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Young Sherpa girls chewing bubble gum. Photographed by Robb Kendrick, 1992.

Scanned from the December 1992 volume of National Geographic Magazine

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Retroflexification of place names in Marathi

I find it interesting how certain place names are pronounced with retroflex consonants in Marathi, even if they aren’t in the languages it borrowed them from, or the languages spoken in those regions:

Hindi भोपाल (Bhōpāl) → Marathi भोपाळ (Bhōpāḷ)

Hindi लद्दाख़ (Laddāx) → Marathi लडाख (Laḍākh)*

Nepali नेपाल (Nēpāl) → Marathi नेपाळ (Nēpāḷ)

Nepali तिब्बत (Tibbat) → Marathi तिबेट (Tibēṭ)*

Persian اتران (Irân) → Marathi इराण (Irāṇ)

Persian افغانستان (Afǧânestân) → Marathi अफगाणिस्तान (Afgāṇistān)

Contrastingly, Bhutan is called भुटान (Bhuṭān) in Nepali (and འབྲུག་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ ('Druk Gyal Khab) in Dzongkha), but भूतान (Bhūtān) in Marathi.

*Ladākh and Tibēṭ more likely come from their English names, Ladakh and Tibet (whose Indian English pronunciations can have retroflex consonants). Tibet is called Tibbat in Hindi-Urdu and Persian too. The Tibetan name for Tibet, བོད་ (Böd), is quite different, but is probably still the ultimate origin of Tibbat.