Hindi Textbook recommendations?

the opoponax

I'm referring to the pronunciation key where they give you an English analogue for each vowel sound. "A as in Tomato" and all that. Except they don't seem to use words that have uniform vowel sounds across standard English dialects, which keeps you guessing if you're not English.

This is a little off-topic, but I also found differences in standard English pronunciations to be a problem when speaking English in India. Unless the person was really fluent, there were often issues, because I would unthinkingly say things like "innerrned" (Internet) and "nowrrrrrrrth" (North) rather than "inTehnettt" and "nahwwwwth" as expected. Even the subtle vowel shifts between the way Americans and Brits say the words "park" and "road" were a big problem.

blackbird

"A as in tomato" that's certainly not going to help!

I have to modify my accent in India -- otherwise every time I say 2 they think I've said 3! And if i say road my usual way they don't understand, I have to make it more like (to my ears) rawd.

Basically if it's an Indian textbook you have to know how an Indian would pronounce the words, rather than an English person.

Dilliwala

Ahem! There are people in this land who wud contest that those 2 are northern languages.
More like eastern languages. Big country.
F'rinstance, Punjabi or Kashmiri doesn't equip u well for Bengali or Oriya. Assamese certainly does.

You are right though that Sanskrit-based languages do have a lot of the same vocabulary.
I wish rioters wud remember that when they go on one of those "them vs. us" rampages.

the opoponax

I think Blackbird means 'north' as in Sanskrti-based or Indo-Aryan. As opposed to Dravidian languages of the south. Knowing Kannada isn't going to equip you very well even in learning Marathi or Konkani, while Punjabi and Hindi sound enough alike to me that I can get a word every now and again in Punjabi via my very scant Hindi knowledge.

Though I'd guess that, like European languages, Indian languages are more likely to be similar the closer the two places are to each other. Oriya and Bengali are probably more alike than Gujarati and Assamese, Just as Dutch and German are more alike than Polish and Spanish.

Dilliwala

Yes, I figured that's what blackbird was driving at. Still very generalised.
(Language riots take place with less fodder. Not that that's what I was trying to avert - I doubt any of those nuts visit IM!)

Malayalam is 98% Sanskrit. Though u wudn't believe it from hearing it spoken!

Marathi and Kannada speakers do understand each other to some extent, proximity helps as u indicated.
Certainly in the border areas of Orissa there are plenty of people fluent in Telugu. But then why shud this be surprising? Worldwide phenomenon.

Punjabi <--> Hindustani , yes. Punjabi <--> Hindi, no.
Not really, they do better with Urdu. Altho it's true that Punjabi has quite a few Sanskrit words, but by the time they get around to pronouncing it, great differences sometimes. Did u know that sikh and shishya (student) are the same word?
Never mind, most Indians don't.

Certainly people from eastern UP and Bihar struggle with Punjabi
if it's spoken in it's 'pure' form. Hindustani speakers do better, more words common amongst Hindustani/Urdu/Punjabi.

the opoponax

According to every source I've ever seen, Malayalam is a Dravidian language. Don't wanna start a language riot, though!

Dilliwala

Of course, I'm not saying it isn't. I was talking about the vocabulary base - we were told this in school by a Malayali teacher, so I'm guessing he knew what he was talking about!

Certainly when it's spoken slow enough and I hear "vaahanam", "sheeghrav", and "pradhan mantri", I know what they are talking about (to give just 3 examples). But with the grammar, syntax and accent thrown in - that's when things get a little sticky, heheh.

Indojingai

Dilliwala: Kidhaan phiraan?

Would you know more about this? I mean the Hindustani language. Is it something from the Avadhi/Bhojpuri regions?
A diaspora in Holland speaks Hindustani but it sounds neither like Hindi nor Punjabi, to me.

__________________
I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.

Dilliwala

Let me put it another way - for a Pakistani and an Indian to understand each other, they have to speak Hindustani.
If the Pakistani speaks pure Urdu, the average desi won't understand all of what he says, and if the desi spoke pure Hindi, certainly the Paki wud be clueless often. Imran Khan had to be explained on TV once what "rajniti" means, but most Northerners tend to understand what "siyaasat" means. They won't readily be able to use it in a sentence though.
Long story short, in essence Hindustani is a mix of Hindi, Urdu and a bit of Punjabi and Haryanvi thrown in for measure.

Awadhis and Bhojpuris tend to speak the purer form of Hindi, when speaking it. But that doesn't mean they wud have trouble understanding Hindustani, just that they are unlikely to use it themselves.

blackbird

Yeah, to clarify, I meant it would be easier to go on and learn other north Indian (ie Indo-European as opposed to Dravidian) languages. I didn't mean that an Assamese speaker would automatically understand Panjabi. But an Oriya friend can communicate with Bengali speakers fairly easily -- he says "I just squeeze the words".

edwardseco

'fraid I would have to agree with the 2 subsequant replies. I don't know how the romanization gets the pronunciation correct. And if its not close nobody understands it! So what's the use? Plus some letters ain't in English period. I struggled with the retroflex t for years because its in my wife's name. And don't even get me started on that lazy l in Marathi. Finally, if you can't read the bus signs who knows where you will end up..

the opoponax

In terms of reading signs and stuff, I have to say that was only ever a problem in more southerly places (I'm thinking specifically of Karnataka) where being able to read devanagari isn't going to help much. And it would be nuts to recommend that a potential traveler to the subcontinent be able to read every Indian alphabet, just in case.

But I definitely agree that it's much easier to learn a language as an adult when you can read it.

Dilliwala

And Devnagari has another benefit, it equips u for another country - Nepal!





Altho u make it seem a lot 'worse' than it is.

karuna

Dragging this back up again, although it seems the OP has disappeared.

Never mind- I wanted to ask about "pahari". I have a vague understanding that this means a kind of dialect, in Punjab and Himachal. But I don't know more than that. Is it a general word for "dialect", or is it specific to that region? Or have I got it completely wrong?

Oh, nevermind. I found a comprehensive Wikipedia article on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahari
I do find Wikipedia such a bore- what a conversation stopper.

brishti

Did u know that sikh and shishya (student) are the same word?



then again - in bengali there are no genders... not even a 'he' or a 'she' ... then there is hindi
no 'w' 'v' or 'z' in bengali either - jip, jap, joom... then there is english




:brishti