Reasons for the deep-rooted hatred

[Bhooma]

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Hey come on guys .. how many of us "tamizhans" speak to each other in Tamizh? I have interacted with people from so many different states and sadly its only we "tamilians" who speak to each other in English ( for the most part )..

Not that I am defending anybody who literally butchers Tamizh!! the other day one of the popular game shows had a woman compere telling the participants -- idhai kaluthil poTtu Kollavum ... She sure did kill me with her Tamizh !!! will the politicians who mouth "engum tamizh.. edhilum Thamizh" please ensure that Tamizh is spoken the way it should be ?

I dream of the day when we , at Tamilbrahmins.com.. walk upto Kalanidhi Maaran and order him to pull out all those serials which make a mockery of brahmins/our beautiful way of speaking tamizh ? sigh.... i wait for the day

 

[silverfox]

I give a damn!

Frankly speaking, I don't think anybody in India gives a damn whether one spoke tamil the right way or the wrong way. The same is true for numerous other vernacular languages. What matters is how fluent one is in English and other western languages, especially for those aspiring to occupy important slots in society.

I have seen cine starts, cricketers and others who could not even speak one full sentence in English at the beginning of their career pick up fluency and westernised accent amazingly fast. Thereafter, in tele interviews, they speak in english and pretent to be very 'weak' in their original tongue!

Dear lotus_quartz:
I do. Having practically lived all my life in the US among the Americans, I am trying to speak the language (even though I have forgotten quite a bit of vocabulary) here in Chennai but the people here in TN wouldn't let me. Bhooma is right! They force me to speak in English and then they don't understand my accent!!

I do care about every Tamilian (maybe I should write 'Tamizh') speaking the language correctly and it is annoying to hear the 'real Tamilians' murdering the beauty of the language by mis-pronouncing Tamil's most unique consonant!!

 

[hariharan1972]

need a middle ground here. yes there is a need to know & know well - english whch is the window to the world & our biggest differentiator. however not at cost of ignoring tamil. right pronounciation is a must & shd be inculcated from young. there is a treasure trove of knowledge in tamil literature which one can gain access to with a good understanding of tamil!

 

[silverfox]

Dear hariharan1972:

Speaking of English, do you know, almost everyone here speaks English with accents placed on wrong syllables, wrong syntax, diction and pitch. Some of the words they use are completely the opposite meaning! Many of them speak the language the same way as they would speak Tamil or some Indian language!

 

[kashyap]

it is an indication and a symptom.

Hi All in the discussion,

I am not talking about the last 50 or 100 years or the time after the advent of british when English had started becoming more prevalent and especially in the last 3-4 decades we see many convent educated folks not able to prononunce the language correectly because they have not that much necessity to use Tamil.
But I am talking about the fact that even people who have not been educated in english convents and schools and who have had education only in tamil unable to learn it correctly and with dedication.
My main aim of bringing up the pronounciation bit esp atleast the name of the language is to draw attention to the fact that most non-brahmins show distinct lack of application and lack of willingness to work hard at anything and that in fact is the reason for their backwardness(in intellect and not hereditary wealth).

So the point here is brahmins are not responsible for their backwardness in intellect and hence they cannot claim that we oppressed them. Nor can they use reservation to oppress us now. Also the tamil brahmins are more Tamil than all these non-brahmins.

The proof of the pudding is in eating it. And this is one well-known symptom which I have highlighted.

thanks.

 

[hariharan1972]

Blame it on the emphasis on rote learning

Dear hariharan1972:

Speaking of English, do you know, almost everyone here speaks English with accents placed on wrong syllables, wrong syntax, diction and pitch.

"Do you know ?" Excuse me ! How wouldn't I ? Afterall i am a son of the soil with the SAME problem ! ha ha ha ! Infact the desire to master English language was so high in me & some of my friends that when "Venga Boyz" became such a big hit, we were contemplating to indianise that & launch our own "Thenga Boyz" !!!!!. Lest Mozart turn in his grave, we dropped the idea.

