Via the “web clips” which perch above my 5,090 unread GMail messages, news that Google’s email is now down with some brown languages:
Until now, there hasn’t been a good way to send email to friends and family in Hindi, my native language and their language of choice. That’s why I’m happy to announce a new feature for Gmail that lets you type email in Indian languages. If you’re in India, this feature is enabled by default. If not, you’ll need to turn it on in the “Language” section under Settings. Once enabled, just click the Indian languages icon and type words in the way they sound in English — Gmail will automatically convert them to their Indian language equivalent. [link]
Oh, if only there were some way for me to type Malayalam words the way they sound in English to me…and have GMail (or anything else, for that matter) automatically convert them to the correct Malayalam-in-English spelling equivalent.
For example, sometimes while I’m writing, blogging, tweeting or commenting on your Facebook crap, I feel the compulsive need to refer to the side dish I loved most as a small child: a fried, potato-y concoction which I’d spell “oorelkarunga merehkwerty or in a similarly butchered fashion.
Do you know how that shiz is actually spelled?
urulakizhangu mezhukkupuratti
Yeah (Thanks for the correction, sumithar!).
Unfortunately, when I’m trying to pronounce some of these words internally, so that I can sound them out slowly in order to spell them awkwardly, I hear them the way I did when I was four, which is neither helpful nor accurate. Just try and use a search engine to look for a correct spelling when Malayalam spellings are so wacky, and by wacky, I mean REALLY DIFFICULT.
For example, if you have Hindi selected, “namaste” will transliterate to “नमसà¥à¤¤à¥‡.” We currently support five Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, and businesses and schools using Google Apps should see this in the coming weeks. [link]
My father always said it’s not lady-like to gloat, but after seeing four Dravidian languages on a list of five total, I’m gloatin’. 😉 Blame my traumatic college days, when almost everyone was of North Indian descent, and the only brown languages I heard were Punjabi or Hindi– even from the handful of other Southie kids! All that aside, this feature sounds pretty cool to me. Like GMail wasn’t already great enough…
The English, upon being taken over by the Normans, basically turned their language from a logically spelled, easily conjugated, and intuitively constructed Germanic tongue into a messed up pseudo-romance stew that makes sense to no-one, not even to native English speakers but it caught on.
The decline of the local languages has more to do with India’s shoddy education system than anything else. Once knowing English stops being a marker of being well educated the nouveau riche will no longer feel the need to show it off to highlight their “sophistication.”
Was it them again? Man! they are evil bstrds! Where is Adolph when you need him?
There is plenty that could be commented on here, perhaps to much to even begin. But since the idea of the market place keeps coming up, I thought I would touch on it. Amitabh, you mention that “this unfortunate situation prevails for some speakers of many if not all Indian languages. You can’t buy a Nano with Hindi or Gujarati or Tamil alone either.” Its unfortunately much more than that, more even than a question of class. If Urdu is in the position that it can be written off as “economically unfeasible,” that is ONLY due to the tireless efforts of many powerful and not so powerful people to make it a reality. Of course Urdu will be seen as the language of the Muslims when it is pitted against a newly invented language (now called Hindi, a term that used to refer to what we think of as Urdu) who’s entire purpose was to reject a “foreign” script and vocabulary. Of course Urdu will become economically unviable when the new state (India) with leaders like Vallabhai Patel regularly refused to hire Muslims or anyone with an Urdu education. Of course, when, in a state where millions upon millions of Urdu speakers live, SANSKRIT stands in as a living language instead of Urdu in the education system, the language is going to decline. (note, though, that I would blame plenty of Urdu speakers for the current situation, too.) To think that the language which was without a doubt the lingua franca across a huge swath of South Asia could suddenly succumb to “market forces” in the span of 100 years, is juts wishful thinking. Its certainly convenient, though, and that’s why so many people can say things like “There is no nefarious conspiracy to keep Urdu down in India. The market place is speaking on Urdu and its really as simple as that.” without having to really consider what happened. otherwise,why would the market care to go to the trouble of calling them “Hindi films” when they were usually written, songs and all, by the greats of Urdu literature?
