[Assam] Transliteration Of Assamese Sounds

[S Saikia]

hi all.....

In order to overcome the obstacles in the transliteration of Assamese words 
I propose the following transliteration scheme mostly based on the standard 
devanagari ITRANS transliteration charts. This scheme is not meant for use 
in software program just becaue it is too complicated and scores of mor 
practical systems can be figured out to do the same ... The following is 
based on the sound of the letter in International Phonetic Alphabet and its 
equivalent expression in English and can be used to write Assamese words in 
English...



VOWELS
-------------
Transliteration  Suggested Sound/IPA Expression
-------------------  -----------------------------------------------
a ................  Near-Open Central Unrounded(Inverted a)
aa ............... Open Front Unrounded (Lower case a)
i .................. Close Front Unrounded (Lower case i)
ii or I ........    Close Central Unrounded (Barred i)
u ..............   Close Back Rounded (Lower case u)
uu or U ........ Close Back Un-Rounded (Turned m) (???)
rri or R^i .....  Near- Close Front Un-Rounded (Small Capital I)
e ..............   Open- Mid Front Unrounded (Epsilon)
ai .............    Close-Mid Central ROunded (Barred O )
o  .............   Close- Mid Back Rounded (Lower Case O )
au .............  Close- Mid Back Unrounded (Baby Gamma )
CONSONANTS
--------------------
Transliteration  Suggested Sound/IPA Symbol
-------------------- ------------------------------------------
ka ............. Voiceless Velar Plosive (Lower Case K)
kha ............ Aspirated Ka(???????)
ga ............. Voiced Velar Plosive (Lower case g)
gha ............ Aspirated ga (????????)
nna or N^a ..... Voiced Uvular Nasal (Small Capital N)
cha ............ Voiceless Aveolar Fricative (Lower Case s)
chha ........... Voiceless Post-Aveolar Fricative (Esh)
ja ............. Voiced Postaveolar Fricative (Yogh)
jha ............ Palatalised ja ( ja^j)
jjnna or JNa ... Voiced palatal Nasal(Left tail N at left)
tta or Ta ...... Voiceless Aveolar Plosive (Lower case T)
ttha or Tha .... Aspitated Ta (tta^h)
dda or Da ...... Voiced Aveolar Plosive (Lower case D)
ddha or Dha .... Aspirated Da (dda^h)
nna or Na....... Voiced Aveolar Nasal(Lower Case N)
ta ............. Voiceless Retroflex Plosive (T with Right Tail)
tha ............ Aspirated ta (ta^h)
da ............. Voiced Retroflex Plosive (Right Tail D)
dha ............ Aspirated da(da^h)
na ............. Voiced Retrofelx nasal (N with right tail)
pa ............. Voiceless Bilabial Plosive (Lower Case p)
pha ............ Voiceless Bilabial Fricative (Phi)
ba ............. Voiced Bilabial Plosive (Lower Case b)
bha ............ Voiced Bilabial Fricative (Beta)
ma ............. Voiced Bilabial Nasal (Lower Case M)
ya ............. Voiced palatal Fricative (Curly Tail J)
ra ............. Voiced Aveolar Approximant (Turned R)
la ............. Voiced Aveolar Lateral Approximant (Lower Case L)
wa ............. Voiced Retroflex Lateral Approximant(l with tail)(?)
xha ............ Voiceless Labiodental Fricative (Lower Case F)
xhha ........... Voiceless Epiglottal Fricative (Small Capital H)
xa ............. Voiceless Uvular Fricative (Chi)
ha ............. Voiceless Glottal Fricative (Lower Case H)
ksha or xa ..... Aveolo-palatal Fricative (Curly Tail C)
jya ............ Voiced Palatal Approximant( Lower case J)
ra(?)
ra(?)
In the above chart there has been quite a few deviations from the devanagari 
system. For Example the "sha, shha, sa" have been transliterated as "xha, 
xhha, xa"  because unlike Hindi or Sanskrit, the "s" in those is often 
pronounced as "x" e.g. Axam in assamese instead of Asam in Hindi. Also the 
"va" has been transliterated as "wa" in Assamese.

I stated before and I repeat now, that I am not a phonetician. What I am 
trying to do is to present enough starting material for a debate so that the 
long-standing dispute on how Assamese words should be transliterated into 
english might be put to rest once and for all. The sounds I have "suggested" 
for the corresponing Assamese Alphabet is by no means the final word nor do 
I claim that all of them are correct....It is simply a suggestion so that it 
can be discussed and the correct sounds be recorded. I have tried to model 
the above on the transliteration charts of ancient Egyptian.

If a system like the one stated above can be agreed upon by one and all, 
then to transcribe Assamese words we just have to replace the assamese 
letters with their corresponding english group of alphabets..(omitting the 
the "a" in the consonants whne they appear at the end of the word). It will 
remove all ambiguity whatsoever on the question of how an assamese word 
should be written in English.

The only way the system envisioned can be a success is if people debate over 
the transliteration and the sounds of the language until it reaches an 
acceptable level of accuracy.

The reference to the devnagari script transliteration chart can be found 
at...
http://www.angelfire.com/linux/tugg/devnagari.html

The IPA help file which contains the IPA chart and all the sound files for 
individual sound for reference can be downloaded from
http://www.sil.org/computing/speechtools/softdev2/Downloads2/SatDL2/Release2/setup-ih.exe

or you can go to the link from

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/tugg/devnagari.html



yours,

Syamanta Saikia

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