On a serious note, yes, there is a problem. The emphasis of today's education (here i mean the average schools, not the '5 Star' schools) is still on rote learning. I sometimes wonder about the utility of making the children study Kelly, Keats, Shakespeare et all when he is not instilled with enough confidence to speak in proper english. As a product of such an educational system, i still remember how tongue-tied i was when i had to face my first Group Discussion about a decade back. I was a Chartered Accountant, knew the subject reasonably well but lo ! i was not able to express myself. After a decade & more, the general level has definitely improved, but there are still teeming millions who are "English literate" so to say but not to speak !!!

The English education in India creates people who can follow but cannot express. I recall discussing with one of my friends about his experience as an "interviewer". Since my friend wasn't too comfortable with the candidate's english, he made the mistake of checking his learning background. The candidate's response was " Sir, initially I AM hindi, from 2nd then I AM telugu, from college I AM english". The poor soul was trying to explain that he studied in different language mediums in his Primary, Secondary to Higher Secondary & then college. My friend jokingly said that he saw the candidate as "Lord Krishna" since he is HINDI, TELUGU & ENGLISH all by himself. Like "Lord Krishna" says "Sarvam Krishnarpanam", "this Krishna" took all the languages upon himself ! This too was about a decade back.

I would like to overlook the problem of not understanding your accent because i doubt whether even i can follow your accent especially if it is strong.

Having said this, you should concede the fact that we have given back a lot more to English than what we have taken from it. See how we have contributed to the reduction of turn-around times for long sentences ?

Original : Have you finished it ?

We : Finished"aaa" ?

Original : Have you completed it ?

We : Completed"aaa" ?

Original : Are you ready ?

We : Ready"aaa" ?

A mere adding of "aaa" could convert any word into a question..How is this for ingenuity ?

I still do believe that we are a lot better than Chinese & Japanese but that is no reason to cheer. We need to buck up & shift the emphasis from theory to practice.

 

[mrifan]

Macaulay Indians

Unfortunately, as a Macaulay Indian, I think it will be another couple of generations till Indian languages are modernized and adapted for a knowledge-based society. One way the Japanese got around this problem was to lift modern words straight from English and make it part of Japanese. And they can definitely be termed as an advanced knowledge-based society!

For example, "Hotel" in Japanese is "Hotelu", "Ring" is "Ringu" etc. The final syllable is added because a terminal consonant is unusual in Japanese. This pattern can be discerned from Japanese names like Honda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Kawasaki, Matsushita, Yamamoto, Nikkei, Suzuki, Denso, Toshiba, Ninja, Samurai, Sumo and so on.

In a sense, "Hinglish" is coming into its own as a language among Indians. Some examples include:

"Arre, he was so chaalu yaar, bahut cunning tha woh."

"Mere paas time nahin hai, kal meeting ke liye appointment fix kar do, aur car bhi book kar do."

Once there is a large consuming market of Hinglish speakers, products will be developed to cater to this market. If enough emphasis is laid on research in agriculture, construction, and other "native" sciences, and they become big moneymakers, a culture will spring up where Indians will voluntarily adapt the vernacular by borrowing English words, and more importantly creating new words based on new intellectual property developed in India for these markets. The final shackles of Macaulay will finally be broken forever as Indians will have their own intellectual property expressed in their own language. Particularly if Hindi gets re-Sanskritized, with the Persian words retired, it may be a powerful contender for a modern language with an ancient past.

By the way, as one may have noticed, I have emphasized Hindi rather than Tamizh in the paragraph above. This ties in to my previous observation that Hindi-speaking people will constitute the overwhelming majority of the population of India in a few decades. If their purchasing power soars, that is going to be one of the world's largest markets to be served, and hence it is better to join in rather than stand out. Indian languages, especially Sanskrit are phonetic languages, and hence more suited for voice recognition applications, and also for computer applications. Also, Sanskrit is a "dense" language, in that one stanza of prose in Sanskrit, expands to many sentences in English. This is partly due to the lack of many contractions in English, and a reduced alphabet set.

I can just imagine programming in Sanskrit, well, no need to imagine, there is already a language called APL which takes the prize for "density and brevity"!

 

[hariharan1972]

Gap Fillers.......

The most frequent gap fillers in indian english as far as i have noticed are :"this one" & "that one"..

Some one knows what "this one" & "that one" is but no one would try to explain "which one" is "this one & that one".

