Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
vgovindan
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by vgovindan »

Some Tamil wanted to learn Telugu. The teacher started teaching 'kudirai' is 'gurram'. The 'brilliant' took it as a template and translated 'yAnai' as 'yarram'.

Tamils have problems with 'll' and 'LL'. The correct Tamil word is 'mella'. But common usage is 'meLLa'. So on and so forth.

The example brought out by rs can at best be applicable to musicians who have Tamil as mother tongue and singing Tamil songs. In many dikshitar kritis, 'valli' comes - not necessary meaning 'vaLLi'. For example 'agastISvaram' - 'haraM saccidAnanda vallISam'; Ananda naTana prakASaM - 'ASrayAmi Siva kAma vallISam'. On the other hand 'valli' occurring in 'vallI vivAha kAraNasya' in the kRti 'vallabha vinAyakasya' refers to 'vaLLi'.

Therefore, musicians have to understand each situation clearly and then pronounce them - let us not create 'yarrams'.

rshankar
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by rshankar »

valli - a generic term for 'koDi (pOnRa peN)' - (a maiden/woman like a) creeper
vaLLi - a very specific term that refers to kuRakkoDi - the consort of muruga - the embodiment of icchASakti...

arunk
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by arunk »

vgovindan wrote:The teacher started teaching 'kudirai' is 'gurram'. The 'brilliant' took it as a template and translated 'yAnai' as 'yarram'.
:lol: This reminds me of a joke I heard recently (Non-tamil speaking people: apologies as this is a tamil language based joke)

A person was overheard telling a youngster: Dei! pOi vETTiya kaTTiNDu vA! (டெய்! போய் வேட்டிய கட்டிண்டு வா!)
Another person corrects him as: Appa, adu vETTi illai! vEshTInu sollanum. (அது வேட்டி இல்லை! வேஷ்டீனு சொல்லனும்)
So our man says: O! appaDiyA? sari... Dei! pOi vEshTita kashTiNDu vA! (ஓ! அப்படியா? சரி... டெய்! போய் வேஷ்டிய கஷ்டிண்டு வா! )
Arun

vgovindan
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by vgovindan »

arun,
Nice one. There is one more - 'IyaDiccAn kApi (copy)'. There was an advocate. He was making a copy of a legal document - days prior to xerox. He told his assistant to copy it 'exactly'. The assistant was following the instructions religiously till he came across a 'flea' (dead) found embedded in the original document. Obviously he could not violate the rule. He caught a flea, killed it and embedded in the copy.

That is 'parampara'.

arunk
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by arunk »

:-) that is a good one. Also reminds me of a famous old joke about kid saying vAyappayam for vAzhapazham, and when asked the dad replies "adu enga payakka vayakkamunga!"

Arun

Pratyaksham Bala
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

Here are a few mispronounced names (nothing to do with Carnatic Music!) :-

kOttAri instead of koTHAri.
ambEtkAr instead of AmbEDkar.
adwAni instead of ADvANI.

ksrimech
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by ksrimech »

arunk wrote::-) that is a good one. Also reminds me of a famous old joke about kid saying vAyappayam for vAzhapazham, and when asked the dad replies "adu enga payakka vayakkamunga!"

Arun
Isn't it their paLakka vaLakkam? :grin:

Had SuperStar Rajnikanth said "zhaka zhaka zhakaa" instead of "laka laka lakaa", I think the whole of tamizhnADu would have gotten the blessing that every person in tamizhnADu can now say the zhakAram.

sridhar_ranga
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sridhar_ranga »

Unless my ears were playing a trick on me, I very clearly heard the Trichur brothers sing repeatedly "teliya lEdu" rAmA at MFAC yesterday. An otherwise excellent concert.

sridhar_ranga
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sridhar_ranga »

Pratyaksham Bala wrote:Here are a few mispronounced names (nothing to do with Carnatic Music!) :-

kOttAri instead of koTHAri.
ambEtkAr instead of AmbEDkar.
adwAni instead of ADvANI.
Mispronuniciations abound everywhere: chidAmbram, ramaN (instead of rAman), etc. (One former president was always "vEnkaT ramaN" as per AIR and doordarshan newscasters).