A few more things, from PAFD:
” Btw, the Kashmiris in the Valley dont speak Urdu. ” I am aware. But somehow, your “market forces” declared that Urdu would be the state language of Kashmir, which is why the example was relevant. Urdu had to be given something, but, khuda na khwasta that it shouldn’t be sharing any space in the Hindi heartland, so they stuck it in Kashmir.
‘Urdu speakers have been able to convince the whole of Pakistani Punjab (which has more people than native urdu speakers in India) to adopt Urdu as their national language.” This statement is also plenty myopic. If you look at the numbers of people who speak Urdu, or study Urdu in Pakistan, they are quite low – lower than in many parts of Bihar, UP, MP. And there are plenty of people there who don’t like Urdu at all. And, besides, what justice is this that Urdu has been relegated to a foreign country, cut off from its roots and its speakers. I’m not crying for the language as an abstract thing, but for its speakers! And that includes not just Muslims, but everyone who has been deprived of the chance to learn a language with 400 years of history, and especially those who have been taught to believe that the language is “evil, outdated, un-indian, anti-hindu, and so on and so forth.” What a terrible situation, PAFD, when you can sound almost gleeful about the demise of an incredible language that you could grasp within only a few weeks work (assuming you know Hindi).
after reading this, I tried out the Hindi one, and it’s great! It’s really easy to use, but it might make me more lazy in remembering exact Hindi spelling.. (for example, I can type bahut and it will type it correctly, whether or not I remmeber if it is a long or short ‘u’ in Hindi).
Overall though, I think it is great and soo easy to use. I think it will make Hindi a lot more accessible as an internet language…
“In fact this whole division of one language (Urdu/Hindustani) into two (Urdu and Hindi) only occurred under the British at Fort William College.”
Yes. Let’s not forget that Urdu and Hindi are part of a false dichotomy. Both were originally “Hindustani” and could be written using either script. Even today, both have the same exact grammar and basic vocabulary. The different lies in where people choose to draw their vocabulary from. If they draw more from Arabic and Persian then it is called Urdu, and if it draws more on Sanskrit then it is called Hindi. But as a student of Hindi, I still learn a vast number of words that come from Arabic and Persian, and can communicate with an Urdu speaker on many topics.
Historically, I believe drawing more so on Arabic and especially Persian was seen more as an artistic choice, as people felt these words sounded more poetic…
Also, it is interesting that the institute where I studied Hindi in India almost created this strange Sanskrit-origin word preference– teaching us Sanskrit versions of many words that are NOT commonly used in Hindi/Urdu in India, and insisting that this is ‘real’ or Shuddh Hindi though if I use these words in common conversation people will look strangely at me or may not even know the vocabulary word I am using.
Are the “z’s” tranlisterated from the Dravidian languages into English in prounounced the same as the English zed?
Exactly how would urulakiZhangu meZhukkupuratti be pronounced?
If Urdu is being killed by the current power structures in India, then we should also remember that it owes its existence and development to earlier power structures that created and nurtured it. So one set of power structures favored it, and the most current set does not.
As for Pakistan, the fact is that Urdu has made huge, irreversible inroads into the lives of Pakistani Punjabis. It is the de facto mothertongue to many urban youth. There are many people, especially from Lahore, who know Urdu and not Punjabi. Especially as a written tongue, Urdu dominates in Punjab. They don’t even teach Punjabi as a subject! Even the people who can speak Punjabi generally use Urdu as their written medium. It is very common to have the parents speak Punjabi to each other but Urdu to their kids. To say less people study Urdu in Pakistan than in India is ridiculous. Urdu and English are the main written languages and languages of education. I give huge props to the Sindhis there, who at least fought for and won an important place for their language in Sindh. And the Pashto people generally speak Pashto with pride. But Punjabi has taken huge hits in Pakistan. Just as the Bollywood award shows perversely take place mostly in English, the state assembly of Punjab in Pakistan takes place in Urdu…and from what I’ve read, it only became PERMISSIBLE to even make Punjabi speeches there rather recently, prior to that it was simply forbidden to do so.
