Gujarati phonology

The Gujarati language is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. Much of its phonology is derived from Sanskrit.

Vowels

 * Sanskrit's phonemic vowel length has been lost. Vowels are long when nasalized or in a final syllable.
 * Gujarati contrasts oral and nasal, and murmured and non-murmured vowels, except for and.
 * In absolute word-final position the higher and lower vowels of the and  sets vary.
 * and developed in the 15th century. Old Gujarati split into Rajasthani and Middle Gujarati.
 * English loanwords are a source of.

Consonants

 * A fourth nasal phoneme is postulated for the phones and the nasalization of a preceding vowel . Before velar and palatal stops, there is variation between these; e.g. ~ ('ask for'), ~ ('swing').
 * Stops occurring at first members of clusters followed by consonants other than are unreleased; they are optionally unreleased in final position. The absence of release entails deaspiration of voiceless stops.
 * Intervocalically and with murmuring of vowels, the voiced aspirated stops have voiced spirant allophones . Spirantization of non-palatal voiceless aspirates has been reported as well, including  being usually realized as  in the standard dialect.
 * The two voiced retroflex plosives /ɖʱ, ɖ/ and the retroflex nasal /ɳ/ have flapped subphonemic allophones [ɽʱ, ɽ, ɽ̃]. The plosives /ɖʱ, ɖ/ are unflapped initially, geminated, and after nasal vowels; and flapped intervocalically, finally, and before or after other consonants. The nasal /ɳ/ is unflapped before retroflex plosives and intervocalically, and in final position varies freely between flapped and unflapped.
 * has and  as allophones.
 * The distribution of sibilants varies over dialects and registers.
 * Some dialects only have, others prefer , while another system has them non-contrasting, with occurring contiguous to palatal segments. Retroflex  still appears in clusters in which it precedes another retroflex:  ('clear').
 * Some speakers maintain as well for Persian and English borrowings. Persian's 's have by and large been transposed to  and :  ('life') and  ('thing'). The same cannot be so easily said for English:  ('cheese').
 * Lastly, a colloquial register has, or both and , replaced by voiceless . For educated speakers speaking this register, this replacement does not extend to Sanskrit borrowings.

Phonotactical constraints include:
 * and do not occur word-initially.
 * Clusters occur initially, medially, and finally. Geminates occur only medially.
 * Biconsonantal initial clusters beginning with stops have, , , and as second members. In addition to these, in loans from Sanskrit the clusters  and  may occur. The occurrence of  as a second member in consonantal clusters is one of Gujarati's conservative features as a modern Indo-Aryan language. For example, languages used in Asokan inscriptions (3rd century BC) display contemporary regional variations, with words found in Gujarat's Girnar inscriptions containing clusters with  as the second member not having  in their occurrence in inscriptions elsewhere. This is maintained even to today, with Gujarati  corresponding to Hindi  and.
 * Initially, s clusters biconsonantally with, and non-palatal voiceless stops.
 * Triconsonantal initial clusters include - most of which occur in borrowings.
 * Geminates were previously treated as long consonants, but they are better analyzed as clusters of two identical segments. Two proofs for this:
 * The u in geminated uccār "pronunciation" sounds more like the one in clustered udgār ('utterance') than the one in shortened ucāṭ ('anxiety').
 * Geminates behave towards (that is, disallow) -deletion like clusters do.

Gemination can serve as intensification. In some adjectives and adverbs, a singular consonant before the agreement vowel can be doubled for intensification. #VCũ → #VCCũ.

Stress
The matter of stress is not quite clear:
 * Stress is on the first syllable except when it doesn't have and the second syllable does.
 * Stress is barely perceptible.
 * Stress typically falls on the penultimate syllable of a word, however, if the penultimate vowel in a word with more than two syllables is schwa, stress falls on the preceding syllable.

ə-deletion
Schwa-deletion, along with a-reduction and -insertion, is a phonological process at work in the combination of morphemes. It is a common feature among Indo-Aryan languages, referring to the deletion of a stem's final syllable's before a suffix starting with a vowel.

This does not apply for monosyllabic stems and consonant clusters. So, better put, #VCəC + V# → #VCCV#. It also doesn't apply when the addition is an o plural marker (see Gujarati grammar) or e as an ergative case marker (see Gujarati grammar). It sometimes doesn't apply for e as a locative marker.

ɑ-reduction
A stem's final syllable's will reduce to  before a suffix starting with. #ɑC(C) + ɑ# → #əC(C)ɑ#. This can be seen in the derivation of nouns from adjective stems, and in the formation of passive and causative forms of verb stems.

-insertion
Between a stem ending in a vowel and its suffix starting with a vowel, a is inserted. #V + V# → #VʋV#. This can be seen in the formation of passive and causative forms of verb stems.

The second example shows an ɑ-reduction as well.

ə-insertion
ə finds itself inserted between the emphatic particle and consonant-terminating words it postpositions.

Murmur
serves as a source for murmur, of which there are three rules:

The table below compares declensions of the verbs ('to do') and  ('to say'). The former follows the regular pattern of the stable root serving as a point for characteristic suffixations. The latter, on the other hand, is deviant and irregular in this respect.

The situation can be explained through murmur. If to a formal or historical root of these rules are considered then predicted, explained, and made regular is the irregularity that is  (romanized as kahevũ).

Thus below are the declensions of -possessing, murmur-eliciting root, this time with the application of the murmur rules on the root shown, also to which a preceding rule must be taken into account:


 * 0. A final root vowel gets deleted before a suffix starting with a non-consonant.

However, in the end not all instances of become murmured and not all murmur comes from instances of.

One other predictable source for murmur is voiced aspirated stops. A clear vowel followed by a voiced aspirated stop can vary with a pair gaining murmur and losing aspiration:.