Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

And what instance is this? You have gotten curiosity piqued
e.g. ill-gotten
See here: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/got.html

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

vk, srkris - thanks for the links.

srkris's examples of words getting 'frozen' at a certain point in time have parallels in other languages too. Afrikaans (based on Dutch), Quebec French, are a few examples. These languages tend to use the 'old styles' prevalent in their source languages.

I have heard the Hindi spoken by Fijian Indians, and they use some of the old - and now rarely used in India - phrases in Hindi.

I suppose Jaffna Tamil is another such example, and could give us clues to old Tamil, especially of the spoken variety. E.g. their use of 'cha' in place of 'sa' (that favorite topic of ours!)

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Re:

Post by Nick H »

sureshvv wrote:And what instance is this? You have gotten curiosity piqued :-)
r-t is halfway there --- or two-thirds, depending on how one counts the words.

We wouldn't say, "his wealth was ill-gotten", but we would speak of, "his ill-gotten gains".

Of course, anything else can be ill-gotten, but, somehow, it only goes with "gains"!

I say, "We", speaking on behalf of the British people :$ , but really I am speaking on behalf of my own generation and older. I don't know if youngsters use this one still.

That is not to say that it is incorrect to use the word in British English just as the Americans do: I think it would be perfectly correct, just not customary.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

>I suppose Jaffna Tamil is another such example, and could give us clues to old Tamil,

Not sure if this example is a clue to old Tamil usage or not, but a Sri Lankan tamil used the expression 'kiNaru kIrinOm', ( 'We dug a well' ) much to the amusement of a few of us Indian Tamils.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re:

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Nick H wrote:
>Someone who worked at a call center would have learnt all this and gotten them corrected in a couple of months

Only the ones working for the American companies! The Brits no longer use the word gotten except in one specific instance ;).
It seems to be so. It is so common in America, I did not even realize it is no longer used by the Brits. Shame, shame ;) I would have expected Americans to shorten stuff and get rid of anachronisms but here it is the opposite.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

On the contrary. Not that I am any sort of expert, but I understand it works in just the same way as has been described in this thread for other languages: America (US of) preserved older English forms. Some of these got re-introduced to British English, like the -ize ending instead of -ise. This is a famous one, where us Brits jumped up and down and said, "don't Americanise our language" (you can say we are an intolerant, insular bunch, in many ways; I won't argue ;)) until some scholar pointed out that English had originally favoured -ize.

MaheshS
Posts: 1186
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by MaheshS »

The use of the word "only" sometimes is a direct translation for emphasis in Tamil, as in, "It's in Adi talam only". One word I still come across in India, while perfectly legitimate, I have not heard over in the UK - Instant, in reference to the current month.

Do the Americans spell Queue as Q just as they do with check [cheque]?

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

MaheshS wrote:The use of the word "only" sometimes is a direct translation for emphasis in Tamil, as in, "It's in Adi talam only".
I thought "We are like this only" was a general Indian thing? Or is that some other root?

The mate to your "only" is "even I".

Even I am a member of rasikas.org Indian Usage= I'm a member of rasikas.org too

Even I am a member of rasikas.org English Usage= You'll be surprised to hear that I am a member of rasikas.org.
One word I still come across in India, while perfectly legitimate, I have not heard over in the UK - Instant, in reference to the current month.
Very old fashioned, but yes, it is British English. Usually written as "inst". "ult," I think, means last month. This is the stuff of solicotor's offices!

I don't know how Americans spell queue: kew? :lol:

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

I don't know how Americans spell queue: kew?
They simply don't use the word 'queue' - instead they say 'line'!
E.g. I stood in a long line...
:)

MaheshS
Posts: 1186
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by MaheshS »

I can't believe that r-t. Americans would know the difference between standing in a line and standing in a queue :)

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by arasi »

Do you mean to say the americans are more disciplined to stay in a 'line', an orderly thing while the brits are skewd up like 'Q'?
Just kidding,of course!
I am happy to see lines in many places in India now. Jostling and wrestling to get ahead is not the norm any more, it seems.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

>I am happy to see lines in many places in India now. Jostling and wrestling to get ahead is not the norm any more, it seems.