Zha in UrulakiZHAngu is the sound that Malayalees use to test whether a person is really a malayalee. I do not know a similar sound in any other language. Does anyone know? I have not heard one non-mallu pronounce that sound clearly.
Older Malayalees thought that they can pronounce the sound ‘Zha’ because of the ‘eerkil’ from cocunut leaves as the tongue cleaner. If Ann can pronounce it, that myth is busted.
So it is a z sound then? Like za za gabor? where is the tongue placed when saying it?
59 LandBeyond7Zs:
Tamizh.
That’s what Tamils think too. 🙂
About the Hindi Urdu debate, as Amitabh remarked Urdu grew because it was patronised by the rulers of that period. No use fretting about the loss of patronage now. At least Pakistanis have been brainwashed to taking up Urdu as an Islamic language even though it is actually a native language of just the Mohajirs.
dude, it’s in the very name of the tamil language – in common parlance, most people pronounce the name of the language as tamill with a retroflective ‘l’, but technically it is tamizh with a zh. i’m surprised you didn’t know that about the neighbouring state.
sepiaaa – the z is neither as in zed or zha zha. to compare it to other indian languages, it is closest to the retroflective ‘l’ that comes across in the southern languages (incl. marathi). in linguistic terms, i don’t know if e.g. the zh is palliative, retroflective etc. after you asked where the tongue is placed, i tried saying it, and interestingly, the tongue is placed nowhere – it is curled back – almost like a retroflective, but ends up touching no part of the mouth.
sorry, md – but i thought of you while eating!
On the Urdu debate, for me it is really very simple and Amitabh and Ponniyin vaguely touched on this. Urdu borrows heavily from foreign languages–Arabic and Persian. They might be nice languages but they are foreign. I am as comfortable speaking Urdu in India as I am Japanese or Swedish. For me of course, it is easier to expunge Urdu from my life since it is not a very big part of it.. It is perhaps more difficult for those who have adopted Islam and all its cultural baggage. It is like if Syrian Christians started to speak heavily Aramaic infused Malayalee or even Aramaic itself and then insist that that is the lingua franca of Kerala. That everyone understands it. That everyone likes all those foreign words. That the original Malayalee words were not good enough, versatile enough, poetic enough. Persian is to Hindi as Aramaic is to Malayalee. Simple.
Now this is a heavily loaded issue. But really it shouldn’t be. Afghans, Turks, Persians and Arabs are not Indians. They will be the first ones to declaim against such assertions. Their language too then is not Indian.
I don’t think we can paint the issue in black and white. Britishers are not Indians either, but their language stuck. I think people take interest in languages that helps them progress. And that’s where the government patronage helps. Like how the Indian government now spreads Hindi.
I guess, people (in north India) in the 1500-1700s would have been falling over themselves to get educated in Persian, that’s the court language and language of power for the Mughals.
Well, I would say however that a huge number of Perso-Arabic vocabulary has entered EVERYDAY colloquial Hindi (at least urban Hindi) and should now be considered part of the Hindi language. There is no need to expunge commonly used Persian or Arabic words that everyone (Hindu and Muslim alike) uses and replace them with Sanskrit train-wrecks that no one organically uses or intuitively understands. I like the organic Hindustani that is spoken across northern India and Pakistan, whereas I think the two extremes (highly Persianized Urdu and highly Sanskritized Hindi) are abominations. Hindi has the capacity to be as rich and flexible as English…a language that never hesitated to borrow from all the other languages its speakers came across or historical processes they underwent, and incorporate them into its own lexicon, with no notions of purity, only utility. While still being capable of great beauty.
Amitabh, at some point people had to learn those Persianized/Arabized Hindi vocabulary too. Nobody organically used or intuitively understood those words then either. Why were the fruits of a prior alteration fine while the fruits of the current ones are now considered “abominable?”
