At the age of 12 ,I could write correct Malayam.Not an empty boast. I love books.I remember the thrill I felt while reading MUGDHARAGAM – the Malayalam version of Tagore’s novel- The Wreck ! In the 9th standard we had option to take either Malayalam or Samskrutam.I wanted to be patriotc (a cursed,chauvanistc word-the origin of the woes of mankind , of which I intend to write separately ) and chose my mother tongue. And my woes began.
Blissfully, we had no grammar and dictionary until a German scholar (Gundert I think-I always write off hand ,cant bother about details ) compiled both.I started hating the language because I had to learn meaningless grammar .But I love English.
Two of my grand children are bilingual They spoke mother tongue and fathertongue at the same time (my computer is questing the latter term !Damn it ) Admirably,they rationalized Malayalam grammar.Any computer will be happy to follow this pattern.Like my Sardarji friend.He makes the opposite of any adjective by adding un- .Lucky – unlucky.So,luck – unluck.Why not rationalize grammar ?He is,I is,you is,they is.It makes sense.And this capital letter.It makes my typing all the more difficult.Do away with the caps.lock.It becomes so easy.Shall we be extremely conservative in everything in life ?Cats is plural, but walks is singular.Even in English novels I find ungrammatical usages eg :
Furnitures for sale.
I have taken several leaves;my boss may get angry if I approach again for leave.
.Bread and butter are costly
Furniture ,news ,hair – have no plural form Datas is wrong :datum is singular- data plural
.And spelling.Is there any other language in the world in which we write something and say something else?but & put.-chair,school ,chivalry.ch is pronounced differently in each .We learn English from books.Indian pronunciation and accent can be horrible.School is ischool in Malayalam and Uttar Pradesh but sakool in Punjabi.I think I may have to carry notebook & pencil.I am shy of openig my mouth before English people.Well, spelling can be the despair of even English children! I used to repeat every new word every day.WHY this punishment? Did HE think of it when He cursed Mankind ? The Chinese have to learn to write each word. They must have sinned a lot even before construction of Babel’s tower started.
If any of you like to learn Hindi,here is a word of caution.In Hindi all nouns are either male or female.They hate eunachs.kurssi(chair)may be masc. or fem.From the look of things I cannot make out.Sure,bal(hair),sari, etc. are masc..shirt,moustache etc. are fem..As a wit put it, everything about a woman is masculine gender , and vice versa! What a sweet language!
We cannot just ignore gender.Verb depends on gender of the subject just as it depends on singular or plural in Engish.(You may add –THE-liberally, I skipped it quite often I know.In English language, a noun need the support of an artile-poor thing unable to stand own its own.I suggest a separate key for the word – the).We went for inspection of a subordinate office.The officer in charge called for tea.Audit party ayee hai –he said.There was not a single lady in our group.(nowadays you guys are lucky-plenty of fair sex in any
group.) The word party is fem.So ayee and not aya (came) is the proper word.
The verb depends on the subject,not only on plurality but also on tense (in the past tense, some times it depends on object too.A man will say-me ne roty khayee (khaya is the masculine form.But here it depends on the object-roti is fem.)
In malayam there are 52 letters in the alphabet ; but none for the sound z! So poor sardarji
Zail Singh , written in my language becomes either Sail Singh or Jail Singh as in Hindi!
Suggestions for English.
1)print letters-capital,print small,handwritten capital,hand-small –the poor children have to learn 104 letters.Instead, let them learn about 54 or so letters to convey each and every
sound,including zh of malayam which cannot be pronounced by others.My family name is Kizhotukara.The Tamils will say kilotukara.
2)Verb should not depend on subject.Past & past participle should be derived in a principled manner,adding ed or something.Remember , most of us learn language for business purposes.
3)No articles like a,an,the.
4)One word –one meaning –no room for interpretation & misinterpret.
TAMIL
There are only a few letters in Tamil alphabet.The letter corresponding to k,kh,ga,gha,ma in other Indian languages (ALL DERIVED FROM SAMSKRUTAM) are denoted by a single letter –ka in the Dravidian Tamil language.What the actual sound is, you have to infer from the context.
Malayalam
There are 52 letters in the alphabet ;yet only one letter for n of never and n of narasimha.I think there is no way of explaining how narasimha is pronounced ,to an Englishman.
Anyway,all Indians know the differenc.An outsider can never make out the difference.This is our fault.One can easily coin a new letter.When Tamilians make mistakes, we laugh at them!
When India became free,we should have devised a way to write Indian languages using Engish alphabet.When I say Patna,pronouncing a as in cat and n as in in,even my grand daughter, studying in std 2, laughs at me .Actually a should be as in ma (=mother) and n as in nine.(The word is derived from Pattanam.)Nambooryvidhyalayam at Trichur virtually means the school of namboori fools.Namboori(short for namboothiripad of EMS fame)fool is a common phrase like bara baje about sardarjis.I am a namboothiripad.I can write a whole volume about my foolish acts (including writing this peace!).For generations, we led a secluded life, mingling among ourselves ,keeping away from all other castes.We owned land, but never saw it.We believed that “pathayam perum,chakki kutthum ,njan unnum”.(The store house delivers rice ; the servant husks it ; i have only to eat .Ofcourse , now we too have to work )
To come to the point.It can be done now. A few language experts can sit together and do the work of writing Indian languages in English alpha.Some good things may come from a namboorividhi’s writings
Blissfully, we had no grammar and dictionary until a German scholar (Gundert I think-I always write off hand ,cant bother about details ) compiled both.I started hating the language because I had to learn meaningless grammar .But I love English.