I look forward to experiencing that on the next visit.

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by arasi »

VK<
Ha! May be I got carried away, but I do get surprised at times by seeing lines forming. I hope you come back happier too, seeing it with your own eyes. Another improvement: passengers on planes aren't unbuckling their belts and are standing in the aisle even when the aircraft is in motion--well, they pay attention to the 'until the aircraft comes to a full stop' announcement a bit more, I think. I don't hear urgent clicks of the unfastening of seat belts as we land!
Going back to sri lankan tamizh--of course, their spoken language is better than ours. They tookwith them the every day tamizh of a couple of centuries (??) ago. Even in the nearly fifty years of my being away from India, I'm shocked by the paucity in every day expressions of tamizh today. It is basic survival tamizh, shorn of the expressive ways of conversation of our times. We had english words mixed in too when we spoke but tamizh did not suffer because of that.Tamizh words did not need crutches of english words. Example: shop paNNap pORaiyA? for kaDaikkup pORaiyA? vElai SeigiRAyA? is now work paNNaraiyA? samaikkiREn is now cook paNREn and so on.
Even before I started realizing this, one of the youngsters said: nINga pESaRadu book le ellAm paDikkaRA mAdiri irukku! At least we ancients spoke well when we were young, it seems!

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

>one of the youngsters said: nINga pESaRadu book le ellAm paDikkaRA mAdiri irukku!

That is interesting. It is already similar to how we feel about sri lankan Tamil.

It is the nouns and adjectives that get substituted with English words. Verbs stay in tact for the most part, right?

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by arasi »

One verb for sure. paNRadu is a key verb! Just add english nouns and adjectives to it indiscriminately.Voila! Use any english word with it. It fits--sleep, talk, cook, begin :(
I agree, even in our days, a few of of them were there: work, enjoy and so on, but spoken tamizh still had some richness and was expressive too.

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

See my post #22. In Bangalore, you can get away with 'mADu' - similar to 'paNRadu' in Tamil.

smala
Posts: 3223
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:55

Re:

Post by smala »

keerthi wrote:something like the seven lOka-s of indian myth..?

bhUr-lOka, bhuvar-lOka, suvarlOka, maharlOka, janalOka, tapOlOka, satyalOka...

Or the idiom "seven" seas, or maybe even "saptarishi" when the count yields more....? Isn't there an expression with ezh-ezhu janmam eduthAlum...? Seven is a sacred number of sorts, in Hindu thought as well as in biblical references that symbolically represent "perfect completion" .

ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Seas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saptarshi
Last edited by smala on 16 Sep 2010, 05:54, edited 1 time in total.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

If you discover the answer to that one, you will be in seventh heaven!

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by arasi »

The most popular of them all--EDu koNDalavADu (of the seven hills), tirupati VenkaTESvarA!

srkris
Site Admin
Posts: 3497
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by srkris »

The seven vyahrtis/lokas (worlds) mentioned above are actually the higher worlds. The seven lower worlds (patalams) are atala, vitala, sutala, talátala, mahátala, rasátala, and pátála. In classical Hinduism, sUrya (the Sun) is drawn by 7 horses, each representing a day of the week.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

What is the reason for other cultures also to come to this 7 days in a week.
And the 'Satur'day, 'Sun'day, 'Mon'day matches our naming with the grahams. Is there anything interesting there how they got named that way in India and elsewhere?

smala
Posts: 3223
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:55

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by smala »

Here is the site with a *detailed* explanation on the seven(th) heavens and the earths that go along with them...

To start :

The First Heaven
Shamayim or Shamain

The 1st heaven, Shamayim borders the Earth and is ruled by Archangel Gabriel.