I’ve never been much of a democrat when it comes to languages. I’d rather raise the bar on vocabulary and conversation than sink it to the lowest common denominator. Much of the richness and diversity you ascribe to English came not because Olde English speakers wanted to use the words that were native or intuitive to the man on the street, but because they wanted to make themselves more classy by Latinizing it.
BTW, the dish looks delicious. I’ve heard this name for the first time. seems like a malayali speciality.
I’ve just heard little “mezhuguvathis” that we use when power goes off. 🙂
“I like the organic Hindustani that is spoken across northern India and Pakistan, whereas I think the two extremes (highly Persianized Urdu and highly Sanskritized Hindi) are abominations.”
Agreed!
“for me it is really very simple and Amitabh and Ponniyin vaguely touched on this. Urdu borrows heavily from foreign languages–Arabic and Persian. They might be nice languages but they are foreign.”
If that’s really so, then who the hell cares? Why doesn’t it bother you that the English post that you just made is filled to the brim with french loan-words and even french grammatical structures?? In all serious, Jagat, what is the standard for what is ‘foreign’ and what is not. If there have been Arabs in India for over a millennium, what makes them still foreign? And if Aryans have been there for three millennium, why aren’t THEY foreign? I don’t understand your standard, except that its convenient for you.
Standards are always based on what’s convenient. Flip around your argument and try to answer it. What makes them not foreign?
One would think the fact that they call themselves “Arabs” would indicate some level of foreignness no?
And if English speakers decided they were going to make a concerted effort to start transitioning the language more like something out of BeoWulf would that necessarily be a terrible thing? Difficult and expensive sure, but why would it be bad if that’s what they want?
I’m just a little curious where this more is coming from. This idea that it was okay for Hindi to become what it became due to centuries of Persian and Arabic influence, but it is suddenly not okay for India’s modern intelligencia to influence it another way perplexes me.
P.S. Arabs never really went past Sindh. The Delhi Sultanates and the Mughals that followed them all came from the Central Asian Steppes so they’re a Turkic/Afghan/Mongol mix.
And if Aryans have been there for three millennium, why aren’t THEY foreign?
What exactly are Aryans?
Oh oh! I know this one!
Is it the post hoc explanation that White people came up with to reconcile their belief in their own melanin deficient superiority with the historical fact that a bunch of darkies were able to construct a glorious civilization without them?
Amitabh, may I ask why these “purer” forms are abonimable to you? I suspect its because they have veered so far away from the spoken form, but I was still wondering. I’m acually a bit surprised on your take on this approval of organic change due to influences over the time – considering you are normally opposed to e.g. Indian culture being influenced by the west, this strikes me as curious.
In Tamil, like in Hindi, there is a huge difference between the spoken and written forms of the language. But, unlike in Hindi, the exposure of the literary version has never gone away – it is merely used in different contexts. As in Hindi, it is used when reading news and making speeches, but unlike in Hindi, it is also used in lyrics. Socially and culturally, there is also different view in Tamil when it comes to how people regard the formal version of the language – it is still highly revered – and I think much of this has to do with the fact that the words used in colloquial Tamil are, to a great extent, just a diluted form of the original, rather than replaced by a borrowed word. In the end, this results in people knowing what the literary form is, but just using a different manifestation/pronunciation of it. And this is just in India – Sri Lankan Tamil is still far closer to the literary form when it is spoken.
Of course it would be terrible. It would be insecure, ahistorical, reactionary, regressive, and unneccessary. It would be trying to erase 1500 years of English’s (and English speakers’) history and experiences. It would force children to learn what would virtually be a foreign language. It would be a form of denial and a pathetic, futile attempt to change the past. All to satisfy a handful of presumably influential or powerful people who have the ability to effect such change if they want to, regardless what anyone else thinks about it.
