A rather unpolished piece this time, as I have been trying to understand a phonological feature of Bihari Hindi. By 'Bihari Hindi', I mean the form of Hindi spoken in Bihar, an eastern Indian state. Bihari Hindi is fairly close to 'Standard' Hindi but contains some features that are markedly different from the 'Standard'. For example, the first person singular pronoun in Hindi is 'main', whilst in Bihari Hindi, it is 'ham'. In Standard Hindi, 'ham' means 'we', the first person plural pronoun.
Hindi:
Main jā rahā hoon
I am going
Ham jā rahe hain
We are going
Bihari Hindi:
Ham jā rahe hain
I am going
Ham jā rahe hain
We are going
It is important to note that in Bihari Hindi it is not uncommon to substitute 'ham' with 'ham sab' (we all) or 'ham log' (we all) to indicate plural. Another interesting feature of Bihari Hindi is that it replaces voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /ʃ/ with voiceless alveolar fricative /s/. In simpler terms, the Hindi word 'shānti' (peace) would be pronounced as 'sānti' in Bihari Hindi.
In this piece, I focus on a devoicing phenomenon in Bihari Hindi for which I cannot find any explanation. In certain words of Bihari Hindi, the variant of Hindi spoken in Bihar, the sounds /d/ (retroflex voiced alveolar plosive) and /d/ (voiced dental/alveolar plosive) become voiceless. I am listing this words in the following:
(1) dandā – dantā
Both in Standard Hindi and Bihari Hindi, 'danda' means 'stick'. In Bihari Hindi, the retroflex sound gets devoiced as follows:
dandā = dantā
I have been trying to understand for some time why the retroflex sound gets devoiced in this word. Other words from Hindi with similar phonological cluster do not exhibit this phenomenon. These words are as follows.
addā (place of meeting for illegal activities)
gaddhā (pit)
caddhā (a common Indian surname)
The closest example that I can think of is the word andā (egg) which does not become antā* in Bihari Hindi.
(2) madad – madat
Both in Standard Hindi and Bihari Hindi, madad means 'help'. In Bihari Hindi, the voiced dental/alveolar plosive /d/ is realised as voiceless dental/alveolar plosive /t/. As opposed to the previous example, these consonants are in word final position.
Maybe madat is related to the Standard Hindi word ādat (habit) which is realised in the same manner in Bihari Hindi.
These examples have running in my mind, but I have not been able to find an explanation (phonological or sociophonetic) for this phenomenon. If you have any answers, please do write to me.
Note: I apologise for the amateur-looking notations in this post. It is largely due to the lack of such elements in this website.
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