A reading transcription for Hindi

Abstract

In the specimens of non-tone languages given in the current reprint (1967) of The Principles of the International Phonetic Association, prosodic features are rather inadequately dealt with; stress is usually mentioned, but intonation never. The North Indian languages presented there suffer in this way: stress in Bengali is discussed briefly, and some reading conventions are given, but for Hindustani (Urdu) and Oriya stress is simply described as ‘weak and variable’ and is not marked in the texts. Intonation is not discussed at all. This means, in effect, that a learner without direct assistance from a native speaker will be likely, if he attempts to read these specimens aloud, to use the intonation patterns of his mother tongue—to read with English intonation, or French intonation, and so on. We shall not be the first to observe that any attempt to pronounce a foreign language with unacceptable intonation patterns will not succeed, no matter how well articulated the consonant and vowel segments may be.