‘Anuswar’ Woes
On botched pronunciation of some Hindi words with anuswar and anunasika
One of the best Hindi music albums from the last year (2021) is Meenakshi Sundareshwar, by Justin Prabhakaran. This album contains a beautiful song titled Tu yaheen hai, performed by singers Madhushree and Abhay Jodhpurkar. They both did a splendid job with the song, but one thing that makes me cringe a little every time I listen to this song is how Madhushree pronounces the word यहीं (yaheen) as यही (yahee).
I am not a purist with linguistic matters, or otherwise. But in this case, the mispronounced word also has a meaning. The line goes like this: Tu yaheen hai, which literally translates to 'You are here only'. The song appears in the movie when both protagonists — from a recently married couple — are living in different cities and they are missing each other. On one such night of separation, they sing this song telling themselves that Ye doori hai dil ka wahem, which means the distance (between us) is a mere illusion. In that context, they say Tu yaheen hai, suggesting that even if you are physically far away from me, you are here with me in spirit. Madhushree however, sings the opening line as Tu yahee hai, which literally means 'You are the one'. Now this doesn't go with the theme of the song and it always throw me off.
I find this category of mispronunciation to be quite common, especially with new singers, where they ignore what's called अनुनासिक (anunasik) in Hindi and Sanskrit.
What is anunasik?
The अनुनासिक is different than the more commonly known अनुस्वार (anuswar). To understand what अनुनासिक is, and how it’s different than अनुस्वार, consider the following two words, their pronunciations (within brackets), and their meanings:
हंस (hans): swan
हँस (hans): smile (As in 'Hans mat pagli pyaar ho jaayega'.)
The first word contains an अनुस्वार which is denoted by a dot at the top of the letter. This dot has a hard nasal sound, and you have to use your tongue as well to pronounce it — which technically makes अनुस्वार a consonant. The second word also has a nasal sound, but unlike अनुस्वार, its sound is very subtle. It’s called अनुनासिक which is denoted by a different sign: a dot clasped by a semi-circle. The अनुनासिक is technically a vowel because of the way it is pronounced1.
In English, both sounds are denoted by the same letter ‘n’, which could be a source of confusion for non-Hindi speakers.
Here are some other examples where the word contains an अनुनासिक: माँ (maan), पाँच (paanch), and साँस (saans). Notice how in all of these words, the n is a soft nasal sound.
And some examples of words which contain अनुस्वार: कंधा (kandha), गंगा (ganga), पतंग (patang), and नींद (neend).
Oftentimes I hear people ignoring the अनुनासिक from words such as माँ (maan), and आँखें (aankhein) which interestingly contains both अनुनासिक and अनुस्वार!
One other nice song that I can't fully enjoy is because of a series of mispronunciations by the singer Monali Thakur. Listen to this song and see if you can identify some examples of this:
She says सवार (sawaar) instead of सँवार (sanwar). In this case again, both of those words have meanings: सवार means a rider (such as horse rider) and सँवार means to primp. In the same song, she sings कोयले (koyale), which means coal, instead of कोयलें (koyalein) which means a cuckoo — and I throw up in my mouth a little every time I hear that! (Even the song is officially titled as Sawaar loon, without the n, so I guess it’s unfair to blame the singer completely for this!)
To be fair, there's perhaps some inconsistency in how अनुनासिक is not always denoted by the usual sign (a dot with a semi-circle), but sometimes it's just shown with a dot on the top of the word. Yaheen is such example. It has that soft nasal sound, so it contains अनुनासिक but you will almost always see it spelled as यहीं (as I did in my post above!) Sometimes, the sign for अनुनासिक is entirely skipped! An example of this is the word 'neenv' which also has a soft nasal sound but we never see it spelled with an अनुनासिक; it’s either spelled as नींव or नीव, both of which are incorrect, I think. Do you know what's the reason behind this apparent inconsistency?
https://leverageedu.com/blog/hi/anuswar-in-hindi/