A perfectly legitimate conversation in our office circles is :

"Have you finished this one ?"

"yes"

"no thissss (stressing) one ?"

"oh this one aaa ?" (see the conversion to a question !!!)

"yes"

"oh that one i haven't done..but this one i finished"

Any foreigner overhearing would have every reason to believe that this is "crypto" english !!!!!

Having said this, nothing to beat our good own tamizh gap filler - "idhu"

there is a joke which goes around as to how a wannabe politician thrust into the role of guest speaker managed in a function without any idea of what it was all about.

So he goes :

"hi hi....vanakkam....yenna yellarum indha idhukku idhu pannadhula naan romba idhu adayaren....indha idhu namma nattukke oru mukkiyamana idhu....andha idhula yennakku konjam idhu panna idhu kidachadhukku naan idhu patturukken....inga vandirukka ungalla paarkum bodhu ore idhu va irukku....indha idhu nala unga yellarukkum oru idhu kidaikkum nu idhuvagirappo yenakkum ore idhu va irukku...........................................................................indha idhuvoda yennoda idhuva idhu pannikkaren.....vanakkam" !!!!!

indha yennoda idha pathi unga idhu yenna ?

 

[NARAS]

Unfortunately, as a Macaulay Indian, I think it will be another couple of generations till Indian languages are modernized and adapted for a knowledge-based society. One way the Japanese got around this problem was to lift modern words straight from English and make it part of Japanese. And they can definitely be termed as an advanced knowledge-based society!

For example, "Hotel" in Japanese is "Hotelu", "Ring" is "Ringu" etc. The final syllable is added because a terminal consonant is unusual in Japanese. This pattern can be discerned from Japanese names like Honda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Kawasaki, Matsushita, Yamamoto, Nikkei, Suzuki, Denso, Toshiba, Ninja, Samurai, Sumo and so on.

In a sense, "Hinglish" is coming into its own as a language among Indians. Some examples include:

"Arre, he was so chaalu yaar, bahut cunning tha woh."

"Mere paas time nahin hai, kal meeting ke liye appointment fix kar do, aur car bhi book kar do."

Once there is a large consuming market of Hinglish speakers, products will be developed to cater to this market. If enough emphasis is laid on research in agriculture, construction, and other "native" sciences, and they become big moneymakers, a culture will spring up where Indians will voluntarily adapt the vernacular by borrowing English words, and more importantly creating new words based on new intellectual property developed in India for these markets. The final shackles of Macaulay will finally be broken forever as Indians will have their own intellectual property expressed in their own language. Particularly if Hindi gets re-Sanskritized, with the Persian words retired, it may be a powerful contender for a modern language with an ancient past.

By the way, as one may have noticed, I have emphasized Hindi rather than Tamizh in the paragraph above. This ties in to my previous observation that Hindi-speaking people will constitute the overwhelming majority of the population of India in a few decades. If their purchasing power soars, that is going to be one of the world's largest markets to be served, and hence it is better to join in rather than stand out. Indian languages, especially Sanskrit are phonetic languages, and hence more suited for voice recognition applications, and also for computer applications. Also, Sanskrit is a "dense" language, in that one stanza of prose in Sanskrit, expands to many sentences in English. This is partly due to the lack of many contractions in English, and a reduced alphabet set.

I can just imagine programming in Sanskrit, well, no need to imagine, there is already a language called APL which takes the prize for "density and brevity"!

sir -even i have a problem in expressing myself comfortably in english during public or private discussions. i think we must convert to Hindi in Roman script (not devanagiri as at present) as official language at national level. all other regional languages including hindi can be taught at local level in devanagiri script. Kaisa hai yeh idea????

 

[rxrajamo]

A good article on EVR and current TN rationalists !

A nice article in Hindustantimes.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1934050,0093.htm

Ramki

 

[kspv]

Brilliantly written, and insightful!

 

[kashyap]

The most frequent gap fillers in indian english as far as i have noticed are :"this one" & "that one"..

Some one knows what "this one" & "that one" is but no one would try to explain "which one" is "this one & that one".

A perfectly legitimate conversation in our office circles is :

"Have you finished this one ?"

"yes"

"no thissss (stressing) one ?"

