September 27th, 2007
The Language Barrier…
To this day, I still regret never bothering to practice and learn my ancestral language. It bothers me even more that I won’t be able to pass along this language to my children. (Aarti speaks Hindi, English and Gujurati)
-Krishna
September 27th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Never too late to learn!
And it ain’t that hard!
35 years of hearing the same language, even if it sounds alien to you; you are bound to pick it up, because the primary language center in your temporal lobe recognizes that as your mother tongue whether you are able to speak the same or not!
fMRI studies and PET scans have shown the same and I have seen them in person!
[Go visit the Meenakshi Temple, the next time you are in Madurai, maybe that might help!]
As regards, to Sadasivam being longer than American names; American names are a lot longer than the Chinese ones!
[So your wife understands Hindi and your parents Tamil, I better watch out what I post in your posts! Suddenly, the CD can decipher all the pun I intend; scary! ;-)]
September 27th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Yeah - now I need to overcome the embarrassment of speaking Tamil incorrectly. The weird thing is, I’ve always understood Tamil - I know what people are saying in the language (now pure Tamil for me is a little tougher). My parents speak a colloquialized version - with some English bits thrown in every now and then.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Well, at least your wife is smart. I hope my son is more concientios about learning Finnish and does not end up like you or my husband, he tries to reclaim his ancestral languages after they have been dead for more than a generation.I hope your child learns another language, it makes me feel good to speak my native language fluetly even in a different country.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I’m hoping that when the baby comes along, I’ll pick up Hindi along with the little one. Aarti plans on talking to the kid only in Hindi during his/her formative years while I’ll speak in English (and Hindi, once I learn it).
September 27th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Even the average person from Tamil Nadu, wouldn’t be speaking pure Tamil, except for the politicians and the literati! So you ain’t no different!
That apart, even an average Joe America [or Monty Canada, in your case] doesn’t speak the King’s English correctly! What with the new age jargon, slang and jingoism around: colloquial is what is pure these days: and pure is Latin!
But the fact on primary language center, that is a proven fact; so give your native language a shot! Lot simpler than Espanol!
How about your siblings; do they feel the same problem with native language?
September 27th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
My sister is the same as me. She pretty much talks in English all the time. And, she studied Spanish too.
September 27th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I was just browsing through your photos on Flickr!
Dude! You own MacPro and 2 of them! You are a league apart then! [From we PC users, that is!{Windows/Ubuntu (or any other flavor of Linux)}] Talk about breaking stereotypes!
And that video on how to turn sketches into digital art is informative! Do you use a tablet and a stylus to ink, or is it the simple mouse? (But given that you spend on MacPros no less, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a 30 inch tablet!)
Growing up, one can’t wait to get one’s hand’s on a mean motorized machine, cycling is passe then! But as grown-ups, the simple joy of cycling takes precedence over the gas guzzlers! Ironic, huh?
September 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
The desktop Mac is actually a Dual 2GHz G5 (PowerMac) - which is about 5 years old (still holding strong, though!). I added a Macbook Pro to my arsenal last year - to replace an aging Powerbook that I purchased in 2000.
Re: inking - I use a Wacom 6″ x 8″ Intuos 3 tablet. It works fantastic - though I’m dreaming of a Wacom Cintiq…
Love my new bike - I’ve been missing it since we left Tampa for Knoxville this week.
September 27th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
At 2.5 grand, a Cintiq is pretty bling-bling to own! But then that would mean that you could churn out PC Weenies at a more rapid rate! Or Sivam Studios turns into a one man mini-Pixar! Nice!!
Well! I better shut-off before you flag me as spam on your server!
September 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
lol - I’m enjoying the exchange, JD. Whereabouts in the US are you based out of?
September 27th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
So have I given the impression that I am based in the US of A? Now, that’s interesting!
September 27th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
But, “JD” — that has got a nice ring to it! Although I do what Turk does!
September 27th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
So you’re not based out of the US?
September 28th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Not as of the moment! Maybe 3 years down the line!
September 28th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Hindi and Tamil
I have learned something today. I had no idea there was a Tamil language. I assumed Hindi.
Bad Reader no treat for Scott.
I managed to get through Spanish class always answering “no se, yo soy es muy estupido”
September 28th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Calling yourself stupid in Spanish doesn’t help! There are hundreds of languages out there that you might not know! A country like India is home to 22 official and around 50 regional languages in total! The number of languages in the continent of Africa are beyond comprehension!
Even English varies from country to country; have you ever heard the Scottish Gaelic or the Irish for that matter? You wouldn’t discern that they are speaking English! Yet they are all offshoots of the same English that you and I seem to know like the back of our hands!
What one needs to do is to move out of the box and shake off the prejudices that one might have about languages, religions and cultures alien to one’s own; instead of being led by historical and religious myths one might have about people in lands other than your own!
What do you think?
September 28th, 2007 at 9:19 am
At least, you do draw a nice little comic strip, Scott! Gotta give you that!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Is there a reason ‘amma’ and ‘appa’ are so similar to (anagrams/rhymes of) ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ and have the same meanings? Maybe they share similar roots and/or are borrowed words?
September 28th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Right on, Bren. Amma and Appa are analogous to Mamma and Pappa. I believe John Doe could shed more light on this, but I believe the terms are derived from Sanskrit (the mother of all languages). For more info on Sanskrit: http://www.hinduwebsite.com/general/sanskrit.asp
September 29th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Whether Sanskrit is the mother of all languages, or not, is a question for a historian to answer, an archaeologist to support and a linguist to confirm!
[I am neither! As I said I do what Turk does in 'Scrubs'!]
But from what I have read, Sanskrit is the core language of the Indo-Aryan-European family of languages that has continued to the present day! That most, if not all, European languages are derivatives of this language family is well known! But its influence on the Proto-Dravidian family of languages of which Tamil is the oldest is a matter of dispute!
The proponents of the “Aryan Invasion” theory subscribe to the idea that Dravidian civilization flourished in the pre-Vedic times in the areas of South-Asia, South-East Asia, Australia and parts of Central Asia and that their Proto-Dravidian family of languages pre-dates the other family that came along when the Indo-Aryan branch invaded South Asia! The proponents of the “Aryan genesis in South Asia” theory would believe otherwise that Indo-Aryans and their languages originated in India and then migrated to the rest of the world! And conflicting evidence has been gathered to support both theories in one way or another!
But Sanskrit has the distinction of the oldest written literary record that is available in the present day that dates back to 1500 BC; [the seals of the Indus Valley civilization although supposedly more ancient, have not been deciphered to date, and one can't really attribute any one of the Proto-Dravidian languages to them as a result!] The oldest written record of Tamil in the modern Indo-Brahmi script family dates around 500 BC [200 say some], but absence of the written records cannot be a proof of the non-existence of a language at a certain period!
So much for the history lesson, so amma derives from the word roots, ma and mata common to both Sanskrit and Tamil independently! Mata is the root that gives way to “mutter” in German and “mother” in English and the colloquialized mama, mamma, mom, mummy, mommy and so on!
September 29th, 2007 at 2:07 am
However, the Chinese Sino-Tibetan family of languages have apparently a totally separate origin dating around 1400 BC, that has zilch to do with Sanskrit, Latin, or any of the ancient Indo-Aryan-European languages for the most part!
So, I am sure they wouldn’t regard Sanskrit to be the mother of their family of languages!
In fact in Mandarin, the word “ma” can have different connotations depending on the stress given when it is pronounced and how long and how nasally the syllable is spoken!
The meaning can range from simply, mother, to horse, a piece of linen, to a swear/curse word!
Strange, huh?