Inherent vowels in Nepali

People who are familiar with Indic writing systems will know that unlike in alphabetic writing systems (like the Latin alphabet we use in English), consonants in such scripts have an inherent vowel associated with them, e.g. in Hindi, क represents 'ka' (pronounced more like [kə] with a schwa), while कि represents 'ki' [kɪ] and के 'ke' [ke], with the vowel symbol replacing the inherent vowel of क. (It is is this replacing of the inherent vowel that separates such scripts from syllabaries such as Japanese hiragana.)


Having learnt some Hindi before attempting Nepali, I started by assuming the inherent vowel in Nepal was also pronounced as schwa [ə]. I quickly learnt from Lauren and from my own ears that it is not a schwa, but rather an open back vowel, closer to [ʌ] (like the vowel in 'hut'). This analysis was further substantiated by Khatiwada's 2009 phonological description of Nepali as part of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association (JIPA)'s Illustrations of the IPA series which gives /ʌ/ as the underlying vowel phoneme. (Incidentally, I'm waiting to hear back from them regarding an article draft I submitted a few months ago.) However, Lauren and I also noticed that this vowel could be pronounced with rounded lips [ɔ] (like the vowel in 'hot'). Khatiwada notes such variation for this particular vowel, along with other variants, depending on the speaker and surrounding consonants (basically, there's a whole lot of factors and it's too hard to tease out right now.)


It was therefore with some satisfaction that my Nepali tutor asked me yesterday to say 'dog', which I pronounce [dɔg], and 'duck' [dʌk] (the latter with an unreleased [k], but the vowels themselves distinctly different to me). She then asked me if they were pronounced the same, providing some evidence that to her ear, [ɔ] are [ʌ] are the same sound (or, allophones of the same phoneme).

Of course, for an English speaker such as myself, it's still quite annoying because since I hear the difference between the two vowels all the time, sometimes I just want to know which one I should use!