Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 21 Dec 2010, 11:15

"Sukha paNi" is the latest one I was stung with.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 21 Dec 2010, 20:44

A curiosity question: In Sanskrit, the sha (as in bAsha) much rarer at the start of a word compared to Sa (as in Siva)? The few words I could think off all have Sa at the beginning but my Sanskrit knowledge is pretty much non-existent

Arun

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 21 Dec 2010, 20:55

You are right!
There are approximately 16 times more words starting with sh (e.g. shiva) than words starting with S (e.g. Sanmukha).

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 21 Dec 2010, 21:52

I edited my original post after reading Suresh's posts in the GV review thread. While the S (as in Siva) and the sh (as in shaNmukha) sounds are problematic, I have even more issues with the mispronunciation of Sukha (a word without a meaning) versus Suka (which means a parrot)....

vgovindan · Post by **vgovindan** » 21 Dec 2010, 22:26

The 'mh', 'hm', 'hn', 'hN' combinations create more confusion. For example 'siMha' is pronounced in Maharashtra as 'sihma'. (You may refer to Devi Mahatmyam rendered by Anuradha Paudwal - all such 'mh' combinations are pronounced as 'hm'.)
How do you pronounce 'vahni' - is it 'vanhi' or 'vahni'?
Is it 'cinha' or 'cihna' (in Hindi, it is pronounced as 'cinha')
Is it 'brAhmaNa' or 'brAmhaNa'?
Is it 'ghRhNa' or 'ghRNha'?

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 21 Dec 2010, 22:43

It is 'makA gaNapati' - not 'mahA gaNapati' for a number of singers.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 21 Dec 2010, 22:55

Pratyaksham Bala wrote:It is 'makA gaNapati' - not 'mahA gaNapati' for a number of singers.

LOL! Only for the ones who use the tamizh script exclusively....

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 22 Dec 2010, 05:28

Some of the pronunciations I have heard!
nArAyanA ninna nAmada smaraneyA! (Seasoned artistes with 30-40-50 years of experience did this and are still doing this)
sangara srI giri nAda prebu kE nrit virAjita cittasebAmE!
srI sangara guruveram cindayAmi bavaharam!
paramEsa vaSiSTha parAcara nArada sounaga suta! (I heard this from a upcoming female artiste on youtube recently!)

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 22 Dec 2010, 09:59

ksrimech wrote:Some the pronunciations I have heard!
nArAyanA ninna nAmada smaraneyA! (Seasoned artistes with 30-40-50 years of experience did this and are still doing this)

Can you point out the error :$ ? Is "smaranAya" preferred to "smaraneya"?

sangara srI giri nAda prebu kE nrit virAjita cittasebAmE!

srI sangara guruveram cindayAmi bavaharam!

Do you mean "prabhu" vs "prebhu" and "guruvaram" vs "guruveram" here ?

I have found Telugu speaking people frequently doing this and relegate this particular problem to an accent issue rather than a mispronunciation. For eg., the tamil word "solli" is variously pronounced as "cholli" or "sholli" and can be seen as a dialect rather than a mispronunciation. IMO, this even adds a certain charm to the delivery.

paramEsa vaSiSTha parAcara nArada sounaga suta! (I heard this from a upcoming female artiste on youtube recently!)

Yeah... Sa, S'a, Sha and Cha also gets into the fray for musicians learning from undecorated tamil script.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 22 Dec 2010, 20:49

sureshvv wrote: Can you point out the error :$ ? Is "smaranAya" preferred to "smaraneya"?

It should be Na as opposed to na.

Do you mean "prabhu" vs "prebhu" and "guruvaram" vs "guruveram" here ?

Besides those, sri for SrI - yes I have also observed these among telugiites - the sa for Sa, and "e" for "a" in places. I do not know if it is specific to certain areas of Andhra.

IMO, many of these "mispronunciations", are indeed a characteristic of an accent - i.e. the overbearing effect of one's own dialect (from one's own region) - even in cases where people are aware of the differences and have trained for. Of course in many cases it is also out of ignorance and/or not as much diligence as is required (e.g. in tamil nadu with people who are not sufficiently exposed to phonetics of other languages and their scripts, or have not considered the phonetic differences carefully enough).

Arun

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 22 Dec 2010, 21:05

ksrimech wrote:ArAyanA ninna nAmada smaraneyA!

nArAyaNA ninna nAmada smaraNeya

ksrimech wrote:sangara srI giri nAda prebu kE nrit virAjita cittasebAmE!

