[Assam] more about POSOOWA.ORG (You'll must have Unicode Assamese fonts to read properly)

[J Kalita]

Dear Dhruba,As a native Assamese speaker, I pronounce পছোৱা as পছুৱা in spite of the spelling of the ো in the spelling. I think there may be regional variations in regional pronunciation, with people in Kamrup pronouncing the ো  a bit differently from those in Nagaon, Sonitpur and Upper Assam. However, I feel that most speakers of "standard" Assamese (as used on the radio or TV, or the so-called "educated" or "well-trained" speaker), pronounce ো as  ু. I don't want to get into the debate of what's "standard" and what "educated/well-trained" speaker means. 
Personally, I don't like the "POSWA" spelling because to me it should then be pronounced as পছ ্ৱা. A vowel distinctly pronounced after the ছ.
I also agree with Alpana Baidew, Chandan da and others, that my motivation in coming up with the English spelling was to assist non-Assamese people pronounce the word as accurately as possible, within limits. (However, it doesn't have to be the only motivation; in scholarly papers in linguistics and other areas, we may want the non-Assamese reader to know how the word is spelled as well as how it's pronounced. In such cases, we may have to write out both the transliterated spelling and pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet. However,  it's not the case here.)
Jugal
--- On Sat, 6/6/09, Dhruba Jyoti Deka <dhrubajyotideka at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Dhruba Jyoti Deka <dhrubajyotideka at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: more about POSOOWA.ORG
To: "Dr Jugal Kalita" <jugalkalita at yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, June 6, 2009, 6:58 AM





 
Dear Sir,
 
It's my pleasure to get your reply.
 
I agree as you said about the First "O" of "POSOOWA". প(Pa/Po)ছোৱা. As "A" is pronounced as অ if the "A" is in the mid of any words. But "A" may be pronounced as আ if the word starts with "A" e.x. Apple as আপ্ ল (the gap between প্ and ল  is because they go combined).
 
But the "OO" of the "POSOOWA" sounds as উ phonetically. And this is  Phonetical Rule of Assamese Language.

 

You & your team may decide for better finding of spelling, but the "SOO" of the "POSOOWA" cant be pronounced as ছো , instead the "SOO" of the "POSOOWA" must be pronounced as ছু accordingly to the guidelines of Assamese-English phonetics.

 

We should place this issue on www.posoowa.org for more sharings among Assamese people.

 

Hope you will not dispose my request.

 

Regards

 

Dhruba Jyoti Deka

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