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| sjappie | Wednesday 29th of June 2005 05:42:44 AM |
| Bengali Alphabet - [img]http://sjappie.cambridgelaan.nl/renderings/alphabet.gif[/img] This is the bengali alphabet. The phonetic descriptions I put below them are not in line with any official transliteration scheme. I put accents to distinguish between 'soft' (retroflex) and 'hard' (dental) t's and d's. To know the order of the alphabet is essential if you want to use a dictionary. Fortunately, the bengali alphabet is built up in a very logical way (as opposed to the latin alphabet). 1. We start with the vowels. They are ordered by the place in your mouth where the sound is produced. Therefore we start with the 'a' (near the throat) and end with the 'o' at your lips. 2. For the consonants, places in a 5 X 5 matrix, we follow the same scheme as with the vowels. We start with the 'k' and end with the 'm'. Besides, the letters are ordered in the columns of the matrix in the following manner: 1. hard sound 2. aspirated hard sound (with h behind it) 3. soft sound 4. aspirated soft sound 5. extended sound (With these sounds your larynx gets involved. See for example the letter n, to see what I mean). There are a few consonants left that do not really fit into this system. First j and y, then r and l (produced by moving your tongue) and the s sounds, and finally the h which is just air flowing uninterruptedly. This was a quick and informal explanation of the alphabet. For a more systematic and scientific one, you can consult Raddice’s teach yourself Bengali, for example. | |
| Sundara | Thursday 30th of June 2005 03:14:57 AM |
| Bengali alphabet - In the first row, 8th character from the left, you have labeled "e" which most will take to be pronounced as "ay". This is correct, however, this character also represents the sound "ae" prnounced like the "a" in "cat". In the second row of your chart, where you have labeled "ng"- this letter is "jhaw", (aspirated jaw) not "ng". It appears correctly in the fourth row, fourth character from the left. Also, where you have labeled each consonant character with a "k" or a "kh" and so on, it should be explained that each character may make three sounds: 1)The sound of the consonant itself, such as "k" or an aspirated k, "kh". 2) The inherent sound of the consonant plus the sound "aw" (as the "o" in the British "hot"). So, "k" and "kh" are also pronounced "kaw" and "khaw" respectively. When reciting the alphabet, it is most often pronounced with these sounds, "kaw, khaw, gaw, ghaw" etc. 3) Another inherent sound is "o". As in #2, above, then, the "k" and "kh" may be pronounced "ko" and "kho". The excpetions are, the "ng" characters found at the end of the "k" and "c" lines. The three "s" sounds you have listed are actually (in order), first "shaw", then a special form of "shaw" which is called "paytkutta shaw" and, lastly "saw". The "h" sound may be, as you said, aspirated, though that pure aspiration sound is generally reserved for the character called "visarga", represented in your chart as the last character in the second row (a circle over another circle and labeled as "h"). | |
