# What is the best pronunciation for "Siddhartha" ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697 "2007-04-18T22:34:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/1 "2007-04-18T22:34:52Z")
As in the supreme Buddha for this particular age; 500 BC or so… I am particularly interested (to the tune of a twenty) on whether or not the terminal vowel should be sounded, even if it’s just a shwa. As I understand it, the Sanskrit might have omitted the terminal vowel Devanagari character, but the vowel sound would have been understood and sounded, even if it was not actually written after a terminal consonant. The situation, for those who give a rat’s patootie, is complicated by the fact that modern Sanskrit derivatives such as Hindi sometimes omit both the written vowel and the pronunciation of it. Thus if you ask a speaker of Hindi, she might insist it’s pronounced “Siddharth.” I’m interested in how a contemporary of Gautama’s would have pronounced it. Any authoritative input will be appreciated: Should I say Siddhartha or Siddharth ? ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/2 "2007-04-19T00:52:21Z")
Huh. I heard it pronounced “sid-har-ta.” ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/3 "2007-04-19T02:13:06Z")
[dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) pronounces the final vowel. Though I suppose it’s possible that there might be various dialects that pronounce it differently, but the “standard” seems to be three syllables. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/4 "2007-04-19T02:49:54Z")
[QUOTE=EJsGirl] Huh. I heard it pronounced “sid-har-ta.” [/QUOTE] My impression is that you’re correct, with one exception: the second D is sounded, the H being an exhale as it’s uttered. Something like an exasperated, “Well, Duh!” (English as a rule doesn’t do a lot of aspirated consonants, though I’m sure a few linguists will demonstrate exceptions now that I’ve said that – I know that there’s a T and T[sup]h[/sup] distinction in most English dialects that virtually nobody notices themselves making.) So it would be “sid-d[sup]h[/sup]ar-t[sup]h[/sup]a” with slight exhalation on both D and T. Oddly enough (and I look to be corrected), I believe the normal English vowels are right – short I (“ih”), the A of “start,” and the very unstressed schwa-ized terminal A, reminiscent of a child’s addressing his grandfather as “_Gran’_-da.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/5 "2007-04-19T03:41:57Z")
Throatwarbler Mangrove? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/6 "2007-04-19T09:27:29Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] My impression is that you’re correct, with one exception: the second D is sounded, the H being an exhale as it’s uttered. Something like an exasperated, “Well, Duh!” (English as a rule doesn’t do a lot of aspirated consonants, though I’m sure a few linguists will demonstrate exceptions now that I’ve said that – I know that there’s a T and T[sup]h[/sup] distinction in most English dialects that virtually nobody notices themselves making.) So it would be “sid-d[sup]h[/sup]ar-t[sup]h[/sup]a” with slight exhalation on both D and T. Oddly enough (and I look to be corrected), I believe the normal English vowels are right – short I (“ih”), the A of “start,” and the very unstressed schwa-ized terminal A, reminiscent of a child’s addressing his grandfather as “_Gran’_-da.” [/QUOTE] Much appreciated. I grew up with Urdu as my first language. It’s very close phonetically with Hindi so I’m comfortable with the way to make the sounds themselves. The thing I’m trying to get at is the terminal vowel. I was corrected by an Indian friend. When I researched it a bit, it seems like the orginal Sanskrit speakers would have said Siddhartha as do most Western speakers of the devanagari transliterations. Hindi speakers might more likely say Siddharth, without the terminal schwa. However that’s because Hindi has lost it’s original Sanskrit pronunciation. Therefore there’s this odd situation where native Hindi speakers correct foreign speakers but the foreign speakers are actually more true to the original tongue. Certainly every English pronunciation guide I consulted gives the terminal vowel as sounded, but of course an English reference is unpersuasive to a speaker whose native tongue derives from Sanskrit. Probably not worth too much more perseveration on my part, but that’s how I find my significance these days… Tomndebb, I may have to switch tactics and go for throatwarbler mangrove but the reference may be too arcane to get the money out of my competitor. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/7 "2007-04-19T13:35:32Z")
