>>This is the kind of thing I am looking for: a 'special composite matra' to write a new sound in Hindi, imported from English.
>>I don't believe it exists. But what is your goal? Trying to give an idea of how English is spoken to Hindi readers? I'm not sure a new or very rare character would really >>help.
My goal is to accurately transcribe English words such as 'get', 'bed' etc. into Hindi. Just as for Bengali a special character can be used to represent a sound not present in the language, similarly there should be (hopefully) a special character for this English sound.
Also are there any words in Hindi that use the ऎ DEVANAGARI LETTER SHORT E or its corresponding diacritic mark ॆ? I personally have never come across one. Maybe this diacritic gives the sound of the "e" in bed or led?
----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick Andries
To: Aman Chawla
Cc: Unicode
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 7:10 PM
Subject: Re: Hindi characters for transcribing the sound "e"
Aman Chawla wrote:
Thanks for the response Patrick. I understand your last sentence: the closest you can come to /&eps;/ is using ै
Yes, and I believe there is variability in the pronounciation of this grapheme within Hindi speakers. As mentioned, some authors say it is a /&eps;/ (open), some say it is a diphtong (such as English "rail"). There is nothing strange about this.
Compare the pronounciation given on these two different sites : http://www.avashy.com/script/greendemo1.html (the woman pronounces the letter in isolation differently from the man, but both say /&eps;/ in aisâ) and the diphtong produced here http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jishnu/101/alphabet/sounds/018ei.wav (found on http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/jishnu/101/alphabet/default.asp?section=0).
You say it is /ae/ (I take it) as in "shall", this is corroborated by William Bright (op. cit), but Ohala writes in her article that /ae/ only occurs in English loan words such as "bat" (cricket bat)...
Knowing quite well French phonology and its own diversity, I would assume the same applies to Hindi: the same letters are pronounced differently in different regions or even social classes.
However, in the response given to the following FAQ: http://www.unicode.org/unicode/faq/indic.html#13 you will find this sentence: "This zophola_aa can be seen as a special "composite" matra to write a new Bengali sound, imported from English."
This is the kind of thing I am looking for: a 'special composite matra' to write a new sound in Hindi, imported from English.
I don't believe it exists. But what is your goal? Trying to give an idea of how English is spoken to Hindi readers? I'm not sure a new or very rare character would really help.
Mark Davis suggests that: "I just checked with the ICU online demo at http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/tr , and "e" is transliterated as U+090E "ऎ" DEVANAGARI LETTER SHORT E*. "
One has to distinguish between transcription and transliteration. A transliteration only allows one to preserve the original spelling in the absence of the original alphabet. It does not indicate how this letter should be pronounced (see the various pronounciation of the English "e" in "we", "red", "the", "new", "bottle/some", "clerk") and this was your original question "how do I represent in Devanâgarî the English SOUND found in "red", "bed". A transliteration is of no help, a transcription is.
Patrick A.
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