Can't imagine any non native speaker getting "neDunchezhiyan" or "paridhi iLam vazhudhi" right :-)

Pratyaksham Bala
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

apayam instead of abhayam
(by T.V. Rathinam in the song 'shrI sarasvatI namOstutE ambA sakala lOka nAyaki', in the Tamil movie Miss Malini 1947.)

sureshvv
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sureshvv »

"panna kendra shayana" had me grimacing thru' entire neraval...

srkris
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by srkris »

Had SuperStar Rajnikanth said "zhaka zhaka zhakaa" instead of "laka laka lakaa", I think the whole of tamizhnADu would have gotten the blessing that every person in tamizhnADu can now say the zhakAram.
zha is commonly thought to be a form of L (i.e an L sound, called liquids). It is however an r sound (or a rhotic).

In some puranas, the tamil land is called tAmra varna or tAmra parna (literally "copper colored"). The tamra is actually the transliteration for tam+zha i.e tamil.

So we should transliterate tamizh as tamir rather than tamil, since the zha is a "retroflex r" sound.

Thomas Burrow, the author of the Dravidian etymological dictionary, uses r with a dot underneath for the zha sound. In American english the intervocalic r (i.e r when it occurs between vowels) is usually realized as zha (as in the word 'American' = Amezhican).

arasi
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by arasi »

vezhi much so.
Thus, it's easy for an american to pronounce it than for NIck!

sridhar_ranga
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sridhar_ranga »

Very interesting to see Kanchi Paramacharya's views on the regional variations in sounds - he takes up the zha-La-Da, Ja-Ya, and similar variations and says such variations in sound are found even in veda parayanam based on the region/ shakha.

This is in Tamil.

http://groups.google.com/group/mintamil ... 7a15af2d4c

srikant1987
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by srikant1987 »

In American english the intervocalic r (i.e r when it occurs between vowels) is usually realized as zha (as in the word 'American' = Amezhican).
I think many Americans realise it like zha all the time. Even in a "there has to be ...", etc.

However, "non-rhotic accents", an r is only pronounced if it is followed by a vowel: for example, in "urgent" or "purse" it isn't pronounced, but in "ride" or "bread", it is.

Lakshman
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by Lakshman »

In the hindi song tU kahE agar by Mukesh he clearly says tU kahE agazh.

cmlover
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by cmlover »

That is the effect of alcohol :D

arunk
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by arunk »

:-) - but i think when you have to "stay" (i.e. kArvai) on a r syllable, singers turn it into the zh - for perhaps a more aurally aesthetic effect than the grate of the rrrrrrrrrr...... I dont know if that is the case in this song.

Arun

rshankar
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by rshankar »

Hey, Arun, I thought you did not know hindi!! Anyway, you are correct - there are many more examples...the one that readily comes to mind is chOD bAbul kA ghar, where ghar, nazar, etc are pronounces as ghazh, nazazh etc...

arunk
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by arunk »

rshankar wrote:Hey, Arun, I thought you did not know hindi!!
:-) - yes but i knew this (basically from the few songs know). I also know some choice words acquired as part of "survival training" at REC ;-)

Arun

sureshvv
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sureshvv »

Today's item:

Jagadjanani "su"kha pani kalyani!

rshankar
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by rshankar »

sureshvv wrote:Today's item:

Jagadjanani "su"kha pani kalyani!
A parrot is Suka - I guess the singer felt that mInAkshI was holding happiness (sukha) in her hand, and not a parrot...takes all kinds!

sureshvv
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Re: Top ten egregious mispronunciation of lyrics

Post by sureshvv »

Just glad that she didn't follow it up with Shuka swaroopini :-)

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