 Good morning. Good morning sir. Are you all right? Yes sir. Comfortable? Yes sir. Lovely. Okay, we will continue talking about vowel sounds in natural languages. So far I hope you remember. We have seen and we have said that all vowel sounds are oral, voiced and unobstructed. What are they? All vowel sounds are? Oral, voiced, unobstructed. Once again everybody please. All vowel sounds are oral, voiced, unobstructed. Yet one vowel sound differs from another in terms of the following parameters. What are they? Either they are front or back. Either they are open or closed or the other way round. Closed or open. Or they are rounded or unrounded. Once again how does one vowel differ from another? They are either front or back. Or they are closed or open. Or rounded or unrounded. Very simple. And we saw how some vowels are described. We described them with reference to an imaginary area called vowel trapezium. You can describe you know yesterday I gave you examples from English. But it will be a good idea if you describe some vowels from your mother tongue. Say for instance today I will try telling you about you know for about a few minutes. Four or five minutes. You know and the beauty is you do not have to know the language. You do not have to say look I do not know Telugu. How can I describe the vowels of Telugu? You hear and you apply these criteria. You hear and you apply other criteria and describe other levels of the structure of the language. As far as sound is concerned you hear it and you describe whether it is vowel or it is something else. Whether it is a front vowel or it is something else. Whether it is a rounded vowel or it is something else. You do not have to know Telugu or Tamil or Hindi or Maitli to do that. It is an application. It is the application of scientific principles to natural data. No matter where you apply you get the same results. So I will do it from my mother tongue and I will expect you to do it back in your hostel. It will not take you more than as I see 10 minutes. Maybe you are new. It might take you about 11 minutes or let us say 11 and a half. Definitely not more than 15 minutes. I can bet with you. If anybody feels that it takes longer than 15 minutes please tell me. So please watch me. Let us draw the vowel trapezium first. Description of vowel sounds. Once again you know why am I doing this. I am trying to tell you that these principles can be applied to any language. It is not that they are designed only for English or Sanskrit or French or Latin. Any language be it a tribal language, be it Sanskrit, be it Latin, be it Vietnamese does not matter. This is how we go about. Let us draw a vowel trapezium first. Somewhere on your notebook on one side please draw the trapezium. This is the imaginary area from where phoneticians claim we produce all vowel sounds. What shall we call this parameter? Front and therefore this is back and if this is closed then this is open or strictly speaking it should have been opened but all terminology is not always logical. It has implications. This is half closed and this is half open. Once again there is arbitrariness you know. What is half closed? Automatically should become half open. But you know rather than say A, B, C, D we describe it in this manner. This is central. This is central. Now let us describe the vowel some maithili. Maithili is a language like Bengali like Assamese like Uria. It has spoken in the plains of Bihar and Nepal until about 1831, 32. Let us say until about 1830s the plains of Mithila which is now divided between Nepal and India were all in India. But when the British caught some hills and hills stations like Shimla in northwestern India then in bargain they gave some plain tracks to the king of Nepal. So a good part of what we today call Mithilanchal or near Gorakhpur, Bhujapuri speaking area you know an entire good paddy growing rice growing chunk went to Nepal and Nepal gladly gave them about 400 miles of Himalayan hills which include Dharadun, Masuri, Shimla, Dalhousie, Dharmshala. Have you ever been to any of these places for trekking in the Himalayas? How many? Just let me see. It has nothing to do with linguistics. Wonderful. Tell your classmates about. I am sure you enjoyed it, didn't you? It is a great experience you know. You are face to face with the best that nature can give you when you trek in those areas anyway. So you know that part is now the Mithili speaking part which where we traditionally believed Sita was discovered, Rama was married etc. etc. So that part is now divided between India and Nepal but that is political boundary. People speak the same language as Punjabi is spoken in Pakistan and India as Bangla is spoken in Bangladesh and India similarly