Why do Urdu speaking people pronounce English words starting with letter "S" as "IS"?

[Crusher]

I have noticed this trend among the Urdu speaking anchors, news casters on Pakistani TV. They tend to pronounce English words starting with letter "S" as "IS". They seem to convert "S" sound in the beginning of the English words into ("I"+"S") sound. For example they pronounce School as "Ischool", Smart as "Ismart", Spoil as "Ispoil".

Why do people with Urdu speaking background tend to mispronounce these English words starting with letter "S". I have noticed that hindi speaking people of India also seem to make the same mispronunciation of English words starting with letter "S" and they too convert "S" sound into ("I"+"S") sound. What is the reason behind this mispronunciation, can any urdu or hindi speaking background person explain it for me?

 

[Mujahid Memon]

English is not our first language and its just perceptions

We Karachi people find Punjabi people saying "school" as "sukool"

 

[fitpOsitive]

I have noticed this trend among the Urdu speaking anchors, news casters on Pakistani TV. They tend to pronounce English words starting with letter "S" as "IS". They seem to convert "S" sound in the beginning of the English words into ("I"+"S") sound. For example they pronounce School as "Ischool", Smart as "Ismart", Spoil as "Ispoil".

Why do people with Urdu speaking background tend to mispronounce these English words starting with letter "S". I have noticed that hindi speaking people of India also seem to make the same mispronunciation of English words starting with letter "S" and they too convert "S" sound into ("I"+"S") sound. What is the reason behind this mispronunciation, can any urdu or hindi speaking background person explain it for me?

Subhanallahi wa bi hamdihi!!! Allah teri shan.

 

[Pakistani Fighter]

Bcz I think I have seen English speaking ppl say iskool istead of skool

 

[Crusher]

English is not our first language and its just perceptions

We Karachi people find Punjabi people saying "school" as "sukool"

English is also not our language yet we have no problem what so ever pronouncing English words starting with letter "S". My question is not to criticize anyone, I am just curious about this mispronunciation of English words starting with letter "S" by urdu and hindi speaking people.

 

[El Sidd]

I blame the gangu bollywood for this.

Here is my evidence

 

[StormBreaker]

English is not our first language and its just perceptions

We Karachi people find Punjabi people saying "school" as "sukool"

Yea, but I don’t find goras saying “sakool”, it actually is pronounced as “iskool” by them goras as well

 

[Mujahid Memon]

@Crusher @Syed Hammad Ahmed @StormBreaker

I think its neither "sukool" nor "iskool" but rather "Ssskool"

check pronunciation: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/school

P.S: we are not some goras and just that goras can't pronounce "Pakistan" properly similarly our "lehja" is different. No need to be personal on that

 

[Pakistani Fighter]

I think its neither "sukool" nor "iskool" but rather "Ssskool"

I checked my pronounciation. It matched with ssskool rather than iskool

 

[Old School]

Localization. It happens with Arabic words too. Arabic words are pronounced in Urdu way. Let us see these words as local words rather than foreign words. Think about Jamaican/Nigerian English which is quite different. Even in UK/USA people pronounce words differently. So do the people in Morocco with Arabic. Pakistani English should be regarded as a separate branch just like US/AUS/NZ. Language is a very fluid thing throughout the history and learn to live with it.

 

[bluesky]

I have noticed this trend among the Urdu speaking anchors, news casters on Pakistani TV. They tend to pronounce English words starting with letter "S" as "IS". They seem to convert "S" sound in the beginning of the English words into ("I"+"S") sound. For example they pronounce School as "Ischool", Smart as "Ismart", Spoil as "Ispoil".

This mispronunciation may be throughout South Asia. I am not sure about other languages. But, Bengali speakers also make same mispronunciation of these words.

 

[Crusher]

My personal theory about this mispronunciation is that urdu/hindi speaking folks tend to prefer elongating vowels in the beginning of the urdu words whereas they tend to shorten the vowels at the end of urdu words. But we Punjabi speaking people are totally opposite to it, we tend to shorten or sometimes even totally discard the vowels at the beginning of the words whereas we tend to elongate the vowels at the end of the words.

I give you example, urdu word for work is "kaam", this "aa" shows the preference of an elongated vowel at the beginning of the word in case of urdu, whereas the same word in punjab is "kam" or can even be simplified as "km" because we punjabis of central punjab prefer to shorten our vowels at the beginning of the words. Similarly take the english word "punishment", the urdu speaking people will pronounce it as "saza" and it feels like the vowel "a" at the end is very shortened by them, whereas our punjabi instinct is to elongate the final vowel, we you will often notice that we will pronounce it as "sazaa" with an elongated "aa" vowel at the end totally opposite to urdu speaking people's pronunciation.

This is what helps us punjabi to pronounce foreign language words which tend to have either no vowel or very short vowel at the beginning of the words. For example the word "smart" has an "sm" consonant cluster with s and m constants put together without any kind of vowel, now this is the case what we punjabi speaking people love to have either very short vowels and just a cluster of consonants at the beginning of the words, so we have no problem pronouncing english words starting with consonant clusters like "school", "smart" with sch and sm consonant clusters at the beginning of the words but the urdu/hindi speaking folks have trouble with words starting with consonant clusters so they add their own "i" vowel to ease the pronunciation for themselves, hence mispronouncing these words as "ischool" and "ismart" etc.

It is just a different way of pronunciation preferences of vowels and consonants that developed in divergent ways in central india in case of urdu/hindi and Punjab in case of punjabi language.

 

[Aspen]

I think this is because of Persian influence on Urdu.

 

[Crusher]

I think this is because of Persian influence on Urdu.

I would say it is gangu influence on urdu because native hindi speaking people of central india also have the same mispronunciation of english words starting with S with a consonant cluster at the beginning.

 

[gangsta_rap]

I would say it is gangu influence on urdu because native hindi speaking people of central india also have the same mispronunciation of english words starting with S with a consonant cluster.

how could there be any 'gangu influence' when urdu is an indian language?