Page 68 - A GRAMMAR OF BHOJPURI _ PhD Dissertation 2020 TU

Thus, the Bhojpuri language being written in Devanagari script has the
alphabet almost correspondent to the phonemes. Bhojpuri has eight basic vowels and
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36 consonants. Now their written presentation is as follows:
a) Vowels

(i) Basic vowels
The basic vowels in Bhojpuri in written form both in Kaithi and Devanagari
scripts are as follows:

अ आ इ उ ए ऐ ओ औ

अ आ इ उ ए ऐ ओ औ

ʌ ɑ i u e ɛ o ɔ
(ii) Alphabetic vowels and the corresponding diacritics

Besides these, the Sanskrit tradition of vowel length as well as an extra vowel
ऋ [ri] is also used for tatsamas. Likewise, ऐ /ɛ/ and औ /ɔ/ are also used as diphthongs

अइ /ʌi/ and अउ /ʌu/ respectively. Similarly, ऑ /ɔ/ is also adopted for some English

words transcribed in Bhojpuri as ऑि*सजन /ɔksijʌn/ 'oxygen'. Besides, all vowels

except अ /ʌ/ are represented in diacritics in Bhojpuri as its neighbours do. In this way,
the vowels and their corresponding diacritics both in Kaithi and Devanagari scripts

with IPA transliteration are as follows.

अ आ इ ई उ ऊ िर ए ऐ ओ औ
अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ए ऐ ओ ऑ औ

a i ी ु ू े ै ो ौ

◌ा ि◌ ◌ी ◌ु ◌ू ◌ृ ◌े ◌े ◌ो ◌ॉ ◌ौ

ʌ ɑ i i u u ri e ɛ/ʌi o ɔ ɔ/ʌu

b) Consonants
Regarding consonants in Bhojpuri the retroflex nasal ण /ɳ/ has already been

dropped but it is still being used in some tatsamas. Likewise, palatal and velar voiceless
fricatives श /ʃ/ and ष /ʂ/ respectively have already been dropped in Bhojpuri but they

are still being used for tatsamas as allophonic with alveolar voiceless fricative स /s/. But

ष /ʂ/ is sometimes allophonic with ख /kʰ/, too. The consonants in Kaithi and Devanagari

alphabets used in Bhojpuri with their IPA transliteration are presented as follows:

3. They have been described with details in Chapter 4.
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