DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/parole.v12i2.253-260

FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF PHONEMES IN HINDI

All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, India

Received: 16 Feb 2022; Published: 11 Nov 2022.
Open Access Copyright (c) 2022 PAROLE: Journal of Linguistics and Education under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.

Citation Format:
Abstract

Hindi, an Indo-Aryan language is the national language of India and the state language of various North Indian states of India such as Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh etc. Statistics on the phonemes of a language provides useful information in the field of speech language pathology, audiology, linguistics and communication engineering. The data can be effectively used for the assessment and selection of target phonemes for treatment of various communication disorders, develop phonetically balanced word lists for audiological testing, and teach foreign language. It also provides valuable information to device text to speech systems and automatic speech recognition systems. The earlier data on frequently occurring phonemes in numerous Indian languages were derived from written sources. However, information from spoken language may be of more significance compared to written language. The aim of the present study was to determine the frequently occurring phonemes in spoken Hindi. Participants were native speakers of Hindi in the age range of 20 to 70 years. Eighteen group conversation samples were recorded. The samples were transcribed using IPA transcription. Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software was used to analyze the samples in order to obtain the frequently occurring phonemes. Descriptive statistics was applied for the same. Results revealed that phonemes /n, a, e, f, h, k/ were the most frequently occurring phonemesin Hindi.  Aspirated phonemes (/gh/, /ʈh/, /ph/, /ɖh/) were the least present phonemes in the data. High and front vowels were more frequently present in spoken Hindi. Considering the manner of articulation, nasals and stops had higher occurrence. Alveolar dominated considering the place of articulation of phonemes. The applications of the study are extensive and can be utilized efficiently in a variety of disciplines.

Fulltext View|Download Email colleagues
Keywords: Phonemes, Hindi, Manner, Articulation, Place

Article Metrics:

Article Info
Section: Research Article
Language : EN
Most cited articles
A Critical Evaluation of Qualitative Reports and Their Contributions to Educational Research Back Cover The Implication of Curriculum Renewal on ELT in Indonesia Backmatter KOMPONEN MAKNA UNGKAPAN METAFORIS DALAM PILEG 2009 DALAM WACANA SURAT PEMBACA DI HARIAN SUARA MERDEKA More cited articles
  1. Berkson, K. H., & Nelson, M. (2017). Phonotactic frequencies in Marathi. IULC Working Papers, 17(1)
  2. Bhagwat, S. V. (1961). Phonemic frequencies in Marathi and their relation to devising a speed script. Pune: Deccan College
  3. De, N. S. (1973). Hindi PB list for speech audiometry and discrimination test. Indian Journal of Otolaryngology, 25(2), 64-75
  4. Denes, P. B. (1963). On the statistics of spoken English. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 35(6), 892-904
  5. Ghatage, A. M. &Madhav. A. (1964). Phonemic and Morphemic frequencies in Hindi. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute
  6. Ghatage, A. M. (1994). Phonemic and morphemic frequencies in Malayalam. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages
  7. Guirao, M., &GarcíaJurado, M. (1990). Frequency of Occurrence of Phonemes in American Spanish. Revue quebecoise de linguistique, 19(2), 135-149
  8. Jayaram, M. (1985). Sound and Syllable distribution in written Kannada and their application to Speech and Hearing. Journal of All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, 16, 19-30
  9. Kachru, Y. (2006). Hindi (Vol. 12).Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
  10. Kalyani, N., &Sunitha, D. K. (2009). Syllable analysis to build a dictation system in Telugu language. arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.2263
  11. Khan, I. (1990). Statistical study of Hindi speech sounds (Doctoral dissertation, Aligarh Muslim University)
  12. Malécot, A. (1974). Frequency of occurrence of French phonemes and consonant clusters. Phonetica, 29(3), 158-170
  13. Malviya, S., Mishra, R., &Tiwary, U. S. (2016, October). Structural analysis of Hindi phonetics and a method for extraction of phonetically rich sentences from a very large Hindi text corpus. In Coordination and Standardization of Speech Databases and Assessment Techniques (O-COCOSDA), 2016 Conference of The Oriental Chapter of International Committee for (pp. 188-193). IEEE
  14. Meena, R. L . (2015, September). Re: Learning of Hindi Phonology as a Foreigner. Retrieved from https://bhashhiki.blogspot.com/2017/01/learning-of-hindi-phonology-as.html
  15. Miller, J. & Iglesias, A. (2012). Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT), Clinical Demo Version 2012 [Computer Software]. Middleton, WI: SALT Software, LLC
  16. Miller, J. F., & Iglesias, A. (2008). Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT), English & Spanish (Version 9) [Computer software]. Madison: University of Wisconsin—Madison, WaismanCenter. Language Analysis Laboratory
  17. Munthuli, A., Tantibundhit, C., Onsuwan, C., Kosawat, K., &Wutiwiwatchai, C. (2015). Frequency of occurrence of phonemes and syllables in Thai: Analysis of spoken and written corpora. In Proceedings of 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
  18. Nāyaka, H. M. (1967). Kannada, Literary and Colloquial: A study of two styles. Mysore: Rao and Raghavan
  19. Ohala, M. (1994). Hindi. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 24(1), 35-38
  20. Pandey, P. (2014). Akshara-to-sound rules for Hindi. Writing Systems Research, 6(1), 54-72
  21. Pandit, P. B. (1965). Phonemic and morphemic frequencies of the Gujarati language. Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute
  22. Ramaswami, N. (1999). Common linguistic features in Indian languages: Phonetics (No. 447). Central Institute of Indian Languages
  23. Ranganatha, M. R. (1982). Morphophonemic analysis of the Kannada language: Relative frequency of phonemes and morphemes in Kannada. Central Institute of Indian Languages
  24. Sandoval, A. M., Toledano, D. T., de la Torre, R., Garrote, M., &Guirao, J. M. (2008). Developing a phonemic and syllabic frequency inventory for spontaneous spoken Castilian Spanish and their comparison to text-based inventories. In Language Resource and Evaluation Conference (pp. 1097-1100)
  25. Sreedevi, N., &Irfana, M. (2013). Frequency of occurrence of phonemes in Malayalam.ARF Project. AIISH, Mysore
  26. Sreedevi, N., Smitha, N., &Vikas, M.D. (2012). Frequency of phonemes in Kannada. ARF Project. AIISH, Mysore
  27. Thomas, T. W. C. (2005). The effects of occurrence frequency of phonemes on second language acquisition: A quantitative comparison of Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian, German and American English. Chinese University of Hong Kong. Available at http://www.thomastsoi.com/wpcontent/downloads/The%20Effects%20of%20Occurrence%20Frequency%20of%20Phonemes% 20on% 20SLA.pdf (Last viewed 30 September 2015)
  28. Vasanthakumari, T. (1989). Generative phonology of Tamil. New Delhi: Mittal Publications

Last update:

No citation recorded.

Last update: 2026-07-15 01:42:56

No citation recorded.