It all depends on whether you’re speaking Sanskrit or Hindi. In Sanskrit the final short -a vowel (and other instances of /a/ in unstressed open syllables) is pronounced. In Hindi it isn’t. Simple, right? Except that in Hindi it’s pronounced when singing. Sometimes it’s the only vowel sound to carry a note in a melody. Just like in French where the final -e release of a consonant is generally thought of as silent, but is pronounced as a schwa in singing. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/8 "2007-04-19T14:20:56Z")
This may not settle your bet, but I used to work in Jakarta for the firm of Siddhartha, Siddhartha and Harsono (since slightly renamed thanks to Harsono’s SEC-related shenannigans, but that is of no consequence here). They pronounced it :Sid HART-uh (I’m trying to convey a short U sound at end, no aspirated h). I have always been grateful for that name as (setting Herman Hesse aside) it adds such a touch of class to my CV. ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2007, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/9 "2007-04-19T15:14:28Z")
The thing is that the original name itself is always pronounced with the final -a sound, but Siddharth is now a very common male name in India. There was once a time in my school where every class from 1 to 5 had a Siddharth in it, but I digress. FWIW, here’s how I would say the name: [Clicky](http://www.jaithirtha.net/anu/siddhartha.mp3) (mp3, 5kb). ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/10 "2007-04-20T01:55:23Z")
[QUOTE=Dervorin] The thing is that the original name itself is always pronounced with the final -a sound, but Siddharth is now a very common male name in India. There was once a time in my school where every class from 1 to 5 had a Siddharth in it, but I digress. FWIW, here’s how I would say the name: [Clicky](http://www.jaithirtha.net/anu/siddhartha.mp3) (mp3, 5kb). [/QUOTE] I agree, thanks. This reflects the modern Hindi for the current pronunciation, and the Sanskrit rendering of the original, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/11 "2007-04-20T02:09:03Z")
I thought it was odd for Paul Brunton to lecture the reader, in a footnote to the word “yoga” on page 15 of his 1934 book _A Search in Secret India_: “Pronounced _Yohg_. Its spelling is unphonetic.” No it isn’t, Paul, you just confused writing it in Sanskrit with saying it in Hindi. Brunton was eventually exposed as a phony guru. It’s like asking “Which is correct, _circus_ or _cirque_?” Depends on which language you’re speaking-- or, if you’re speaking a third language, like us using English here, it depends on which language frames your discourse. _Circus_ is correct in either a Latin or an Anglophone context. You can still say _cirque_ in English if “_du Soleil_” immediately follows. Which language frames the discourse? Americans mostly learn of the Gautama Buddha story from school or college textbooks whose sources are ultimately Sanskrit texts as studied by white Western scholars who probably can’t speak a word of Hindi. The average Joe Siddharth from Delhi speaks Hindi but probably doesn’t know any Sanskrit. Browse the shelves in an Indian grocery and see some familiar words with the ends chopped off, like mandal, samsar, swastik. But note that even Hindi leaves in the inherent final -a vowel when preceded by most consonant clusters: _mahatma_ (never \*_mahatm_), _Krishna_ (never \*_Krishn_, although I’ve seen a few people with this name spell it “Krishan”). The penultimate -r- in Siddharth doesn’t trigger the final vowel sound, though, because it has a sonant quality and in Sanskrit is classed as a semivowel. A few Sanskrit words have entered English in the _tatsama_\* Hindi versions like _avatar_ instead of _avatara_, _juggernaut_ instead of _jagannatha_, and ironically even the name Sanskrit itself instead of _samskrta_. \*_Tatsama_ (literally ‘that same’) means learned words borrowed into Hindi direct from classical Sanskrit, distinct from _tadbhava_ (‘that being’) Hindi words, which derived from earlier Sanskrit forms changed over time, like French coming from Latin. To take the word _yoga_ as an example, in Hindi the tatsama form is _yog_ and the tadbhava form is _jog_. