Phonetic pronounciation of 'Thousand'

[Guest guest]

Vyam Vysadevaya Namah

-------------------

Dear Narasimha, Namaste.

 

Due to the discussion regarding the word; "Thousand", i decided to look it up phonetically.

 

Thousand (Ó¨aÏ…zÓ™nd).

 

As you can see the actual pronounciation of the '-sand' part is more akin to a

'jh' or 's' and not 'j'.

 

Best wishes, Visti.

[Guest guest]

Dear Visti,

 

> Due to the discussion regarding the word; "Thousand", i decided to

look it up phonetically.

>

> Thousand (Ó¨aÏ…zÓ™nd).

>

> As you can see the actual pronounciation of the '-sand' part is

more akin to a 'jh' or 's' and not 'j'.

 

Yes, "s" in "thousand" is pronounced as "z".

 

However, your assertion that z is closer to jh than j is not true.

Neither j nor z is aspirated (stressed) like jh and zh.

 

Your other assertion that z is closer to s than j is more appealing.

The thing with j is that the tongue _touches_ the inner surface of

mouth when you pronounce it. The sound "z" is very similar to "j" and

the only difference is that the tongue does not touch the inner

surface of mouth. It only comes very close. That's the only

difference between j and z. [Note: Here, I am not talking about the j

in English language. The j in English language is pronounced - by

native speakers - with the tongue touching the inner surface of the

mouth a little higher than in the j of Sanskrit is to be pronounced.

But if you take z of English and j of Sanskrit, they are pronounced

at the same place, with the difference being whether the tongue

touches the surface of mouth or there is a gap.]

 

The only similarity between z and s is that both are pronounced with

a gap between the tongue and the inner surface of mouth (that's why

we can continuously make the sound - sssssssssss or zzzzzzzzzzzzz,

but we can't make jjjjjjjjjj). The similarity ends there. The actual

position on the inner surface of mouth where tongue comes close is

different for s and z.

 

However, I can't confidently say what is the right approximation for

z - s or j. But it certainly is not jh. I can say that much.

 

May Jupiter's light shine on us,

Narasimha