This is the lowest of the heavens. It borders our world and is thought to be the dwelling place of Adam and Eve. This heaven being the first and closest to Earth acts as a shading agent for the Earth.

This heaven has clouds, wind and upper waters. It is the home to two hundred astronomer angels who keep watch over the stars.
To complete the visual picture of this heaven one would see legions of guardian angels of snow, ice and dew living in this vicinity.
In the Apocalypse of St. Paul this region is called the "promised land." It is described as , "Now every tree bore twelve harvests each year, and they had various and diverse fruits, and I saw the fashion of that place and all the work of God, and I saw there palm-trees of twenty cubits and others of ten cubits, and the land was seven times brighter than silver".

The First Earth

The inhabitants of this world are the descendants of Adam. It was said to be dull and cheerless but little is known about it.

Article in full here..http://www.steliart.com/angelology_7_heavens.html

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

The number seven has much significance in various cultures, religions etc. - also in maths, sciences etc.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_(number)

E.g.
- Seven fundamental types of catastrophes (maths)
- Seven colours of the rainbow
- Almost all mammals have 7 cervical vertebrae
- The number of stellar objects in the solar system visible to the naked eye from Earth – the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn
- Seven Wonders of the ancient world
- Seven days of Creation (Judaism, Christianity)
- Seven chakras
- Seven heavens in Islam
- Seven deadly sins
etc.

Pratyaksham Bala
Posts: 4164
Joined: 21 May 2010, 16:57

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

It is worth enjoying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week-day_names

Sun, Moon and the five planets? For, these are seen as moving around the earth -- kshatrAs; others are na-kshatrAs, i.e. fixed ones.

In Rg veda, there are several references to number seven. Seven AdityA, seven horses of the sun, seven celestial rivers, seven regions of earth, seven flames of agni, seven rishis, etc., etc.

In Hindu marriage function, the sapta-pati (seven steps) is of primary importance. Outside Hindu temples, we see sapta-mAtA.

And the seven-stringed musical instrument!
Last edited by Pratyaksham Bala on 18 Sep 2010, 17:26, edited 1 time in total.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

vasanthakokilam wrote:What is the reason for other cultures also to come to this 7 days in a week.
And the 'Satur'day, 'Sun'day, 'Mon'day matches our naming with the grahams. Is there anything interesting there how they got named that way in India and elsewhere?
The Western day names are a combination of planetary and Norse mythology names. We remember gods every day, but we don't remember them at all!

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Thanks all. The wikipedia link has some useful info.

>kshatrAs; others are na-kshatrAs, i.e. fixed ones.

Nice, Bala. I did not realize that, though I should have. Sanskrit's uniformity in rules is always something we can count on.

srkris
Site Admin
Posts: 3497
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by srkris »

What bala said is very plausible i.e. the kshatra vs na-kshatra explanation.

However, the word 'kshatra' to my knowledge does not mean "moving" but rather means power. I really dont imagine it makes sense to see a moving-nonmoving distinction here. In fact even the stars "appear to move" in the night sky. Only the pole star (Dhruva) appears to be constant.

Kshatras must therefore mean something like power centres (i.e probably objects that exercise gravity) cf. words like kshatriya (ruler/royalty, kshayatiya in Avestan), kshatrapa (dominion, satrap in middle Iranic) etc. I guess the word kshEtra is also derived by vrddhi/guna from "kshatra".

The Sun, the moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye along with the opposing points along the solar ecliptic (i.e Rahu & Ketu) therefore form the Navagrahas, which may be called Kshatras, or the powerful ones.

So nakshatra should consequently mean power-less i.e those whose (gravitational??) power is not felt.

http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/tam ... &st=kSatra

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Pratyaksham Bala wrote:It is worth enjoying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week-day_names
That is one interesting wiki page and quite an enjoyable read indeed. Hope it is factually correct, it is sometimes hard to say with wikipedia.

