This is a reply within a larger thread: view the whole thread

Re: How do you pronounce...
in reply to a message by Alena
Since the question was about how an indeterminate `you' prnounces it, there is no right or wrong. However, the pronounciations given above would not be recognizable to any Indian ... in fact, I had to check the links to make sure that we were indeed talking about the Indian name rachna, derived from Sanskrit rach, to produce.In Sanskrit, the word was rachanA, ch as in English chair, the middle a's roughly the vowel in English cut, and the last A as in English car. With an unstressed middle syllable, the corresponding vowel slowly got elided and gave us rachna. This is the most common pronounciation of this name from the North Indian Hindi belt, though in a variety of Indian languages, the vowels got variously distorted. The consonants have stayed the same.
vote up1vote down

No replies