"oh this one aaa ?" (see the conversion to a question !!!)

"yes"

"oh that one i haven't done..but this one i finished"

Any foreigner overhearing would have every reason to believe that this is "crypto" english !!!!!

Having said this, nothing to beat our good own tamizh gap filler - "idhu"

there is a joke which goes around as to how a wannabe politician thrust into the role of guest speaker managed in a function without any idea of what it was all about.

So he goes :

"hi hi....vanakkam....yenna yellarum indha idhukku idhu pannadhula naan romba idhu adayaren....indha idhu namma nattukke oru mukkiyamana idhu....andha idhula yennakku konjam idhu panna idhu kidachadhukku naan idhu patturukken....inga vandirukka ungalla paarkum bodhu ore idhu va irukku....indha idhu nala unga yellarukkum oru idhu kidaikkum nu idhuvagirappo yenakkum ore idhu va irukku...........................................................................indha idhuvoda yennoda idhuva idhu pannikkaren.....vanakkam" !!!!!

indha yennoda idha pathi unga idhu yenna ?

I want to give my 2 paises here ( it is lesser than 2 cents

)
I think a good linguist can throw more light on it. Or we can find info on places like wikipedia or more.
But I have observed this. In English you say Rama killed Ravana.
(Subject verb object)
But in tamil you dont say Rama kondran Ravana or rama kondraan ravananai.
We say Rama ravananai kondraan. (Subject Object Verb)

Similarly we find that in tamil , the way to convert a statment into a question is done easily by stressing the last syllabelle such as raman raavananai kondraanaa?
In English you would have to put a word in the front such as :
Did Rama Kill Ravana?

I feel that this way of doing things in English is complicated than in Tamil or Sanskrit and it is because of this reason I find the way in tamil to be more natural and easy ( It is not just because it is my mother tongue).

I have observed in US that some (not many) americans in fact exactly follow the tamil way of asking a question. Like -- Oh! he didn't do it haan? Instead of asking Didn't he do it ? . In fact the haan at the end sounded just like the haan in Hindi. I did come across many such instances where they stressed the last syllabelle to make it into a question.
At that time I thought about Tamil and felt that perhaps this was a more natural way of saying things for humans and that is why Tamil had this kind of a grammar while the grammar rule of english is not in touch with the natural way of talking. Well may be it is only my thought or bias. Perhaps some linguists can tell more about it.

 

[silverfox]

Dear Kashyap:

Your observation:
I have observed in US that some (not many) americans in fact exactly follow the tamil way of asking a question. Like -- Oh! he didn't do it haan? Instead of asking Didn't he do it ? . In fact the haan at the end sounded just like the haan in Hindi. I did come across many such instances where they stressed the last syllabelle to make it into a question.

Not quite! Yes, Americans (including myself) do use imperative statement in either form: He didn't do that; did he? or: He didn't do that...hanh (it is kind of nasal; cannot write it phonetically; definitely not the Hindi 'haan'. You have to listen well to pick up the pitch and intonation; they are different. Here, we are not really asking a question: perhaps we cannot believe that he did that and so we are wondering aloud or we probably are agreeing with you that he didn't do that and that is why the statement is followed by 'haanh'. They could have asked: Did he REALLY (emphasized) do that?

I think I have explained this in an understandable way!! By the way, I teach people in Chennai (mainly to students going to US or IT professionals) about the American English, accent, diction, etc.

 

[kudumi]

Simpson ey?

Smithers, who is that man sleeping in sector 7-G?
Its Homer Simspson sir, one of your organ banks.
Simpson ey?

 

[maruti]

Is English such an important language that we need to speak correctly???

 

[hariharan1972]

Yes, if you want to be communicative

Is English such an important language that we need to speak correctly???

It depends on what you want to use the language for ? If the objective is only to access information not much emphasis is required to be given on "speaking correctly".

But this is not a practical proposition. Man is a social animal & we need to communicate. To expand his horizon or to realise his potential fully, he has to communicate outside of his comfort zone. If communication has to be "two way" naturally, there has to be an emphasis on correct pronounciation.

In my view correct pronounciation of any language gives immense satisfaction to everyone. I feel very thrilled when a non-tamilian (i am myself one !) speaks tamil properly.