Mithili is spoken in Nepal and India. I am describing some vowel sounds from Mithili language. Let us begin here. You know unlike English or standard British English in many Indian languages vowel sounds do not come from extremes. What is the extreme? Very close to front, very close to back or very highly open, not like that. They come mostly come from main peripheral area. That is why we do not say na na. Do we say na na? We say na na. What is the Telugu word for father? Do you say na na? Those who go to English medium school they say like that. They say bagunara. That is English. In Telugu we say bagunara. Our vowels are shorter, relatively short. They are produced from one central periphery. Let us begin here somewhere. The symbol is what is this? What does it represent? You have the chart. What sound is this? What is the description? How do we describe it? We describe and this can be the template for you as well when you describe the sounds of Telugu or Malayalam or whatever language. Let us now describe. As in, as in, that will become English. As in, I am again writing it within phonetic transcription. Because you do not know, monthly, so to be respectful to you, to respect your right to know, I am giving you additional information, translation in English and translation in linguistics is always given within quotes because there can be more than one translation. So, on the means food grains or food grains. How do we describe it? Is it front or back? What is it? Please speak up. Central. Everybody please. Is it front or back? It is central. Let us write. Central. Is it open or closed? Let us say between half closed and half open. Is it rounded or unrounded? Unrounded, obviously. As a, as a thumb rule, only back vowels are rounded and not all back vowels again. Back half open or half closed, closed, those vowels are rounded in most languages of the world. So, what is the phonetic description of this vowel sound? We have said a, as in under, which means food grains and this is central between half closed and half open and unrounded. Let us go to the next. Let us describe it. Next we will take up here, somewhere, somewhere here. The symbol is, mark please. I am not putting a length marker here because our vowels are, vowels in many Indian languages are not as long as they are in English. So, if you have to indicate extra length, then you can add those two dots, colon. Otherwise, just plain a. How shall we describe it? Let us first give you the example. A, as in. What is this word? We will write the meaning within quotes, mango. Perhaps the best fruit in the world. How do we write it? Can you describe it? Front or back? Come on, please. Central, right? Correct, right in the central. Central, close or open? Almost open. We can say between half closed and half open but near open. To avoid that, I am just going to say open. Right? Rounded or unrounded? Unrounded. Let us look at the next. Next is somewhere here. The symbol is, do not put a length marker. What is this? What is this word? In R. English meaning is, well, how shall we describe it? Front or back? Come on, please. Hurry up. Front or back? Front. Okay? Please write front. Open or close? Or we will say half closed because it is somewhere here. Close would mean here. Correct? Because it is so close to half closed, we will say half closed. Right? Front half closed. Rounded or unrounded? Unrounded. Correct? Let us go to the next. There is a long counterpart of this sound and it is somewhere here, a little above E with a length marker. Okay? So, for example, let us say, mark the symbol. I have not told you anything about this symbol. I will tell you later in the next class where at the moment, write it this way. It indicates not the, this is the dental mark and therefore it indicates the as in, you know, Tathadadha. So, this is Eid. What is this? Eid. Not so long in our language. I am under the influence of English. I am making it Eid. It is not Eid. It is Eid. What is it? Eid. Eid. You know, the meaning in English will roughly be a festival. Many people believe Eid is a festival which Muslims celebrate. Eid is the Arabic name for any festival. Eid means festival. Anyone from you in Hyderabad? Anyone here from Hyderabad? Anyone from among you? In the Telugu of Hyderabad, any festival is Eid. You know, I studied there for ten years and I was first surprised when my landlord says, I thought Eid is coming. Holy was coming. So, I thought, no, Eid is coming. Then I realized that Eid is the Arabic word. Just as in English we say, festival is approaching. So, you know, Eid is the Arabic word for festival and Muslims have a variety of Eids. There are all kinds of Bakrid where the sacrifice goes. So, Eid, a festival. How