According to that wiki article, Indians adopted the Greco-Roman scheme of planetary names for the naming the days. The reason for the particular order itself is quite well explained there in the form of a table. Quite fascinating.

While reading that, I came across links to Yavanajataka( yavana is Greek, so it is Greek jAthakam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yavanajataka ) and Paulisa Siddhanta ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulisa_Siddhanta ). The Paulisa Siddhanta is stated to be particularly influential on the work of our astronomer Varahamihira. I remember reading about varahamihira in high school but not the rest of it. Hope these are all correct.

Thirdly, there is a table at the first link about how different south asian languages call the day of the week.
Mangolian, Javanese, Maldivian, Burmese, Mon and Balinese call them pretty close to ours including "Anggara(g)" for Tuesday. ( though we know what it refers to and surutti ringing in my ears as I write this, no indian language seems to call Tuesday as angarakavar )

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

Apparently Friday is named after the god Fridge*.

Or... something like that...

;)



*Hey, that's cool!

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

I thought Fridays are cool because of the upcoming weekend, but we now know why :)

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

The order of the days are explained like this:

Organize the seven entities in this order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon . ( the order is based on the farthest distance from earth to the closest. The reasoning sort of works from an earth-centric view. Sun is a problem but we understand now why they perceived the Sun that way.

Start from Saturn, Jump to the 3rd one, it is Sun, Jump to the 3rd one from Sun it is Moon, Jump to the 3rd one it is Mars, Jump to 3rd one it is Mercury, third from there is Jupiter, third from there is Venus, third from there is Saturn thus completing the cycle.

Why 3? The reason is, each of these entities is assigned an hour starting at Saturn. The cycle repeats 3 times every day for 21 hours. There are three ( 24 - 21 ) remaining hours in the day. Continuing the assignment and wrapping over to the beginning puts the starting hour of each day on a different entity. So each day is named after the entity that is assigned the first hour of the day.

One question that comes to my mind is this: The above scheme of 7 days seems to trace its origin to the hellenistic period which is around the time of/after Alexander. Given the Greco-Indian connections during that time, it makes sense that such cross pollination of ideas occurred. What was used in India before that?

Pratyaksham Bala
Posts: 4164
Joined: 21 May 2010, 16:57

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

srkris:
Thanks for the kshatra/na-kshatra clarification.

Pratyaksham Bala
Posts: 4164
Joined: 21 May 2010, 16:57

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

Use of Sanskrit in Chennai slums:-
‘kashumAlam’ is a term that is used frequently in Chennai slum parlance. This word is based on the Sanskrit ‘kashmala’ which means dirty or timid.

In Bhagwad Gita, the very first sentence quoted as spoken by Lord Krishna contains the word ‘kashmalam’ which He used to refer to the weakness/despair of Arjuna.

thenpaanan
Posts: 635
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by thenpaanan »

vasanthakokilam wrote:The order of the days are explained like this:

Organize the seven entities in this order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon . ( the order is based on the farthest distance from earth to the closest. The reasoning sort of works from an earth-centric view. Sun is a problem but we understand now why they perceived the Sun that way.

...
Random question:

Was the week always seven days long and was it so all over the planet? Seven seems a very odd number for measuring time.

-Then Paanan

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Nick H »

I guess there must still be many people to who the measurement of time in any unit other than seasons has little meaning.

I think a lunar month is 28 days, and the moon's appearance is divided into quarters. My theory is that is how we come to have a seven-day week.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Seven itself comes from the seven "planets" of classical astronomy.

Read about the Roman Nundinal cycle here which says Roman week consisted of 8 days before they
switched to the 7 day week. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cale ... inal_cycle

Pratyaksham Bala
Posts: 4164
Joined: 21 May 2010, 16:57

Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

There is no reference to weeks/weekdays in the Vedas or Ramayana. Even in Mahabharatha there is no mention of week/weekdays.

Post Reply