Stratification of /r/ pronunciation in Sindhi, spoken in Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

The study is concerned with presence or absence of r, a voiced apico alveolar trill, following the voiceless retroflex stop /t/, the voiced retroflex stop /d/ and the aspirated voiced retroflex stop /dh/ in the end of words like; ma:itru (relative) can be pronounced as ma:itu, jadru (a handmill) as jadu and wa:dhri (robe) as wa:dhi that frequently occur in the speech communities of various parts of rural and urban Sindh. Information regarding the (r) variable is scant but from the literature available, provided mainly by Grierson (1919), Baloch (1965) and Allana (1967), we are able to glean important information which helps throw light on the two variants in our speech communities under investigation and explain stratification between the two variants. Grierson (1919) observed that pronunciation of r varied according to particular dialects of Sindhi*: in Lari (Lower), he maintained, [r] was dropped in pronunciation, eg. te for tre (three), khadu for khadru (sugar), dadhu for dadhru (ringworm), while in Siroli (Upper) and Vicholi (Central) it is pronounced. Nearly 50 years later Baloch (1965) and Allana (1967) observe that this trilled [r] is only pronounced in Siroli and it not pronounced in any other dialect including Vicholi. We can clearly see that within this space of time a major linguistic change took place from (indigenous) pronunciation of [r] to dropping of [r], the innovative variant in Vicholi dialect. We may speculate that this change is bound up in the increasing significance which education came to have in Sindhi in the 1930’s, especially after 1936 when Sindh was separated from the Bombay presidency and was made an independent province. An increase in education meant that there was increased exposure to the standard Sindhi script which omitted [r] through newspapers, academic works and so forth, and it is very likely that this increased and constant exposure to the script influenced the educated so that they did not pronounce [r]. From this we may surmise that [r] deletion in both our speech communities may be indicative of educated speech while [r] pronunciation (the indigenous variant) may be characteristic of old and uneducated speech and that it has a higher occurrence in Old Hala which is more linguistically conservative than Hyderabad (which retains indigenous and older speech forms). The paper investigates and examines the stratification of r in rural and urban areas of Sindh relating social parameters of age, education and sex. * Sindhi has five major dialects; Siroli or Utradi (Upper or Northern), Vicholi (Central), Lari (Lower), Thari (spoken in desert area) and Lasi (spoken in Lasbello of Balochistan).