Comment by crossroadsguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crossroadsguy | Hacker News Reader

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No, we have both those sounds and clear indication on where and how those sounds are made. In our case it's not really confusing. When someone learns English, like I did, there is no way to know what sound will occur where other than just sucking it up as "well, you will know it when you hear it and remember that or get used to speaking like that".

"avtar" (w; we would have totally spelled it "Awatar" - I see you Cameron) and "vikas" (v; something our PM got us loads of) have two distinct व sounds and it is phonetic and we don't have to memorise it when we make these sounds. The problem is English keeps coming to us over the years while we take our sweet time in getting used to this pronunciation and spelling monstrosity. Another reason could be, not everyone went to schools where English with strict pronunciation was a focus or even a nudge.

This was to your

> I don’t know why

And I don't know where you are from but if you are from the "English west", I am pretty sure you mispronounce "Gandhi" like "Gendi" or "Geyndii" and been doing it for decades without bothering to even learn it. "I don't know why" :)

I recognise the frustration in this comment and it’s not fair that Indians were singled out, especially because of how few English speakers speak native Indian dialects

What’s interesting about the comment though is that to the native English speaking ear the ‘v’ in ‘Avatar’ is definitely not pronounced ‘w’. I would say this confusion points to a difference in how the sounds are differentiated in the native dialects. Similar (but to a lesser degree) to how a native English speaker would struggle to ‘hear’ sounds in a tonal language that they didn’t speak natively

I apologise, I didn’t mean to single us out. I’m a native Tamil speaking Indian raised in Chennai. I used to make the v w switch as a child and someone corrected me. Ever since then, I notice others making it and considered it peculiar and interesting. I never attributed it to distinct ‘va’ sounds in our local languages but just figured we learned English incorrectly.

Hey, I was being playfully terse but I should have been more polite. But I did assume you were from the "English west" and now that you are not I specifically take my words about pronouncing "Gandhi" back :D

PS. Tamil is my second most favourite "not known by me" Indian language for the way it sounds, especially in old songs and some new songs (and yes, I don't understand a single word of it).

Hah all cool. Tamil is a hard language. I have both Tamil parents and my mum failed so badly at Tamil in school- she insisted that I take Hindi in school. But none of us speak it, so I can read and write Hindi but can’t speak it well. I speak Tamil but can’t read or write a word. Also I essentially know madras Tamil which is about the worst version of it. By Tamil standards, I have the equivalent of a truckers mouth. I know the language the works well at a TASMAC wine shop.

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