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/12 "2007-04-20T02:57:12Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] I thought it was odd for Paul Brunton to lecture the reader, in a footnote to the word “yoga” on page 15 of his 1934 book _A Search in Secret India_: “Pronounced _Yohg_. Its spelling is unphonetic.” No it isn’t, Paul, you just confused writing it in Sanskrit with saying it in Hindi. Brunton was eventually exposed as a phony guru. It’s like asking “Which is correct, _circus_ or _cirque_?” Depends on which language you’re speaking-- or, if you’re speaking a third language, like us using English here, it depends on which language frames your discourse. _Circus_ is correct in either a Latin or an Anglophone context. You can still say _cirque_ in English if “_du Soleil_” immediately follows. Which language frames the discourse? Americans mostly learn of the Gautama Buddha story from school or college textbooks whose sources are ultimately Sanskrit texts as studied by white Western scholars who probably can’t speak a word of Hindi. The average Joe Siddharth from Delhi speaks Hindi but probably doesn’t know any Sanskrit. Browse the shelves in an Indian grocery and see some familiar words with the ends chopped off, like mandal, samsar, swastik. But note that even Hindi leaves in the inherent final -a vowel when preceded by most consonant clusters: _mahatma_ (never \*_mahatm_), _Krishna_ (never \*_Krishn_, although I’ve seen a few people with this name spell it “Krishan”). The penultimate -r- in Siddharth doesn’t trigger the final vowel sound, though, because it has a sonant quality and in Sanskrit is classed as a semivowel. A few Sanskrit words have entered English in the _tatsama_\* Hindi versions like _avatar_ instead of _avatara_, _juggernaut_ instead of _jagannatha_, and ironically even the name Sanskrit itself instead of _samskrta_. \*_Tatsama_ (literally ‘that same’) means learned words borrowed into Hindi direct from classical Sanskrit, distinct from _tadbhava_ (‘that being’) Hindi words, which derived from earlier Sanskrit forms changed over time, like French coming from Latin. To take the word _yoga_ as an example, in Hindi the tatsama form is _yog_ and the tadbhava form is _jog_. [/QUOTE] Very helpful. Pedant that I am, I clarified that the arbiter would be the original Sanskrit pronunciation. Not Hindi; not English. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/13 "2007-04-20T11:54:12Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] Very helpful. Pedant that I am, I clarified that the arbiter would be the original Sanskrit pronunciation. Not Hindi; not English. [/QUOTE] I think so too–because I’m not a native Hindi speaker, I grew up in intellectual white America where, if we talk about Indian philosophy, we use Sanskrit like the bookish nerds that we are. If we used Hindi words for this purpose it would seem out of place. Here in America it seems normal for us to talk about Romulus or Augustus, but if we lived in Italy we would be thought weird and pretentious if we didn’t call them Romulo and Augusto. Likewise if we were native Hindi speakers in India it would be proper to say Sanskrit names with Hindi pronunciation. But if you’re a native Hindi speaker brought up in America, this question of code-switching becomes a bit more intricate. **Anaamika** , if you’re reading this, I know your ancestral language is Panjabi, but the same goes for you… I’d be interested in knowing your perspective on this. **Chief Pedant** , did you actually bet $20 on this? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/14 "2007-04-20T12:14:10Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] **Chief Pedant** , did you actually bet $20 on this? [/QUOTE] Absolutely. I didn’t choose my username because I spend the day deciding if quantum mechanics is non-local… Here is the bet: “A Sanskrit-speaking contemporary of Gautama Siddhartha’s would have pronounced ‘Siddhartha’ with a terminal vowel.” What modern Hindi speakers do is irrelevant to my particular bet–what anyone thinks is “correct” current pronunciation is irrelevant to the bet. Hindi speakers may tend to assume modern Hindi is closer to Sanskrit than what the English-speaking world uses for the pronunciation. In this case, they are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/15 "2007-04-21T05:46:19Z")