do we describe it? Look at it there. Is it front or back? Please. Front or back. You will be guilty of murder of a teacher if you do not respond. You know, I will commit suicide and leave a note saying, my B.Tech students killed me by remaining silent. Front or back? Front. Okay. Closed or open? Closed. We can say in this case, actually if you want to be accurate, if you want to be accurate and you should be accurate, please write. Between half closed and closed, but closer to? Closed. Please write. But for the sake, because I am lazy, I have only written closed. Front closed. Rounded or unrounded? Unrounded. Unrounded. Let us look at next. Just as you have EE, you know, in many Indian languages, we have OU. Right? So, here is somewhere, here is, without the length marker, we have O. Okay? O as in, O as in, let us say, Ullu, this thing. Ullu. The bird owl. The wisest of the birds who can see even at night, like many B.Techs. Owl. Is it front or back? Everybody, please. Back. Back. Is it front or back? Back. Right. Lovely. Great. Back. Open or closed? Half closed. Rounded or unrounded? Rounded. Rounded. Lovely. You guys are angels. God bless you. Okay? Let us take the long counterpart, here, somewhere here, with a length marker, OU. OU as in, basically we have a word for this, as in. Can you read what this is? OU. The English meaning is owl. How shall we describe it? Front or back? Back. Back. Closed or open? Between half closed and closed, but closer to? Close. Rounded or unrounded? Rounded. Back. Closed. Rounded. Okay? Like this, we can go on. To save time, I am not describing other hovels of monthly. We will talk about them maybe later, once again. But it will be a good idea for you to attempt describing at least some hovels from Telugu or from whatever you think is your mother tongue, except English. Okay? But if English is your mother tongue, then describe it the way you speak English, not the way British English is spoken. How many people are going to do it? Okay? Anyone else please? I want all hands up, please. Sorry? Describe some hovels from your mother tongue. Please write the assignment. Please write the thank you. So, two people, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, only ten, eleven or you said twelve. Everybody please raise your hands. Who wants to do it? Now please record them. Okay? Lovely. Great. Do it. You see, some of these things are learned best by doing. No matter how many times I tell you, you will understand it easily, forget it more easily. Okay? The best way is for you to do it yourself. Okay? In the next fifteen or sixteen minutes, let's move forward. Do you have any questions so far? Write. I am today talking, going to talk about another class of hovels. Please write, which is called dip thongs. See the spelling on the screen and write it. Okay? We can keep this. I am going to talk about another class of dip thongs, sorry, hovel sounds, which are called dip thongs. In other words, I am trying to tell you that there are two kinds of hovel sounds. Hovel sounds can be classified into two kinds. One is monop thongs, single explosion. A, O, A, O, etc. But there are some other hovel sounds where you have two explosions and therefore they are called dip thongs. You have I, O, I. Okay? In many Indian languages also we have dip thongs. English has lots of dip thongs. English has about eight. You know when you have a hovel sound like I as in kite. Okay? Or O as in cow, mouse. Okay? So you know English has about, English has eight dip thongs as many as. But even in our languages, Indian languages, we have two or three. In my mother tongue we have I, O. I think in Telugu also you have I, O and some other sounds. So they are phoneticians, you know acoustic phoneticians call them either monop thongs or call them the other kind of hovels which take two explosions or call dip thongs. There is another way of looking at it. You can also call them pure hovels. What is hovel? A hovel is a sound produced without obstruction. Okay? But when you have a dip thong, when you have two hovel sounds together then in between there is a very, there is a very tiny, you know, an absolutely fleeting moment of change over. Something like, not exactly but something like stop. Okay? Something like a very nano nano nano second pause perhaps and you move over. Anyway it is not one explosion only. So some people describe it the monop thongs as pure hovels. Okay? And dip thongs as glides. So these are glides or dip thongs and these are monop thongs or pure hovels. The idea is when you produce a glide your tongue moves from one position to another. One position to the other. When you say for instance when you produce a word like this, what is this? Kite. In English