Translations and Transliterations

MMM’s piece on “Eating out...”, together with associated letters in the June 1st and earlier issues of Madras Musings, has provoked me into some musings on the language scenario.

It is entirely possible that other languages trying to co-exist with the monstrosity called English have their own share of hilarious stories, but let us stick to Tamil for now, since it has a restricted set of consonants used for multiple sounds. You cannot distinguish “Gandhi” from “Kanthi” in script form.

I live in Adyar, adjacent to ‘Kasthuribai Nagar’, as it is most commonly spelt. I’m sure most people will have no idea who Kasthuri was, and the late Srimati Kastur Ba (as I remember it from a school lesson) must be relieved that her name is not readily associated with the choked urban jungle which is thriving hereabouts. Poor M.K. Gandhi has no such luck with his name (or his ideas) in the roads and localities all over the country!

I have observed that names can be either translated or transliterated. The Beach Station nameboard has the Hindi version as ‘Kadarkarai’; may be the English sign will soon change! I can go on and on with place and street names, but let’s move on.

I too have been in a restaurant serving Crap Masala (I never tried it), and am quite willing to believe the story of a gentleman quoting a letter received from his son who had gone to work far away in a place called ‘Parota’, where he learned to eat ‘baroda’ in place of rice and sambar.

One source of the problem with names could be that official policy demands original file entries to be in Tamil, even if you submit or show the ‘proper’ English version to the enumerator or whoever is saddled with the hapless task of preparing the lists. For instance, one department transliterated my name back into Roman script as Dharu. I couldn’t waste time trying to get it ‘corrected’. With translations it could be a lot worse. I am clearly an outsider despite a longish residence here, and am still hesitant to try out my pidgin Tamil. If I say I live in a small house, or that I’m going to drink water, the interpretation may be quite different from my intentions. It’s just safer to say “Thamizh theriyadhe”.

Though they have made a glaring exception in the case of the new Secretariat building, most Government buildings have signboards that are strictly in Tamil only. Things don’t seem to be so bad in the other major metros. As the big hoardings used to declare not too long ago: “Long Live Bure Tivine. Klorious, Unatulteradet, Glassigal…”.

While on the subject of language chauvinism, I must mention a book release occasion at the British Council more than a year ago. The title was Foreigners and Foreign Languages in India by Shreesh Chaudhary, Professor of Linguistics at IIT Madras. Those who are not put off by the high price (Rs. 950 – hardback from Cambridge University Press) or the sub-title (Linguistic history …) may find a lot of fascinating information about how various languages are born, grow, and even die. An academic derided it for not being a ‘scholarly’ work, which I feel is its main virtue – easily understood by anyone with a general interest in language, culture and history. The book has a number of interesting conversations and lists, which illustrate how ‘foreign’ words are freely adopted as a matter of practical necessity. Even the author’s native Maithili has a large number of Portuguese words. I was surprised to learn that the officers of the British East India Company were compelled to learn Portuguese which was the established language of trade and commerce in the subcontinent until long after the days of Clive. This is, of course, never mentioned in our Anglo-centric history books. Place names had different spellings at different times and hence the confusing variations in the maps prepared by the earlier Europeans.

There is a strong case for preparing a comprehensive dictionary of words which have been borrowed between Indian languages, but this would be a tall order, considering that all our regions are dominated by fanatics who believe in the ‘purity’ of their particular version. However, any artificial attempt to keep a language ‘pure’ will only hasten its death! Maybe the computer and cell phone generation will soon have us speaking only SMSes.

Thomas Tharu
xteesquare@yahoo.co.uk

The problem of language

The State Government’s efforts to spread the use of Tamil in places like Courts, Government offices, in the nameboards of shops, streets etc. overlook one important fact that could well stymie all their efforts. That Tamil is a non-phonetic language and necessary changes have to be introduced in its script to make it into a phonetic one: e.g. the bilingual road sign of Besant Avenue may be replaced one day by only a Tamil signboard and, sometime thereafter, the powers-that-then-be may decide to revive bilingual signboards and then we will have a translator to instruct the worker to give the English equivalent as Peasant Avenue! My son’s voter card has given his surname as “Racket” because his name was first noted down in Tamil and when the card was prepared, it was translated into English!

The problems that this will create in court judgements involving long-established specific terms not only in English but also in Latin can well be imagined! Not that English is phonetic, but the course of history in the last fifty years has brought that language to such a primal importance the worldover that whoever learns that language has to grapple with its quirks in spelling and pronunciation and acquire competence in it, if that person wants to move forward.

German is a phonetic language and when I was a chemistry research student in the late 1950s, German chemical journals were the sought after journals for paper publication and I took a two-year evening course in German in the University in order to help my reference work move without hindrance. The Japanese then were obstinate in publishing their papers only in Japanese. The situation has dramatically changed in the intervening years. The bulk of research papers published today is in English. Africans hailing from ex-French colonies have the double problem of learning first in non-phonetic French and then struggle again with English. We have been lucky in this respect and this has undoubtedly given Indians an edge in moving forward in the U.S. or U.K. or Australia. All this only heightens the need for continued contact with English for children in school and facilities to acquire competence in English reading and writing.