Well, you win the bet, bhai. You don’t even need a time machine. Sanskrit is still in use today, you can go to any Hindu temple and hear the final inherent short -a being 100% pronounced. I took a class in Sanskrit and was taught that way. [QUOTE=Chief Pedant] Hindi speakers may tend to assume modern Hindi is closer to Sanskrit than what the English-speaking world uses for the pronunciation. In this case, they are wrong. [/QUOTE] In this case they’re wrong, but go easy on 'em, they are right in all other cases. How many English speakers understand the difference between dental and retroflex sounds? And the voiced aspirate stops (gh, jh, Dh, dh, bh) are really hard for an English speaker to learn to pronounce. We have nothing resembling those sounds in English and I still have trouble pronouncing them after years of speaking Urdu. ---
**Author:** ![Omi\_no\_Kami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Omi\_no\_Kami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omi_no_Kami)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/16 "2007-04-21T10:12:44Z")
To clarify the OP, are you asking about the modern pronunciation or the original? I don’t know what language siddhartha originated in, but I had a professor of sanskrit literature who used to pronounce the last two syllables as a single retroflex, as in “shid aRTA”, with the capitalized consonants retroflexed and the final schwa heavily retracted as a consequence of the articulator load. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/17 "2007-04-21T16:09:20Z")
[QUOTE=Omi no Kami] To clarify the OP, are you asking about the modern pronunciation or the original? I don’t know what language siddhartha originated in, but I had a professor of sanskrit literature who used to pronounce the last two syllables as a single retroflex, as in “shid aRTA”, with the capitalized consonants retroflexed and the final schwa heavily retracted as a consequence of the articulator load. [/QUOTE] The OP specified ancient Sanskrit as the criterion. The only pronunciation difference I know of between ancient and modern Sanskrit is ऋ /ṛ/ the vocalic “r” vowel which was pronounced like in “grrr” in ancient Sanskrit but now is pronounced “ri” in Hindi\* or “ru” in Kannada. Similarly for ऌ vocalic /l/. \*Back in the 1970s, the days of _Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert_, people used to tease the Hare Krishnas by saying “Harry Kirshner.” Ironically, in ancient Sanskrit Krishna actually was pronounced like “Kirshner.” The /t[sup]h[/sup]/ in Siddhartha is dental, not retroflex. Although etymologically, the consonant /r/ did trigger retroflexion in Sanskrit, it didn’t in this name. Your professor mispronounced the /s/ too, was he or she Bengali? Speaking of etymology: The name सिद्धार्थ _siddhārtha_ is a compound of two Sanskrit words: _siddha_ ‘accomplished, successful’ and _artha_ ‘aim, purpose, cause, motive, reason, advantage, use, utility, thing, object, _membrum virile_ (i.e. penis), object of the senses, wealth, property, opulence, money’, etc. Together they mean ‘one who has accomplished an aim or an object, successful, prosperous’. Sanskrt grrrl Johanna ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/18 "2007-04-21T16:44:18Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] Well, you win the bet, bhai. You don’t even need a time machine. Sanskrit is still in use today, you can go to any Hindu temple and hear the final inherent short -a being 100% pronounced. I took a class in Sanskrit and was taught that way. In this case they’re wrong, but go easy on 'em, they are right in all other cases. How many English speakers understand the difference between dental and retroflex sounds? And the voiced aspirate stops (gh, jh, Dh, dh, bh) are really hard for an English speaker to learn to pronounce. We have nothing resembling those sounds in English and I still have trouble pronouncing them after years of speaking Urdu. [/QUOTE] Thanks again!! Remember, though: the other bettor is Indian, with native Indian parents whose first language is Hindi or a derivative dialect. I feel very happy taking her money. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2007, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/19 "2007-04-22T00:37:29Z")
'Ello, Sid Arthur 'ere. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2007, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697/20 "2007-04-22T11:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=Number] 'Ello, Sid Arthur 'ere. [/QUOTE] That’s what I always think too, though I reckon it should be Sid Arfa, innit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-pronunciation-for-siddhartha/400697.md?page=2)