Phonology of English as compared to Urdu phonology

TOPIC: “PHONOLOGY OF
ENGLISH AS COMPARED TO
THE PHONOLOGY OF
URDU”
Lecture Notes: SHAGUFTA MOGHAL

PHONOLOGY.
Phonology is the branch of
linguistics which studies the
sound system in a language

Urdu
 Urdu is considered as a status symbol after English in
educated circles of Pakistan. The Urdu language is the
national language and one of two official languages of the
country of Pakistan. The other official language is
English.It is also a language that is heavily associated with
the Muslim religion, and there are around 65 million
speakers of Urdu worldwide.

English
English is the most commonly spoken language in the world.
One out of five people can speak or at least understand
English. English is the official language of 53 countries.
That is a lot of people to meet and speak to. English is
spoken as a first language by around 400 million people
around the world. English is the language of science, of
aviation, computers, diplomacy, and tourism.

English and Urdu
Phonology
English and Urdu, both languages
have some characteristics which are
based on:
1) Place of articulation
2) Manner of articulation

Place of articulation
It tells us where the consonants are produced. For each
consonant two parts of the mouth are involved, and the
name given to it reflects it. Starting from the front, some
consonants are made using both lips and these are called
bilabial consonants. The sound made by an interaction
between the tongue and the teeth are just dental sounds.
When you run your tongue back behind your teeth, you
come to a bony ridge called an alveolar ridge, several
sounds are made on or just behind the ridge. It produces
alveolar sounds. Moving back from alveolar ridge you
come to a hard but smoother zone called the hard palate.

 Notice that there is now a difference in the way the
tongue is used. The velum is the soft part of the palate,
closest to the throat. It is the body of the tongue. The
sounds produced are called velar sounds. And the only
sound left /h/ is produced by air passing from the
windpipe through the vocal cords, or glottis. It’s a
glottal sound.

Manner of Articulation
 After Place of articulation, we need to
consider Manner of Articulation, which tells us how
consonants are produced. The comparison of the
consonants of English and Urdu language is mainly
based on Place of articulation and Manner of
articulation. Most important categories are: Plosive
sounds also called stop sounds are formed by the air
being completely blocked in the mouth and then
suddenly released.

Phonology of English and Urdu
* Urdu has 28 consonants and 10 vowels compared to
the 21 consonants and 5 vowels of English.
* The sounds of the Urdu alphabet do not correspond
exactly to any English sounds.
* Urdu speakers may have difficulty in the
pronunciation of certain letters which produce
different sounds. (e.g. Letter ‘c’ produces the sounds
/k/ & /s/ as in ‘cat’ and ‘circus’.)
* Many words in the English language have silent
letters, so Urdu speakers will unknowingly pronounce,

those letters, which will make them mispronounce the
words. (e.g. “knowledge” has the silent ‘k’).
* The range of consonant clusters occurring at the
beginning and end of English words is much wider than
in Urdu. Urdu speakers simplify those clusters. (e.g.
“istation” for “station”, “faree” for “free”, “filam” for
“film”)
* Urdu has a tenser articulation than English, with
vowels produced further forward, leading to the loss of
some distinctions between vowels. (e.g. “sad”
for “said”).

Comparison
In English phonology /p/ and /b/ are
plosives having bilabial articulation. /p/ is
voiceless and /b/ is voiced. The
alternatives for these sounds in Urdu
phonology are /pe/ (‫)پ‬and
/bay/(‫)ب‬which are denoted be /p/ and
/b/ respectively. These plosives have the
same characteristics as that of English
plosives

/t/ and /d/ are alveolar sounds. They are plosives. /t/ is
voiceless and /d/ is voiced. In Urdu phonology the same
symbols /t/ and /d/ have a matching characteristics
where /t/ is pronounced as /te/ ‫ت‬) ) and /d/ as /daal/ ‫د‬)
) But in comparison with /t/ and /d/ plosives of the
English language we come across sounds /ʈ/ and /ɖ/
pronounced as /ṭe/ ‫ٹ‬) ) and /dāl/ (‫.)ڈ‬ /t/ is voiceless and
/ɖ/ is voiced.

What are sounds?
Something that we can hear are
called sounds
Sounds are divided into :
Consonants
Vowels

Consonant Sounds
Speech sounds made by
completely or partially
stopping the flow of air being
breathed out through the
mouth.

Vowel Sounds
A speech sound in which
the mouth is open and
tongue is not touching,
the top of the mouth,
teeth, etc.

URDU.
 Vowels : Urdu has a ten vowels. 3 Lax vowels (ɪ, ʊ, ə) are
phonetically short and 7 tense vowels (i, e, ɛ, u, o, ɔ:, ɑ:)
are phonetically long.
 Consonants Urdu has 41 consonants in total, including 22
stops and affricates, 8 fricatives, 5 nasals, and 6
liquids/glides.

English and Urdu Consonants.
CONSONANTS ENGLISH URDU
b bag, ball barish, badal
f find, fall faltu, filwaqt
v van, vein varzish, vaada
s sun, so safed, sochna
z zoo, zip zameen, zaaya
ʃ shut, shine shaam, shan
j yellow, yes yahan, ye
m moon, my madad, mujhe
n nose, not naam, neela
dƷ judge, jail jugnu, jungle
t ʃ church, child chand, chamak
ŋ sing, wing chalen, gaain.Lecture Notes: SHAGUFTA MOGHAL

Partially Similar Sounds
Consonants English Urdu
p pat, cap, pankha, pandra
t Tin, tip Tum, teen
d Dawn, deep Deen, daar
r Red, role Rang, rasta
th Thin, think Dil, thora
h Help, hope Hath, huka
l Language, lungs Laal, lumha

Sounds only in
English language;
W- work,
when, war….

Short Vowels
English Urdu
 u hood u uf
 a above a anaar
 i hit i rizq
Dissimilar Sounds
 ae cat
 o pot
 e met

Long Vowels Sounds
English Urdu
 aa car aa taar
 ii meat ii jeet
 uu food uu jhuut
Dissimilar sounds
ƏƏ fur

English and Urdu Diphthongs similar
Sounds
Combination of two vowel sounds are called diphthongs.
English Urdu
 ao cow ao gao
 ai eye ai khai
 ua poor ua dua

Dissimilar Sounds
 eƏ here, there
 Ou go, no
 Oi boy, joy

conclusion
 The presentation is based on the study of sounds. The presentation includes
the basic characteristics of Urdu and English Phonology, in which some
common and uncommon characteristics of both of the languages are discussed
in detail. After then a comparison is carried out between the Consonant
sounds of Urdu and English languages with respect to its characteristics. As we
are the native speakers of Urdu Language but non-native speakers of the
English language, so this comparison will eliminate the ambiguities of the
English language in our minds as well as point out the differences in both
languages.
In this presentation, a speech analysis is also being carried out of a connected
speech with reference to the place of articulation, manner of articulation and
its aspiration. This analysis pointed out major mistakes in pronunciation which
are followed by recommendations.

Phonology of English as compared to Urdu phonology

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