it is not kite. In English it is kite. What is it? It's a long and lengthy. It's a slow and lengthy hovel. It's kite. What is it? Kite. Okay? So underneath, you know, you have this thing. This is the hovel. You have a junction of two hovels. Now what do you do? Your tongue starts moving here and goes right up to here to produce eye. Therefore some people call it glide because the tongue glides from one position to the other position. In the production of kite tongue glides from central open unrounded position to front half close unrounded position. But if it is cow instead of kite, let us say it is cow. How shall we transcribe it? Please transcribe it on your notebook and then compare with me. Don't look at the board until I tell you. This is cow. Is your transcription correct? Everybody please. Yes sir. That is great. Now in this case, the movement is here this way. Movement is from A to O. In other words, the movement is from central open or close to open unrounded to back half closed rounded. It glides from this position to that position. There can be a different glide as well. You can have a glide from this position to this position or any other position. Theoretically, there is no restriction. But in real life, in languages like English which have too many hovels, you see that there is a glide or there is a dip tongue of this kind. So ear as in here, near, queer, dear, fear. What happens is, let us say here. Can you transcribe it please? Ra is optional at this position in English. Here. Now what happens is in this case, the tongue glides from front closed unrounded position to central near half closed unrounded position. You can have another kind of glide. You can have from here to here as in poor, tour, sure. Let us say, let us look at this word. How do you transcribe it? Tour. This Ra is optional in a standard British English. You can pronounce it, you need not pronounce it. It depends entirely upon you. So tour, assure, s-u-r-e or poor. There are lots of English words. What happens here in this case is tongue starts moving at this position and stops at this position. It glides. It starts somewhere near. Are we together? Everyone please, are we together? Right. So tongue starts gliding from this back closed rounded position to central half closed unrounded position. Like that, you know, glides or diphthongs are described. Look at the diagram for the English. The characteristics are, you may note, but I am going to send these PPTs to Mahesh and I will request him to circulate it among all of us. The characteristics of English vowels are that they take two positions. There also are diphthongs. When you say, when you have English words like quiet, q-u-i-e-t together, quiet. So you have i-e, that's how you say, quiet. You also have diphthongs, but there are very many. So we just describe diphthongs and we say they can have two positions or two articulations related though. Tongue glides from one position to the other. Necessarily, nearly without exception in all glides or diphthongs, the first element is long. Please write. The first vowel in diphthong is long. In all these cases you may see that the first vowel of the two vowels involved in a diphthong, the first vowel is always long. The second vowel is short. Nearly without exception. Then the description is easy. You describe the initial position and then say two, you describe the final position. In other words, you can say from central open, unrounded to front half closed, unrounded. Or in this case, you can say from, can you try, please try, from central open unrounded to closed unrounded. I'll be the only person in the world to have produced 30 phoneticians in one morning. Great congratulations. This is the English vowel. Try and describe one or two. Let us describe this e as in here. We have done that. Let us describe this. Please look at this. This is a as in gate, late. How does it move? In A, it moves from this position to this position. Can you describe this position together? You can work in groups. You can work individually. Take full 60 seconds and describe it. Come on now. Time begins now. This, please write it on your notebook. Here. A as in gate, late, fate, eight. Can you describe it? Please write on your notebook. You can work individually. You can work together. Doesn't matter. This goes to 11. I have to stop. Not at 50. 