Two of my grand children are bilingual They spoke mother tongue and fathertongue at the same time (my computer is questing the latter term !Damn it ) Admirably,they rationalized Malayalam grammar.Any computer will be happy to follow this pattern.Like my Sardarji friend.He makes the opposite of any adjective by adding un- .Lucky – unlucky.So,luck – unluck.Why not rationalize grammar ?He is,I is,you is,they is.It makes sense.And this capital letter.It makes my typing all the more difficult.Do away with the caps.lock.It becomes so easy.Shall we be extremely conservative in everything in life ?Cats is plural, but walks is singular.Even in English novels I find ungrammatical usages eg :
Furnitures for sale.
I have taken several leaves;my boss may get angry if I approach again for leave.
.Bread and butter are costly
Furniture ,news ,hair – have no plural form Datas is wrong :datum is singular- data plural
.And spelling.Is there any other language in the world in which we write something and say something else?but & put.-chair,school ,chivalry.ch is pronounced differently in each .We learn English from books.Indian pronunciation and accent can be horrible.School is ischool in Malayalam and Uttar Pradesh but sakool in Punjabi.I think I may have to carry notebook & pencil.I am shy of openig my mouth before English people.Well, spelling can be the despair of even English children! I used to repeat every new word every day.WHY this punishment? Did HE think of it when He cursed Mankind ? The Chinese have to learn to write each word. They must have sinned a lot even before construction of Babel’s tower started.
If any of you like to learn Hindi,here is a word of caution.In Hindi all nouns are either male or female.They hate eunachs.kurssi(chair)may be masc. or fem.From the look of things I cannot make out.Sure,bal(hair),sari, etc. are masc..shirt,moustache etc. are fem..As a wit put it, everything about a woman is masculine gender , and vice versa! What a sweet language!
We cannot just ignore gender.Verb depends on gender of the subject just as it depends on singular or plural in Engish.(You may add –THE-liberally, I skipped it quite often I know.In English language, a noun need the support of an artile-poor thing unable to stand own its own.I suggest a separate key for the word – the).We went for inspection of a subordinate office.The officer in charge called for tea.Audit party ayee hai –he said.There was not a single lady in our group.(nowadays you guys are lucky-plenty of fair sex in any
group.) The word party is fem.So ayee and not aya (came) is the proper word.
The verb depends on the subject,not only on plurality but also on tense (in the past tense, some times it depends on object too.A man will say-me ne roty khayee (khaya is the masculine form.But here it depends on the object-roti is fem.)
In malayam there are 52 letters in the alphabet ; but none for the sound z! So poor sardarji
Zail Singh , written in my language becomes either Sail Singh or Jail Singh as in Hindi!
Suggestions for English.
1)print letters-capital,print small,handwritten capital,hand-small –the poor children have to learn 104 letters.Instead, let them learn about 54 or so letters to convey each and every
sound,including zh of malayam which cannot be pronounced by others.My family name is Kizhotukara.The Tamils will say kilotukara.
2)Verb should not depend on subject.Past & past participle should be derived in a principled manner,adding ed or something.Remember , most of us learn language for business purposes.
3)No articles like a,an,the.
4)One word –one meaning –no room for interpretation & misinterpret.
TAMIL
There are only a few letters in Tamil alphabet.The letter corresponding to k,kh,ga,gha,ma in other Indian languages (ALL DERIVED FROM SAMSKRUTAM) are denoted by a single letter –ka in the Dravidian Tamil language.What the actual sound is, you have to infer from the context.
Malayalam
There are 52 letters in the alphabet ;yet only one letter for n of never and n of narasimha.I think there is no way of explaining how narasimha is pronounced ,to an Englishman.
Anyway,all Indians know the differenc.An outsider can never make out the difference.This is our fault.One can easily coin a new letter.When Tamilians make mistakes, we laugh at them!
When India became free,we should have devised a way to write Indian languages using Engish alphabet.When I say Patna,pronouncing a as in cat and n as in in,even my grand daughter, studying in std 2, laughs at me .Actually a should be as in ma (=mother) and n as in nine.(The word is derived from Pattanam.)Nambooryvidhyalayam at Trichur virtually means the school of namboori fools.Namboori(short for namboothiripad of EMS fame)fool is a common phrase like bara baje about sardarjis.I am a namboothiripad.I can write a whole volume about my foolish acts (including writing this peace!).For generations, we led a secluded life, mingling among ourselves ,keeping away from all other castes.We owned land, but never saw it.We believed that “pathayam perum,chakki kutthum ,njan unnum”.(The store house delivers rice ; the servant husks it ; i have only to eat .Ofcourse , now we too have to work )
To come to the point.It can be done now. A few language experts can sit together and do the work of writing Indian languages in English alpha.Some good things may come from a namboorividhi’s writings
No comments:
Post a Comment