Sankara SrI giri nAtha prabhU kE nritta virAjit citt sabhA mE
The use of 'e' instead of 'a' is also something that I've noticed in native maLayALam speakers ...remA instead of ramA etc...
This whole concept of accent coloring the way the people pronounce when they sing must be unique to the Indian languages...regardless of their country of origin, all country music singers for instance sound the same to me for the most part - Keith Urban (from Australia), the Dixie Chicks (from the US) or Shania Twain (from Canada) don't sound very different when they sing, but have unique speaking accents....

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 22 Dec 2010, 21:15

ravi - There most certainly are differences in rock and popular music.

Many country singers have a strong southern twang (imagine one of them singing "She'll never.... ever...."

.

Many blues singers have strong accents - southern + african-american.

British singers (e.g. Pink Floyd) would say "woter" (approx) to some american singers' "wawder" .

But many american rock singers do try to imitate the British accent - because of the impact of British bands in american rock culture and history.

Also, as country goes main stream, it is possible that many of them consciously go for the neutral accent (e.g. newsreader) - not sure.

Arun

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 22 Dec 2010, 23:07

It is shri, not sri/Sri.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 22 Dec 2010, 23:11

but it depends on what your "S" vs. 'sh' is - (unfortunately) different transliteration schemes use the exact opposite meanings for those two!

Arun

vgovindan · Post by **vgovindan** » 22 Dec 2010, 23:19

When a language has a sound natural to it, it makes little meaning in not using it. For example, English pronunciation of 'sh' is equivalent to 'à¤·' (bush, rush, shine etc.). Therefore, the method of transliterating 'à¤·' would be 'sh' and not 'S'.
As a corollary, 'S' would stand for 'à¤¶' and 's' for 'à¤¸'
This is the method adopted by me for transliterating Tyagaraja and MD Kritis.

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 23 Dec 2010, 00:41

One my favorite male vocalist (and probably the best) sings tiruvaLLikENi uRai instead of tiruvallikENi uRai in the pallavi line of pArthasArati un pAdam paNindEn (kAmbhOji - ambujam kRSNa).

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 23 Dec 2010, 07:40

The often heard Srivalli devasenapathe was sung as sri vaLLI.

I don't consider this wrong. In fact this may be the correct pronunciation if vaLLi has a say!

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 23 Dec 2010, 22:24

Pronunciation of Malayalam kritis by non-Malayalis (esp by Tamilians) is almost always atrocious.
But it gets ignored because most listeners don't know any better either!

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 24 Dec 2010, 01:29

sureshvv wrote:The often heard Srivalli devasenapathe was sung as sri vaLLI.

I don't consider this wrong. In fact this may be the correct pronunciation if vaLLi has a say!

sureshvv, that shows you neither now vaLLi or alli. vaLLi (puLinda kanya and wife of guruguhan) and alli (water lily) are of course different. The divyadEsam, tiruvallikENI cannot become tiruvaLLikENi! tirumangaiyAzhvAr sing tiruvallikENi kaNDEnE and not tiruvaLLikENi kaNDEne! AzhvAr also praise the alli flower being dear to mahAlakSmi tAyAr. tiruvallikENi (tiru + alli + kENi) means the auspicious pond of water lilies, while tiruvaLLikENI (tiru+ vaLLi + kENi) would mean pond of sweet tubers (a.k.a. sweet potato). I hope it makes sense to you.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 24 Dec 2010, 05:24

sureshvv wrote:The often heard Srivalli devasenapathe was sung as sri vaLLI. I don't consider this wrong.

ksrimech wrote: sureshvv, that shows you neither now vaLLi or alli.
vaLLi (puLinda kanya and wife of guruguhan) and alli (water lily) are of course different.
<snip>
I hope it makes sense to you.

Thank you for your explanation of tiruvallikeNi. But what has vaLLI got to do with it? As you admit, they are different.

Sanskrit lacks the hard L in vaLLi so the name becomes srivalli when written in Sanskrit . But some people consider pronouncing the hard L wrong while singing this kriti while I feel that it is justified since that is after all her name.

Hope I am being clear.

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 24 Dec 2010, 07:16

As mentioned by ksrimech, vaLLi is the name of Lord Muruga's consort, and alli is water lily.

In Tamil, when you write Tiru + alli, it become Tiruvalli. Hence the confusion.

For transliterating Tamil 'L' into Sanskrit, this letter is used:-

When Tamil names are written in Hindi, the l/L creates confusion. In the postage stamp issued on 3.12.2010, the name of Nadaswaram Vidhvan Sri Rajarathinam piLLai is written in Hindi as pillai. Similarly in the stamp of 31.12.08, the name of vaLLiammai is written in Hindi as vallIyammai.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 24 Dec 2010, 09:17

Not sure what SrivaLLi devasenapathe has to do with thiruvallikeNi... Don't think any of them is from around there...