 

[silverfox]

Is English such an important language that we need to speak correctly???

Absolutely not! Except when you need it for your career! Whether we like it or not, English is our bread and butter. I gave a presentation at a symposium (Chennai IIT) today and I made it with humor; yet none of the students laughed! I wasn't sure if it was because the humor stank or they didn't understand me!
I was merely responding to our member Kashyap's observations.

And.... thank you, Hariharan for your remarks! I couldn't have said it better!

In any case, sorry, guys! for digressing from the thread subject! Let us get back to the subject at hand! Enough on English!

 

[kashyap]

Thanks for throwing light on this

Dear Kashyap:

Your observation:
I have observed in US that some (not many) americans in fact exactly follow the tamil way of asking a question. Like -- Oh! he didn't do it haan? Instead of asking Didn't he do it ? . In fact the haan at the end sounded just like the haan in Hindi. I did come across many such instances where they stressed the last syllabelle to make it into a question.

Not quite! Yes, Americans (including myself) do use imperative statement in either form: He didn't do that; did he? or: He didn't do that...hanh (it is kind of nasal; cannot write it phonetically; definitely not the Hindi 'haan'. You have to listen well to pick up the pitch and intonation; they are different. Here, we are not really asking a question: perhaps we cannot believe that he did that and so we are wondering aloud or we probably are agreeing with you that he didn't do that and that is why the statement is followed by 'haanh'. They could have asked: Did he REALLY (emphasized) do that?

I think I have explained this in an understandable way!! By the way, I teach people in Chennai (mainly to students going to US or IT professionals) about the American English, accent, diction, etc.

Silverfox, Thank you for throwing some light on this.

BTW r u a linguist or have some interest in etymology? Maybe I can post some of my queries on languages to you on email away from this forum.

 

[silverfox]

Dear Kashyap:
Unfortunately, I am not an linquist; though I used to read/write/speak Japanese and Russian; and speak Italian and smattering German and French.
I was an IT guy for 35 years; now I am in the education consulting business and part of that, I teach seminars on effective communications.
Please do send me your questions and let me see if I can tackle them!

 

[Fehu]

Hari,

You have legitimate questions.It is because of retrograde thinking of some brahmins.Also minority factor still playing a superior role without caring for the welfare of the people working in society.Brahmins practised untouchability for hygenic reasons.But that was accepted by and large in the society.But they failed to consolidate their power to economics preaching some moribund vedic brahmin requirements.
Initially physical prowess brought out kingdoms.Brahmins played supportive roles only.
God is a metal subject but will not give food and nutrition.
Even the Temples they have lost to the General public and now to the Govts.
They did play politics because they did not have economic and physical power. Now the economic power is visible in many of them.It is time for brahmins to take charge of the society by scientific and technological power. A central command is requires to salvage all that has been lost by the community.They should enter politics to guide the people better.Behavioral corrections are necessary.First brahmins have lost their honesty and transparency.this has to be revived.

 

[vijisesh]

Dear Mr.Fehu,

While I appreciate the intention of ur post in identifying the reasons for " Why the Brahmin in India is at this pathetic situation today ? , in dire straits , literally kicked by the govt and isolated by the general public !" , the suggestions for revival could well have a host of changes to be made !
To start with the behavioral changes that u have mentioned seems apt.
In order to survive in a multicultural society , he should resort to practice of his religious karmas at home or in the temple ! Why come out in public and get hurt on sentiments ??
The purpose of chanting mantras and belief in GOD is to know one's inner self , not to make a drama to the public !
The young brahmin should be never be taught to consider himself to be superior / inferior to any of the other caste people and should be encouraged to move around with his friends from all other class , creed or religion !
Some of The ' Perusu' s in the house are still preventing this from happening !
He should be made to be physically strong , taught to be fit enough to take up hard work , making him capable of being broad minded and free from shyness , bold enough to face the tough world!
Don't continue to put in a small environment , Koop manduktha should be out!

Do Continue !!

 

[Desi]

Celebrating Disability Day with courage and confidence

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topi...=188195&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22

 

[jishnukrishna]

Politicians who exploit the jealousy and insecurity (part of every human) are responsible for the hatred agaisnt brahmins.