This modern intelligentsia has done more to ensure Hindi’s death and uselessness than anyone else has. And who the hell are they to determine what people should speak? This modern intelligentsia merely pushes its own agenda, has its own motives and prejudices and biases; why should THEY get to impose those on a helpless, largely illiterate population that has no choice but to try to adapt to whatever ridiculous and difficult circumstances the modern intelligentsia creates for it? And do the modern intelligentsia apply sound linguistic theories to what they do or is just pathetic nationalism, hyperreligiosity, and hatred toward the other? Of course this applies in equal measure to the jerks who have made Urdu into a ridiculous Persian wannabe that has no connection to the land it’s spoken in.
I don’t disagree that there should be a literati or dedicated people who work for the improvement of Hindi (or any other language); and there should be standards and a certain amount of prescriptive measures. But not merely trying to return to some glorious mythic age that never existed, or pretending that by substitutin Sanskrit terms everywhere they’re returning Hindi to some pure form it allegedly was spoken in eons ago (which is not even factual).
Because it’s not ‘purer’. They merely took Urdu (or Hindustani) and removed every foreign word and artificially substituted a Sanskrit word in its place. Voila! There was their new Hindi. They imagined they returned the language to some pristine form that people must have spoken it in before the Muslims came. But that is totally false.
What I AM against is the mindless use of Hinglish where perfectly good Hindi words exist. Why say “water drink karo” when you can say “paani piyo”? Or “chair mein sit karo” when you can say “kursi mein baitho”? To replace a Hinglish sentence with a Hindi sentence is a valid thing in my opinion. I have no problem with English words entering Hindi, in fact anything that didn’t have a handy Hindi word already (computer, telephone, television, google, etc). should have just used the English word in my opinion. But replacing regular, common functional Hindi words with English equivalents seems lazy and negative in my opinion. This may not gel with what I’ve been saying about retaining commonly-used PersoArabic words in Hindi, but remember that one process took place over centuries and one is taking place over decades.
IF the zees in Malayalam are really ells, then why when they transliterate Malayalam into English is a zee used? That always confused me and made me think the langauage contained alot of words with zees in them, when it does not.
So are you saying that that form of Hindi is, in fact, not Hindi? I am not really understanding here. I learned Hindi in the standard way – with minimal/no Urdu, and then our Hindi classes were accompanied by Urdu classes such that finally when we were more conversational, we combined both for Hindustani, but still knew which words (for the most part) belonged to which language. But although that form of Hindi was not spoken colloquially and was, generally, relegated to specific fora, it did not sound odd, as Hindi in its original/literary form is heavily Sanskritized. Are you talking even about the standard written Hindi that is being taught in school? Perhaps we are not talking about the same “extreme.” I guess I also have to ask whether you have learned Hindi formally – because that makes a HUGE difference. Most people who learn Hindi fomally will prob. not think the extreme (that I think you are talking about) is odd because they have been exposed to it far more than those who just speak colloquially Hindustani.
Water drink karo – what’s the point?! It’s already 2/3 English anyway. In fact, the ‘karo’ is pretty unnecessary. Yeah, but I do agree about the choice of using words in English when their Hindi counterparts are just as accessible and acceptable. I recently heard a woman say in Tamil “Naan idhai make pannen,” which translates roughly into “I made made this.” Tanglish also has this particular style of adding “-ify” to full Tamil words, in the middle of an otherwise fully Tamil sentence.
Is it the post hoc explanation that White people came up with to reconcile their belief
Well it’s unfortunate these ideas are still perpetuated…
Valare upakaram meams “good work”? If so, I figured that out coz of it’s Sanskritic bent. Interesting. If not, then my bad.
I’m not familiar with Malayalam but I do not that Tamil uses alot of Sanskrit words and I was wondering when this first started, or if it’s always been like that. Or could it be that Sanskrit took several words from Tamil?
it is highly confusing. at least in tamil, people who are incapable of pronouncing ‘zh’ will substitute it with a palliative ‘l.’ though in many ways, the ‘zh’ sounds closest to e.g. a rolled ‘r’ to me. i stopped asking questions, mostly because it’s an issue of transliteration, which in many cases will be off/inaccurate. since the words written in the actual script are quite clear, just know that the people actually speaking these language are able to tell the difference between them (even if they are not able to pronounce the differences between them!).
check out the second word of this song to hear the sound.
sepiaa sez
ak replies, “nowhere”.
