there is a complaint among those
with refined speech that anything goes
these days that a lighter sibilant श
is confused with fellow fricative ष
and such are the pronuciation woes
There are 3 sibilant alphabets in many Indian languages. For now, I will give examples in Hindi and Telugu alphabet.
1. sa, स, స - pronounced like the first syllable in saturday
2. Sa, श, శ - pronounced like the second syllable in issue
3. sha, ष, ష - pronounced like the third syllable in promotion
Now coming back to the issue I highlighted in the lines above, many confuse the 2nd and 3rd to an extend that the lighter second sound is gradually disappearing. At least that is true in Telugu and some think it is due to the Hindi influence. The purpose of this post is to point out that there might be Hindi influence here but if someone is replacing శ with ష, then that's because they weren't pronouncing श the way it is supposed to be pronounced.
Just like I chose progressive syllabary to illustrate the pronunciation from a frictional passage aspect of producing the sound it is pertinent to keep the following in mind.
1. sa, स, స - the placement of tongue for this is close to that of dentals (दन्त्य, त थ द ध. దంత్యములు - త థ ద ధ)
2. Sa, श, శ - the placement of the tongue for this is close to that of palatals (तालव्य, च छ ज झ, తాలవ్యములు - చ ఛ జ ఝ)
3. sha, ष, ష - the placement of the tongue for this is to close to that of cerebrals (मूर्धन्य, ट ठ ड ढ, మూర్ధన్యములు - ట ఠ డ ఢ)
Even when seeing the way the tongue touches the palate you can see a progression of where the frictional sound proceeds forth from. For the first one, it is close to the teeth. For the second one it is moves a little inside but not all the way. For the thir one it is close to the throat area.
If we keep the above progression in mind, then there would be no reason to confuse the pronunciation of the second sibilant with the third.