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 24 Dec 2010, 10:12

sureshvv wrote:Not sure what SrivaLLi devasenapathe has to do with thiruvallikeNi... Don't think any of them is from around there...

Suresh, I think the point being made is that pronouncing vaLLi as valli is as wrong as doing the opposite with tiru-alli-kENi - pronouncing it as tiru-aLLi-kENi....

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 24 Dec 2010, 10:46

sureshvv wrote:Not sure what SrivaLLi devasenapathe has to do with thiruvallikeNi... Don't think any of them is from around there...

rshankar wrote: Suresh, I think the point being made is that pronouncing vaLLi as valli is as wrong as doing the opposite with tiru-alli-kENi - pronouncing it as tiru-aLLi-kENi....

Great! Thanks for clarifying. So we have consensus that it should be sung as "Sri vaLLI devesenapathe"? Can't believe it since I've been fighting this battle for years

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 24 Dec 2010, 10:53

Thanks Ravi. Cant put better than that. I always tend to complicate things.

sureshvv, I think the confusing arose because I thought you were thinking valli in tiruvallikENi I mentioned in post #66 is the vaLLi in SrIvaLLidEvasEnApatE. I think we were talking about two different situations. Apologies.

vgovindan · Post by **vgovindan** » 24 Dec 2010, 11:19

Some Tamil wanted to learn Telugu. The teacher started teaching 'kudirai' is 'gurram'. The 'brilliant' took it as a template and translated 'yAnai' as 'yarram'.

Tamils have problems with 'll' and 'LL'. The correct Tamil word is 'mella'. But common usage is 'meLLa'. So on and so forth.

The example brought out by rs can at best be applicable to musicians who have Tamil as mother tongue and singing Tamil songs. In many dikshitar kritis, 'valli' comes - not necessary meaning 'vaLLi'. For example 'agastISvaram' - 'haraM saccidAnanda vallISam'; Ananda naTana prakASaM - 'ASrayAmi Siva kAma vallISam'. On the other hand 'valli' occurring in 'vallI vivAha kAraNasya' in the kRti 'vallabha vinAyakasya' refers to 'vaLLi'.

Therefore, musicians have to understand each situation clearly and then pronounce them - let us not create 'yarrams'.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 24 Dec 2010, 22:04

valli - a generic term for 'koDi (pOnRa peN)' - (a maiden/woman like a) creeper
vaLLi - a very specific term that refers to kuRakkoDi - the consort of muruga - the embodiment of icchASakti...

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 25 Dec 2010, 09:31

vgovindan wrote:The teacher started teaching 'kudirai' is 'gurram'. The 'brilliant' took it as a template and translated 'yAnai' as 'yarram'.

This reminds me of a joke I heard recently (Non-tamil speaking people: apologies as this is a tamil language based joke)

A person was overheard telling a youngster: Dei! pOi vETTiya kaTTiNDu vA! (டெய்! போய் வேட்டிய கட்டிண்டு வா!)
Another person corrects him as: Appa, adu vETTi illai! vEshTInu sollanum. (அது வேட்டி இல்லை! வேஷ்டீனு சொல்லனும்)
So our man says: O! appaDiyA? sari... Dei! pOi vEshTita kashTiNDu vA! (ஓ! அப்படியா? சரி... டெய்! போய் வேஷ்டிய கஷ்டிண்டு வா! )
Arun

vgovindan · Post by **vgovindan** » 25 Dec 2010, 09:44

arun,
Nice one. There is one more - 'IyaDiccAn kApi (copy)'. There was an advocate. He was making a copy of a legal document - days prior to xerox. He told his assistant to copy it 'exactly'. The assistant was following the instructions religiously till he came across a 'flea' (dead) found embedded in the original document. Obviously he could not violate the rule. He caught a flea, killed it and embedded in the copy.

That is 'parampara'.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 25 Dec 2010, 09:50

that is a good one. Also reminds me of a famous old joke about kid saying vAyappayam for vAzhapazham, and when asked the dad replies "adu enga payakka vayakkamunga!"

Arun

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 25 Dec 2010, 14:19

Here are a few mispronounced names (nothing to do with Carnatic Music!) :-

kOttAri instead of koTHAri.
ambEtkAr instead of AmbEDkar.
adwAni instead of ADvANI.

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 25 Dec 2010, 21:31

arunk wrote: that is a good one. Also reminds me of a famous old joke about kid saying vAyappayam for vAzhapazham, and when asked the dad replies "adu enga payakka vayakkamunga!"

Arun

Isn't it their paLakka vaLakkam?