11 or 1050 or 11. Anyone who is ready, please read it out. You don't have to stand up but speak loud enough for camera to capture you. What is the description? Slowly. Front. You just say from. You can say from, front, half closed, to open. Wonderful attempt. Unrounded. Anyone else who would like to join? Come on. Don't be shy of making a mistake. When you make an experiment, when you learn, is there anything we have learned without making mistakes? Come on, please. Make an attempt. Anybody else? Another person, please. How do you describe it? Front. Between half open and half closed. Great. Between half open and half closed. Unrounded. To front. Front. Half closed. Unrounded. Lovely. That's great. You got it. That's it. That is how we describe it. Let's look at another now. This time let's take this vowel. We have done it. Let's do this. E. Let's do this. OE as in boil, oil, toil, coil. A coil of wire. C-O-I-L. Can you describe this on your notebook and then compare? Take your time. There is no hurry. Write on your notebook. Compare with each other. Help each other. You have to say from A-B-C to X-Y-Z. From three-term level A-B-C to three-term level X-Y-Z. All you have to do is fill in the slots for A-B-C and X-Y-Z. Don't take me in the camera. Are you getting it? Can I see your notebook? From back, open, rounded. O is rounded. To front, half closed. Unrounded. Lovely. Try another vowel. Did you get it that way? Okay. Do it. Did you get it? Can you read it to me? I can't see. Great. Do for some other thing. These are the things you learn only by doing it. Yeah. Anurag, right? Sorry. Pardon me. Not that guy. That gentleman. That guy is outside the class. Tell me. Back, half open. You can see back, open, half open. You can see back. No problem. It would have been more accurate if you had said between half closed and half open, et cetera, et cetera. Rounded two. Great. Do it for some other. You say it purely mechanically. Computers can do it. You don't even need great algorithms for that. You got it? Read it to me. I can't see. From back, half open, half closed and half open. Rounded two. Central, half closed and half open. It is a little more than central. You can say front. Okay. Right. Purely mechanically. Do for other. Quickly. Don't take longer than two minutes. It's just from A, B, C to X, Y, Z. Can you read it to me, please? It is not a little more than central. Do. You see. It crosses the central area. It comes in the front area. Central is only within that prying area. Okay. Try for other walls as well. Other dip thumbs. Read one to me. Anyone? Okay. Correct. Same thing? Yes. Do for other walls. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Front, half closed, and rounded. Good. Same thing? Try for other dip thumbs. Come on quick. Try. Did you get it? Can you read it to me, please? Oh, as in boil. How did you describe it? From. From. Back. Back. Half. Between half closed and half open. Rounded. Rounded to. It's a little more than. It goes a little beyond. Front. Half, you know. Unrounded. Unrounded. Unrounded. Okay. Lovely. Do it for others. It's purely, it's mechanically, you know. Even a computer can generate all of these descriptions. Read it to me. Back. Between half closed and half open. Yeah. It's a little more than central. It's, you can say front. Okay. Did you get it? Yeah. Unrounded. Did you get it? Read it to me. Front half closed. You can say because it's a short end. Okay. Did you get it? Read it to me. How did you describe it? How did you describe it? Front half closed. Unrounded. Good. Do it for others. Okay. It's purely, it's mechanical, you know. Okay. You know, this description is entirely mechanical, you know. If you can, even in real life, you know, you can record a sound. These days, almost by default, computers give you software where you use spectrogram. And if you speak to the machine, you will know where your vowel sound is plotted. And you can ask your machine to, you know, give simple algorithms and your machine can describe some of these things. These are no great guns today. For your convenience, I have described English vowels here. I will mail it to Mahesh and please take a look when you get it and try and describe the diphthongs in your mother tongue in the following manner, as I have said. Say, for instance, I, where is I? This is, this is I. This is I here. Can you see? Everybody please, can you see? This is I. As in kite, I say our bite, our light, lots of English words. With that kind. Then we have a, as in bait, or as in gate, as in late, etc. Where is it? This is here. A. How do we describe A? It is from front between half closed and half open, unrounded to front half closed. I forgot to put D. You know, you can have both ways. Doesn't matter. Close, unrounded. Or, as in boil, from back between half closed and half open, rounded to front, half closed, unrounded. Or, as in beer, near, here. You know, it is purely mechanical. You can go on. Please try and bring me a description of some diphthongs and some pure vowels tomorrow and we continue doing more of this. Thank you. Have a good day.