I yumbly disagree. Turn your tongue backwards, like a chameleon’s tail and let the tongue’s bottom rest on the hard palate of the upper jaw. the tip of your tongue should be no more than 1.52cm from the soft palate. then you basically squeeze your belly inwards and let the air escape the random pipes into the buccal cavity and out. you’ll produce a sound close to the ‘ellll’. hope it verks for you.
72 · Yoga Fire
Who is they, why do they want to do it, and what else is going on in the world around them when they decide to do it? What is the point of this discussion without asking and answering these questions?
81 · Sepiaaahhh:
You’ve just hit upon the linguistic purging which isn’t being discussed in this thread.
82 · ak:
I’ve found this to be the easiest way to teach Americans who are new to the language how to make the sound – to compare it to an American r. The problem is sometimes one can get confused, forget what r sounds like, and get totally tripped up.
anyvun been to a ceilidh. LOL
Nice video. Basically then the zh sound is the rolled “r” sound, which basically sounds closer to a “d”.
Varun Gandhi will cut off the arms of anybody who speaks in Urdu.
Ponniyen:
That might change. For one thing realize that if English continues to be preeminent the world over, it will be because 1 billion Indians put their weight behind it. And what if I billion Indians don’t? You know it’s only been 60 years since the British left. And in that time, English became a world language so now every slum dog wants to learn English (and computers). At some point, Indians might look around and say, hey, we can manage without English. But that won’t happen before we have built a brand and standing in the world community. Other colonized people–the Vietnamese for instance–don’t speak French anymore. Things are less complicated there but I cited this example to show that things tend to revert.
Kabob:
But I am not English. I don’t particularly care what trajectory English takes. As for why I speak English–it was foisted on me really. And I am not in India. That is why I continue to speak English. And this is an English language blog. In North India I’d speak Hindi. I’m visiting Rajasthan in a few days and I’m looking forward to picking up some of their local dialects.
Kabob:
Well, it is certainly true that anything that came to India after the breakup of Pangea is foreign. That is the gold standard. 🙂 But your question deserves a serious response. We don’t really understand how or from where the Aryans came to India. What we know is that much of what is Indian culture has been shaped by Indians of all communities and this has been going on for millenia. What is different about the Arabs(sic, they were central Asians not Arab)? Time is one factor. Another is the fact that there weren’t all that many of them–they didn’t bring entire villages and communities from Anatolia with them. Babur was out of a job, Ghori wanted to plunder. Indians converted and that is why you have 300 million or so Muslims in India and Pakistan.. With the Aryans–well once again we don’t know the whole story– but entire tribes came and settled en masse in the Gangetic valley. There were enough of them to sustain their culture. If there had just been one of two overlords, their culture wouldn’t have taken root. I don’t see any reason why Indians, yes the very same Indians, the darkies who are looked down upon by Persians and Turks and Arabs should sustain said languages in India.
aK – thank you :). A lawyer who can also cook – yummy. what is wrong with the desi ‘aambala’ in the states!!!!
Most of what you said makes very little sense to me. Historically, I understand what you are talking about, but again, yours seems a narrative of convenience. Supposing that when you say Arabs (fyi, I chose the term arab just to demonstrate how long muslims have been in India, not becuase I think that all of them were Arab), you are referring to Persians, Turks (you mention anatolia), and Afghans, I don’t think you can make the argument that they only came to plunder or because they were “out of work” and seriously claim to be impartial. These “foreigners” became entirely Indian and had no intentions of ever going back to where they came from any more than my (polish) family has any intention to leave the US for for Krakow. There are serious differences between the Mughal empire (not to mention any of the other Islamic dynasties…bijapur, hyderabad, etc…and the british empire. The latter were never there to say; the former were. The former contributed massively to Indian society, science, literature, everything, without taking any money out of the country. Though there has been so much inter-marriage that the point should really be moot: if I can marry an Indian woman and make her a US citizen, I’d like to think that 500 years of intermarrying would qualify one to be “Indian.” But of course, some people think they can arrogate to themselves the right to decide just what Indian is.