Had SuperStar Rajnikanth said "zhaka zhaka zhakaa" instead of "laka laka lakaa", I think the whole of tamizhnADu would have gotten the blessing that every person in tamizhnADu can now say the zhakAram.

sridhar_ranga · Post by **sridhar_ranga** » 27 Dec 2010, 08:59

Unless my ears were playing a trick on me, I very clearly heard the Trichur brothers sing repeatedly "teliya lEdu" rAmA at MFAC yesterday. An otherwise excellent concert.

sridhar_ranga · Post by **sridhar_ranga** » 27 Dec 2010, 09:21

Pratyaksham Bala wrote:Here are a few mispronounced names (nothing to do with Carnatic Music!) :-

kOttAri instead of koTHAri.
ambEtkAr instead of AmbEDkar.
adwAni instead of ADvANI.

Mispronuniciations abound everywhere: chidAmbram, ramaN (instead of rAman), etc. (One former president was always "vEnkaT ramaN" as per AIR and doordarshan newscasters).

Can't imagine any non native speaker getting "neDunchezhiyan" or "paridhi iLam vazhudhi" right

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 27 Dec 2010, 13:33

apayam instead of abhayam
(by T.V. Rathinam in the song 'shrI sarasvatI namOstutE ambA sakala lOka nAyaki', in the Tamil movie Miss Malini 1947.)

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 27 Dec 2010, 22:33

"panna kendra shayana" had me grimacing thru' entire neraval...

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 29 Dec 2010, 15:00

Had SuperStar Rajnikanth said "zhaka zhaka zhakaa" instead of "laka laka lakaa", I think the whole of tamizhnADu would have gotten the blessing that every person in tamizhnADu can now say the zhakAram.

zha is commonly thought to be a form of L (i.e an L sound, called liquids). It is however an r sound (or a rhotic).

In some puranas, the tamil land is called tAmra varna or tAmra parna (literally "copper colored"). The tamra is actually the transliteration for tam+zha i.e tamil.

So we should transliterate tamizh as tamir rather than tamil, since the zha is a "retroflex r" sound.

Thomas Burrow, the author of the Dravidian etymological dictionary, uses r with a dot underneath for the zha sound. In American english the intervocalic r (i.e r when it occurs between vowels) is usually realized as zha (as in the word 'American' = Amezhican).

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 11 Jan 2011, 15:26

vezhi much so.
Thus, it's easy for an american to pronounce it than for NIck!

sridhar_ranga · Post by **sridhar_ranga** » 16 Jan 2011, 11:38

Very interesting to see Kanchi Paramacharya's views on the regional variations in sounds - he takes up the zha-La-Da, Ja-Ya, and similar variations and says such variations in sound are found even in veda parayanam based on the region/ shakha.

This is in Tamil.

http://groups.google.com/group/mintamil ... 7a15af2d4c

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 27 Jan 2011, 11:24

In American english the intervocalic r (i.e r when it occurs between vowels) is usually realized as zha (as in the word 'American' = Amezhican).

I think many Americans realise it like zha all the time. Even in a "there has to be ...", etc.

However, "non-rhotic accents", an r is only pronounced if it is followed by a vowel: for example, in "urgent" or "purse" it isn't pronounced, but in "ride" or "bread", it is.

Lakshman · Post by **Lakshman** » 04 Nov 2011, 03:47

In the hindi song tU kahE agar by Mukesh he clearly says tU kahE agazh.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 04 Nov 2011, 19:23

That is the effect of alcohol

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Nov 2011, 19:44

- but i think when you have to "stay" (i.e. kArvai) on a r syllable, singers turn it into the zh - for perhaps a more aurally aesthetic effect than the grate of the rrrrrrrrrr...... I dont know if that is the case in this song.

Arun

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 05 Nov 2011, 03:24

Hey, Arun, I thought you did not know hindi!! Anyway, you are correct - there are many more examples...the one that readily comes to mind is chOD bAbul kA ghar, where ghar, nazar, etc are pronounces as ghazh, nazazh etc...

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 05 Nov 2011, 21:30

rshankar wrote:Hey, Arun, I thought you did not know hindi!!

- yes but i knew this (basically from the few songs know). I also know some choice words acquired as part of "survival training" at REC

Arun

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 08 Oct 2013, 22:06

Today's item:

Jagadjanani "su"kha pani kalyani!

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 10 Oct 2013, 07:36

sureshvv wrote:Today's item:

Jagadjanani "su"kha pani kalyani!

A parrot is Suka - I guess the singer felt that mInAkshI was holding happiness (sukha) in her hand, and not a parrot...takes all kinds!

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 10 Oct 2013, 07:40

Just glad that she didn't follow it up with Shuka swaroopini