nukta-yukta' fa, qa, Gha, Kha?

-UVR.

      Shri UVR-ji,

      What exactly do you expect ?  That the Central Government or
      some State Government/s would issue a Notification or a GR
      (Government Resolution) or even an Ordinance to outlaw the
      use of the dot below certain letters in the D. script ?

      Afzal

Afzal saahib,

You're missing the whole picture.  In focussing on the removal of dots
BELOW certain letters, you are completely and utterly ignoring the
removal of other things -- like the chandrabindu -- by the selfsame
newspapers.

I will make a bold statement here -- these fellows do not care about
correct pronunciation.  They aren't making any kind of exception for
Urdu words and spelling them erroneously out of spite or ill-will.
They're doing it out of rank ignorance.  And the worst part is, they
don't care if they're ignorant -- because their circulation doesn't
suffer as a result of it.

If their misspelling were indeed the result of spite, we should be
able to see them spelling all other words correctly EXCEPT those of
Urdu/Persian/Arabic origin.  But we simply don't see that.  They make
mistakes all around, regardless of whether the word is of Hindi/Urdu/
Sanskrit/Persian/Arabic or English origin.  Here is a selection from
Dainik Bhaskar, Navbharat Times, Dainik Jagaran:

English
1. vesT inDeej -- West Indies
2. TesT seereej -- Test Series
3. main aaph da maich (aaph) -- Man of the Match
4. rijalT -- result
5. eshej -- Ashes

Sanskrit/Hindi
1. pR^iShT -- pR^iShTh
2. andhera -- aNdheraa, and umpteen other examples where chandrabindu
has been removed.  The number of such words rivals and may even dwarf
the number of Urdu misspellings (i.e., removal of dot below
consonants).

More examples should be unnecessary.  The point I'm making is, the
misspelling is not out of malice, it's out of ignorance. Ignorance
which is widespread and extreme, and is expanding by the day.

-UVR.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I tend to agree with UVR, Afzal saab. I stake no claim on being a
linguist. But you can consider it as a layman's take on the whole
thing. What follows is actually series of disjointed thoughts which
may/may not have any bearing on whatever you have said/not said/left
unsaid. Since you and UVR seem to be passionate about this issue I am
attempting to bounce those thoughts off you and him.

The simple explanation for vanishing nukta is probably carelessness.
We need not suspect evilness for what can be explained by mere
stupidity.

There are examples parallel to nukta in Marathi. In my school days
there was a practice of writing an anuswar on certain words like
chandane(n). That practice was officially abolished, even though that
anuswar indicated stress on the last syllable. You can call it
progress in the interest of improving efficiency of the script and
weeding out marginally important practices (in the opinion of the
linguists..)

The reason could be as simple as hassle of carrying 2 different type
faces for each pronunciation. Why go to all that trouble when people
anyway know how to pronounce it? In Marathi there were never different
methods to distinguish between different pronunciations of j , ch , z
people understand it by the use.

Now whether that is a correct practice or attitude is a different
issue altogether. For my mother tounge, the prevailing wisdom is, why
is it that the pronunciation practiced by only 3.5% of the people
should be deemed to be correct? It should be other way round. I bow my
head against this wisdom and mutely witness the correct Marathi in the
newspapers and newsreaders.

The languages must evolve sometimes painfully for the purists, to
survive. I also reiterate what I said elsewhere. The spoken language
was first, the dictionaries and the script followed later. Script is
at best, the closest approximation of the phonetic sound and there
could be many instances where the script falls short of the
representation of the sound. Will there be a sufficient script
representation of “ooiiii maw” ever capture the rainbow of sound that
every second gav ki gori says at the drop of hat in the 60s film?

I also notice that the more vibrant a language more tolerant it is. Or
is it the other way? Many people suspect that languages like Urdu or
Sanskrut (yes we pronounce it that way) are victims of their own
demand on purity of diction and script. English is equally comfortable
with center or centre and does not shudder at ain't. It merely says,
‘I am like that only’ and flourishes. Just the other day I was reading
Forest Gump and the whole book is written in a language and spellings
from the POV of a mentally challenged person. It makes a curious kind
of sense to read it that way.

So request you to keep on pointing the mistakes. That is welcome. But
do give allowance for the urdu challenged. Who knows, you may start
seeing some sense in some of the wrong transliterations.


regards,

Sunil
.

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