pronounced as /notice/The phonemic inventory of Maldivian (Dhivehi) consists of 29 consonants and 10 vowels. Like other modern Indo-Aryan languages the Maldivian phonemic inventory shows an opposition of long and short vowels, of dental and retroflex consonants as well as single and geminate consonants.
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive/ Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Tap | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
Dental and retroflex stops are contrastive in Maldivian. For example: maḍun means ‘quietly’ madun means ‘seldom’. The segments pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //d// are articulated just behind the front teeth. The Maldivian segments pronounced as //ʈ//, pronounced as //ɖ//, pronounced as //ʂ//, and pronounced as //ɭ// are not truly retroflex, but apical, produced at the very rear part of the alveolar ridge.
Maldivian has the prenasalized stops pronounced as //ᵐb//, pronounced as //ⁿd//, pronounced as //ᶯɖ//, and pronounced as //ᵑɡ//. These segments occur only intervocalically: pronounced as //haⁿdu// ('moon') pronounced as //haᶯɖuː// ('uncooked rice') and pronounced as //aᵑɡa// ('mouth'). Maldivian and Sinhalese are the only Indo-Aryan languages that have prenasalized stops.
The influence of other languages has played a great role in Maldivian phonology. For example, the phoneme pronounced as //z// comes entirely from foreign influence: pronounced as //ɡaːziː// ('judge') is from Persian, pronounced as //maːziː// ('past') is from Urdu.
The phoneme pronounced as //p// also occurs only in borrowed words in Modern Standard Maldivian: pronounced as //ripoːtu// ('report'). At one point, Maldivian did not have the phoneme pronounced as //f//, and pronounced as //p// occurred in the language without contrastive aspiration. Some time in the 17th century, word initial and intervocalic pronounced as //p// changed to pronounced as //f//. Historical documents from the 11th century, for example, show 'five' rendered as pronounced as //pas̪// whereas today it is pronounced pronounced as //fas̪//.
In standard Maldivian when the phoneme pronounced as //s// occurs in the final position of a word it changes to pronounced as /[h]/ intervocalically when inflected. For example, pronounced as //bas̪// ('word' or 'language') becomes pronounced as //baheʔ// ('a word' or 'a language') and pronounced as //mas// ('fish') becomes pronounced as //maheʔ// ('a fish'). pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //h// still contrastive, though: initially pronounced as //hiᵑɡaː// ('operating') and pronounced as //siŋɡaː// ('lion') and intervocalically pronounced as //aharu// ('year') and pronounced as //asaru// ('effect').
/ʂ/ is peculiar to Dhivehi among Indo-Aryan languages. In some dialects, it is pronounced as a [ɽ̊] or [ɽ̊͜r̊]. The /ʂ/ is related historically and allophonically to /ʈ/ (but not to Sanskrit /ʂ/ or /ɕ/). Sometime after the 12th century, the intervocalic /ʈ/ became [ʂ] /raʈu/ 'island' (12th c.), [raʂu] 'island'. The /ʈ/ is retained in geminate clusters like /feʂuni:/ 'started', /faʈʈaifi/ 'has caused to start'. The contrast between /ʂ/ and /ʈ/ was made through loan words like /koʂani:/ 'cutting', /koʈari/ 'room'.[1]
Modern Standard Maldivian has borrowed many phonemes from Arabic. These phonemes are used exclusively in loan words from Arabic, for example, the phoneme pronounced as //x// in words such as pronounced as //xaːdim// ('male servant'). However, most Maldivians do not pronounce the sounds exactly. The following table shows the phonemes that have been borrowed from Arabic (and pronounced as //ʒ// from Persian and English) with their transliteration into Tāna, and their original and native pronunciation.
| Tāna | Arabic | SAMT | IPA Original / Dhivehi[2] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޙ | Arabic: ح | ḥ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޚ | Arabic: خ | x | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޜ | Arabic: ژ | ʒ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޢ | Arabic: ع | ‘ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޣ | Arabic: غ | ġ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޥ | Arabic: و | w | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޛ | Arabic: ذ | ź | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޠ | Arabic: ط | ţ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޡ | Arabic: ظ | ẓ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޘ | Arabic: ث | ṡ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޤ | Arabic: ق | q | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޞ | Arabic: ص | ş | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޟ | Arabic: ض | ḑ | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ | |
| Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian: ޝ | Arabic: ش | ś | pronounced as /link/ / pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ |
Native Maldivian words do not allow initial consonant clusters; the syllable structure is (C)V(C) (i.e. one vowel with the option of a consonant in the onset and/or coda). This affects the introduction of loanwords, such as pronounced as //ʔis.kuːl// from English school.