सौर मीन: १०, अनुराधा नक्षत्र:
this says the exact opposite of what the headline writer meant to say!
the usual confusion between 'till' and 'while' for hindi speakers. culprit: जब तक
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7 comments:
Rajeev, 'while' I am not a native Hindi speaker, believe me, 'till' you said it, I thought it was correct! (Not just me, another friend - non Hindi, also fell for it).
Well, we all grew up reading this kind of English :) - the Flaars (flowers) variety.
Indian Farmers narrate bitter Bt cotton tales
As a matter of fact, they had become poorer, their soils had become more toxic, and their animals grazing on Bt cotton stalks had either died, or become sick.
good observation of the cause of this confusion! i did not even know that such a confusion existed.
it is hilarious stuff. actual real life example: "i will not eat a gulab jamun till i don't pass the exam".
he meant to say, "while i haven't passed".
there are great bloopers like this in many indian languages. i started looking for these after i got tired of everyone making fun of kerala people's (admittedly hilarious) english accents. yeah, yeah, 'kyoon' for queen etc. (we think 'q' is always 'ky', never 'kw').
Yes, why just single out Tamilians for their yums and yens?
What about kannadigas with their "hech"es?
Hindi speakers love to add an "i" before every "s" which leads to hilarities such as "iskirt", "lip-i-stick", "bus-istand" and so on. Also, question is always "koschan".
"Brand new" is always "new brand". The "a" sound in "cat" is non-existent, hence it is always "treval" for "travel", "mep" for "map", "epple" for "apple".
As for Marathi speakers, we love to elongate the vowel before the last consonant. For example, "pen" is always pronounced "pain", "fridge" is always "freeze".
I used to laugh at these too, but I realized, why should we insist on purity of the English language? The Americans gave their own spin to the Queen's English, and we should not be embarrassed about pronouncing words our own way either. Grammatical butchering, however, is not so kosher because it makes one look like a wannabe and semi-literate fool.
English has some many inconsistencies in its structure. Every region of India butchers English their own way - best to enjoy each of them and laugh at those who somehow feel they are immune to this effect. My 2 favorites:
(Tamizh) Moon = yum, vo, yet another vo, yen.
(Hindi) the perennial error of saying techno-logy, psycho-logy, etc. (stress on the 2nd syllable), when the stress should be on the first syllable (technaaw-logy)
Finally native English speakers butchering proper nouns. I cringe when they say "Heema-laaya" instead of Himaa-laya as we in India say it correctly.
in tamil, there is the present continuous tense: "you are having a pen?" (i am always reminded of the yank expression 'having a cow')
and then the over-use or misuse of the letters g, h and i.
g and k are confused.
there are random h's and i's included in all sorts of words. my favorite is moogambigai. it really is mookambika, but after the full tamil treatment, it's moogambigai. and some guy once wrote to me asking about kuruvayoor, not guruvayoor (cant blame them on that because one letter in tamil suffices for all the ka-kha-ga-gha consonants)
my old friend govindhan (not govindan, again party because one letter for all the ta-tha-da-dha consonants), the weekly varikha (not varika) are other examples.
but it is the unnecessary '1' that is most hilarious. vada becomes 'vadai'. pilla becomes 'pillai'. mala becomes 'malai'. i am waiting for the day when idli becomes idlii. and tamils will tell you confidently it is written 'vada' but pronounced 'vadai'. wrong. it is written 'vada' and pronounced 'vada'.
and then there's always the lovely interjection "daaaaaaaay!" :-)
ok, in malayalam it is the conversion of all vowels into 'e'. it's gelf, not gulf. it's lekshmi, not lakshmi. it's sheni not shani. and of all p-consonants into 'b'. simbly sitting. then the 'ts' sound becomes 'ls'. eg vatsala is valsala. utsavam is ulsavam. but malayalees say 'zh' correctly (as in mange in french), tamils screw it up as 'l' (as in pull).
btw, why is 'r' and 'd' confused in hindi and allied languages? (like r and l are confused in japanese and chinese). how can sari and sadi be the same? and if it is odisha, why did you write it as orissa all this time? and chandigarh, if it is chandigad, for heaven's sake write it as chandigad. there are several perfectly good 'd' consonants in devanagari, use them! none of them sounds like 'r', either soft or hard.
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