Vowel Phonemes in Hindi

Abstract

An analysis of the present day Hindi, as spoken in the northern part of India, brings to light the fact that this language has at least twenty vowel phonemes, and not simply thirteen. Twelve of these twenty vowel phonemes are oral while eight of them are nasalized. Eighteen of them are pure vowels (monophthongs) while two of them are diphthongs. Two of the thirteen vowels included in the current list of alphabet have given place to two consonants with the result that they have ceased to exist. Most of these vowel phonemes occur in all the three positions, namely initial, medial and final, in the Hindi words.

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