How about Rabindranath Tagore, how is Tagore pronounced?

This one may stir up some controversy. To begin with, it is worth reiterating the fact that India is akin to a continent like Europe - many different, but often inter-related, cultures and languages existing side by side (and in crowded cities, on top of each other ).

So a 'standard' for pronunciation in one language is not necessarily the same as the standard in another. Gandhi was a relatively safe word because it is pronounced virtually the same in both Hindi (the 'big' language) and Gujarati (Gandhi's native language).

Things are different with my name (for instance), since my 'mother tongue' is Malayalam. In English, I prnounce it ra-vee. In Hindi it would be closer to r'[v]ee (with the ' indicating a schwa as described for Gujarati earlier, and [v] representing the v/w sound Manoj and I have discussed below). In Malayalam, however, it would sound more like Ray-wee.

The problem, then, with Tagore, is that whilst he is a legendary national figure in India, and hence has a conventionally developed pronunciation (t'gore), this is not necessarily that used in his native Bengali. I was very close to a Bengali family in Bombay for many years, and I was told (and I hope authoritatively) that in Bengal, because Tagore was a logomorph (IMIU) of the Hindi Thakur (landlord), the name would actually be pronounced that way: tthaakur. The 'tth' is an attempt to represent the plosive 't' sound described in the post on nasal sounds, whilst the 'aa' is simply the long a of part (RP).

Always remember, also, that in most Indian languages, the 'r's are prodigiously rolled like they are in Spanish. Come on everybody, give me an rrrr

Hope this helps.

cheer

the sunshine warrior