Chennai is becoming more and more cosmopolitan and those coming from non-southern states have difficulty in picking up the spoken language because of its disconnect with Sanskrit. The problem becomes even more complicated in learning the written or literary language and there will be very little enthusiasm to get into it. Those brought up in Tamil Nadu have the same problem in dealing with Hindi but, like it or not, you have to get familiar with at least its spoken version when you travel north of the Vindhyas or even to places like Mumbai or Hyderabad. It is high time that the powers that be give some thought to introduce changes in its script that will make it more phonetic.

Indukanth S. Ragade
25, Thirumalai Road, T.Nagar,
Chennai 600 017

What success?

I appreciate your contribution in an effort to prevent an elevated corridor along the broken bridge (MM, May 16th). But do the requests by the public or from journals like yours have any effect and success at the policy level? Do they make a dent in the way Government thinks about an issue?

You’ve also been talking of the changing of road names from their erstwhile British ones to Tamil names. I personally don’t see any rationale behind this initiative. Far from grappling over pressing issues the Corporation is facing, it chooses to busy itself over banal ones such as erasing the memory of our colonial past. To paraphrase Shakespere, “What's in a name?”

If it is indeed Tamil spirit that the Government wants to invoke in the citizens of Chennai, we should learn to embrace our past for what it is and celebrate the Anglo-Tamil culture of the 21st Century which in itself has a rich Tamil element.

Affan Mohamed
Consultant,
United Nations Environment Programme - Finance Initiative
www.unepfi.org

Confusion too

I agree with reader R. Soundararajan’s statement (MM, June 1st) about shop sign boards. Madras, besides being a metropolis, is a cosmopolitan city. Many people from other states and abroad come here for business and other activities. Those who do not know Tamil will find it rather difficult to identify the shops they wish to go to. It would certainly be better for the Corporation to give a second thought on this matter.

Over and above this, some of the streets that would bear new names would confuse not only foreigners but even the city people too.

P.A. Ranganathan
16/24, Vedachala Garden
Mandavalli Street
Chennai 600 028

Will it escape?

Perhaps Thadandar Nagar in Saidapet might pass for the name of a Tamil poet and escape change!

It is a ‘Tamilised’ name of a British civilian, Todhunter, who is understood to have drafted the administrative regulations for the Government of Madras.

N. Dharmeshwaran
456, II Link Road
Sadashiva Nagar
Chennai 600 091

Can’t change history

I must take my hat off to Madras Musings volunteer team for compiling the European street names. We have had the Portuguese, Dutch, French and English here in our city and among them were some great people. You cannot, no matter how hard you may try, change history by changing ‘foreign’ street names.

Regarding Wheatcrofts Road, it is actually Wheatcroft Road and not Wheatcrafts or Wheatgrofts Road.

In the old days there was a bungalow named Wheatcroft before 1942 when Mary Clubwala bought the plot whose schedule revealed that south of Wheatcroft Road were paddy fields.

The word ‘croft’ is taken from old English and was used to describe small farm landholdings.

R.K. Dastur
2, Wheatcroft Road
Nungambakkam
Chennai 600 034

Chennai English

The word ‘centum’ (MM, April 16th) is the Latin term for a hundred and is better and easier than the more elaborate cent per cent, especially in the computer age. Tiffin is also alright as it means drinking and, by extension, eating. I have Webster’s here in San Diego which gives this definition.

As for co-brother, it is referred to address a sister’s husband. There is a word shaddagar (from which language?), or sagalai in Tamil. There is an adage Shaddhaha shaddahascha mushti uddham punah punah (they will fight each other). It (the adage) might be more appropriate for co-sisters (another unusual term), who are known as Orgatti or Orpadi (jocularly called one step). As for the term “out of house”, the last word of the paragraph amply explains it: Period.

R.K. Natarajan
natarajanrk@gmail.com

Why not a column?

Further to letter ‘English as she is in Chennai’ by readers S.S. Radhakrishnan and T.S. Gopal (MM, June 1st), may I suggest you start a new column called ‘Tanglish Chennai’. It could include words and usage such as:

• ‘Saar’ meaning: ‘Sir’
• ‘Platform’ meaning: ‘Side walk/pavement’, ‘footpath’
• ‘Mental’ meaning: ‘Lunatic’ and brief explanatory notes on them.

I am sure readers would liberally contribute to the column.

K. Karunanidhi
3, ‘Cuddalore Illam’
Link Street
Kottur Gardens
Chennai 600 085

Tiger water

The letter from readers S. Radhakrishnan and T.S. Gopal, especially the reference to ‘Tiger Water’, made me burst into repeated laughters. I was forced to re-read it several times. It will be no surprise if some Tamil script-writer was tempted by an item or two out of its contents.

T.S. Sivakumar
6, 3rd Street
Padmanaba Nagar, Adyar
Chennai 600 020

The happy mix

It is not English alone (MM, April 16th) but its mix here with Tamil (that makes Chennai English more interesting).

For instance look at this: “My car repair aayiduchu (my car became repaired!)” and at “Sambar is super”. Like co-brothers, two daughters-in-law of a family are co-sisters to each other!

K.N. Ganesh
ganeshkn@vsnl.com