‘I don’t see any reason why Indians, yes the very same Indians, the darkies who are looked down upon by Persians and Turks and Arabs should sustain said languages in India.”
When you said ‘darkies,’ I thought you were talking about the Dravidians until I finished the sentence. But you don’t want to sent the brahman’s packing, of course, becuase their culture conforms to your definition of “settled in.” At any rate, your statement reeks of bias. On what basis do you assume that all Persians, Turks, and Arabs have always, and do still, look down upon all indians, “darkies,” as you like to say?
this reminds me of a conversation I had on a train once. If you haven’t figure it out yet, I am white, and a lot of times, this means that people are quite candid when speaking to me in India, assuming that I must not have strong feelings in any direction, or worse, that I will sympathize with their complaints against Islam. At any rate, it was the middle of july, about 5 o’clock in the afernoon. I was in the sleeper class of the train – non-AC. In my section were two men from bombay in suits who saw me reading the urdu paper and began to talk to me. during the course of the conversation, they told me that all muslims were backwards. I asked why they would think that, and they said they could offer me proof… They told me, look at these Muslims, they are still living in Arabia! They all wear shalwar kameez, like they think they are living in the deserts of arabia or something. If they were modern, they would give up all of their silly, backward traditions. It was an incredible moment, an amazing thing to say. These men were sitting here, in the indian summer, in a train, WEARING SUITS suited for the british isles but not for a train to Bhopal, telling me that the Muslims were backward and fooling for wearing clothes that vaguely fit the climate they lived in. I tried to point this out to them, but they didnt get what I was saying…they coulnd’t see their own contradictions, but would have defended to the death that Muslims weren’t Indian…for what thats worth….
Don’t worry.. Laloo will crush Varun Gandhi under a roller.
The word “arya” is used in the Bhagavad Gita in reference to Arjuna the warrior. So did “arya” refer to kshatriyas only?
No, Actually Englsh was a world language even 60 years back. It was the language of the world’s greates empire of that time soon to be replaced by another great power speaking the same language. That’s the reason why English stuck in India inspite of some Hindi nutcases’ desire to throw out English from India after 1965.
I don’t see any threat to english in the immediate future for its global dominance.
So, can someone answer me, does valare upakaram mean “good job”, “good work” or “well done”?
“The word “arya” is used in the Bhagavad Gita in reference to Arjuna the warrior. So did “arya” refer to kshatriyas only?”
No. In the Ramayana, Sugriva (the king of monkeys) was referred to as “arya.”
Yeah but Sugriva was kshatriya by caste right? He wasn’t fully animal but part human, so his human side would have a caste to it, naturally.
i think this is part myth that there were monkey warriors in the ramayana. there are fewer instances of humans born with tails [coincidentally, the longest tail for a human today is 16″ and it’s held by a bengali fellow per the viki.] but a few hundred or even a thousand years ago, the %ges must have been higher. i suspect the monkey warriors were merely humans who had visibly long tails.
The word arya means noble in sanskrit and is a common adjective. For example Buddha’s 4 noble truths are called the “4 aryani satyani”.
It means “many thanks”. link.
I was always told that Malayalam had more Sanskrit words than Tamil, (actually, what I was told is that Malayalam is a mix of Sanskrit and Tamil) so this thread is interesting.
Also, the “zha” in urulakizhangu mezhukkupuratti is pronounced like an “R” in this phrase, not an “L” or “jh”, to be excessively simple about it. A hint of that is in the post itself:
OK so then valare means thanks and upakaram means I’m giving/doing. Sanskrit.
Kar, Karma, Karam – action, activity, doing.