Noonian v. Noonien

[TGTheodore]

To paraphrase Daffy Duck, "A-ha! Vowel trouble!"

--Ted

 

[rahullak]

Vowels are often left out of Indian spellings - so for example something like avatar would be spelt avtr - and the reader automatically adds the 'a' sounds between the letters.

But, the vowel that is introduced, is not officially there, so it could be spelt in English as avatur, avater, etc. Even Punjabi is sometimes spelt Panjabi for example.

Indian culture is facinating.

Yes, the short vowel appears to be left out when used in conjunction with a consonant in most Indian languages . In Sanskrit (from which most Indian languages are derived in one form or other), most vowels have 2 forms short and long. So, there's 'a' and 'aa' (pronounced uh and aah respectively).

so avatar is: a+(v+a)+(t+a)+aa+r

And consonants also have soft and aspirated forms. In Gandhi, the 'G' (ga) is soft and 'D' (tha) is aspirated. The a in between is not silent or is the long aa. That's important because if it were silent the word becomes Gundhi (as pronounced in English) which means dirty in Hindi. So Gandhi is actually:

(g+a)+aa+n+dh+ee

Guess the British decided it should be Gandhi and it's been that way ever since.