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GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION
This pronunciation guide
is meant to help the English-speaking reader quickly grasp the fundamentals of
correct pronunciation. Those
who wish to learn proper
pronunciation are strongly encouraged to listen carefully to native speakers of
Bengali - the guidelines given
here are only an
approximation.
This songbook contains
devotional songs in several languages, including Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindi,
Braj-bhana, Maithili, and Braj-bhuli.
The same standard system
of diacritics are used for all the songs in this book, and all the above
languages share some important characteristics; however, there are some special
rules that apply individually to Bengali and Hindi.
Rules for pronouncing
Sanskrit, which is the mother of all civilized languages, are given first. The
differences for Bengali and Hindi
will be described
separately. The guidelines given here mostly apply to speakers of American English.