I do not know the faithfulness to the Tamizh original since I have not read it.
I think major local epics and famous novels in any Indian language needs to be translated into other Indian languages and English so that they will get a more wider readership and also help enrich the literary output of vernacular languages.
Now Bharatvarsh, I owe you a great thanks for giving the link to the English translation of Ponniyin Selvan. I have been on the look out for this for quite some time. The link is getting bookmarked :-)
The end is especially humorous:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Those who value Justice and Equality must contextualise Ananthamurthyâs criticism of Bhyrappa and not interpret it as the personal comments of a writer about another. If Bhyrappa truly desires to seek truth, he needs to go beyond the bloody mire of history. Writers would do well to listen to voices of sanity of fellow writers rather than lend their ears to shouts of a crowd driven by thirst for revenge. [i thought maxrism was all about the masses or are the crowds only relevant as long as they agree with the party line?] http://www.hindu.com/fr/2007/06/08/stories...60852190300.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bharatvarsh,
N. Manu Chakravarthy, the guy who wrote that article is a camp-follower of URAnanthamurthy, and a marxist as well. In the following picture, he is speaking at a premiere for an art film in Kannada. URA and other <i>ati</i>-secularists were also there (not in the pic, though).
Some info about language reforms that happened in other countries (mainly muslim):
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Turkey under Ataturk also exported anti-Arabism to Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi. Just as Ataturk had ordered a "purification" of the Turkish language by replacing as many Arab words as possible, Reza Shah created an academy to purge the Persian vocabulary of its Arab component. Over a 10-year period, some 5000 Arabic words were replaced with Persian ones, often borrowed from obscure texts or coined by academicians.
http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2029.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In Kurdistan in Iraq, Kurdish has official regional status. Since 1919, it has been the medium of instruction in public schools. There is a newspaper and some publications in Kurdish, as well as TV and radio broadcasts. There has been an attempt to establish a literary language based on the dialect of Sulaimaniya, the capital of Kurdistan, and to purge it of Arabic loanwords.
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be known as "elastic loaves," state media reported Saturday.
The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.
The academy has introduced more than 2,000 words as alternatives for some of the foreign words that have become commonly used in Iran, mostly from Western languages. The government is less sensitive about Arabic words, because the Quran is written in Arabic.
Among other changes, a "chat" will become a "short talk" and a "cabin" will be renamed a "small room," according to official Web site of the academy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6072900199.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ever since then, bodies such as the "Acadamie Francaise" have ensured that French does not get infected by English words (such as television), and to retain the "purity" of the French language.
<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jun 18 2007, 02:27 PM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jun 18 2007, 02:27 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Turkey under Ataturk
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Someone told this. Don't know how true, interesting nevertheless.
Ataturk asked his officials how long it would take to implement the 'new' Turkish language as the official language of Turkey. Officials said, "10 years". He responded, "Fine, 10 years complete by tomorrow 10 am. Bring the Bill today. Language, we shall develop in the next 5 months."
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The battle against Hindi-imposition was won in 1965, months after the protests were launched. Today, the problem, as some Dravidian parties see it, comes from another and unexpected quarter: English. In a state where the political class, a fair section of it anyway, is obsessed about protecting the purity of the mother tongue, spoken or colloquial Tamil borrows heavily from English. Tamglish has been around decades before the term Hinglish was invented and, with every passing month, more and more English words seem to find their way into spoken Tamil.
Tamils recognize that English is a passport to social and economic betterment as much as anyone else in India. English medium primary schools have mushroomed in the state. Worried about this, the DMK government issued an order four years ago that Tamil be the sole medium of instruction in the state. However, the Madras High Court struck down the order; one of the arguments in favour of annulling it was that parents have a right about the choice of education they would like their children to be exposed to.
06-20-2007, 12:12 AM (This post was last modified: 06-20-2007, 12:19 AM by Bodhi.)
talking about 1965 anti-Hindi campaigns of Dravidist parties - international media's perspective was very interesting. Will also be interesting to note the tone of our own English media at that time.
Here is a report that appeared in the Time magazine on Jan 29, 1965:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Troops in red turbans and elephants in gold caparisons march through New Delhi this week. The occasion is Republic Day, commemorating India's 15th independence anniversary. Also ushered in by the date is another event less loudly cheered: the formal designation of Hindi as India's official language.
In a land whose 470 million inhabitants speak 14 major <b>tongues</b> and 831 dialects, the language of the elite, ever since the British raj, has been English. Both Parliament and the executive branch of the government conduct their affairs in <b>English, which is the only etymological link among all sectors of the Indian populace</b>. In 1963, however, Parliament decreed the official language to be Hindi, effective Republic Day, 1965. Though English will continue as an "associate language," all official documents must henceforth be in Hindi, even if they have to be accompanied by English translations for the benefit of recipients.
"Hindi Imperialism." Though spoken by more Indians than any other language, Hindi covers less than half the populace and is the mother tongue of only four statesâBihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (Nehru's as well as Prime Minister Shastri's home). The officialization of Hindi has long been fought by non-Hindi regions, chiefly four southern states to which <b>Hindi is as foreign as Tex-Mex</b>; they are Madras (which speaks Tamil), Andhra Pradesh (Telugu), Kerala (Malayalam) and Mysore (Kannada). Anti-Hindis accuse the Hindis of being out for political gain. In any case, should Hindi become the exclusive official tongue, thousands of civil servants, <b>who do not understand Hindi but get government clerical jobs through their knowledge of English, would be totally adrift.</b>
Fortnight ago, an anti-Hindi rally in Madras denounced the "imposition of Hindi" as "discriminatory tyranny." Other southerners even charged "Hindi imperialism," and a Madras political party planned to spend Republic Day in mourning. Last week in Bengali-speaking West Bengal, trucks bearing license plates in Hindi were ordered off roads on the plea that cops were unable to read themâobviously a deliberate and calculated harassment of Hindistate shipping.
Desk Piles. To spread Hindi, the government is spending $2,100,000 this year. Committees have been appointed to translate legal and technical terminology into Hindi, a task complicated by the fact that one English term often comes out as a cumbersome and exotic train of several Hindi words <b>("telephone exchange," translated literally into Hindi, is "house of the distant voices"</b>). {In fact this is one of the most succesful translations - Door-sanchar-kendra}
Such bureaucracy by doublespeak is hardly apt to speed India's snail-slow governmental machinery, which at a time of increasing national difficulties needs just the opposite. Desks of West Bengal bureaucrats are already piled high with letters from opposite numbers in Uttar Pradesh, which they cannot read, much less answer, since the senders in dutiful obedience to the new law failed to attach English translations.
From all indications, <b>the southerners would like English as India's official language</b>, and they have an impassioned ally in Oxford-educated Education Minister (and former Ambassador to the U.S.) Mahomedali Chagla, who has pleaded: "<b>Let us not destroy the link language. It is our window to the world.</b>" Under the 1963 act, Parliament is to review the language question again in 1975. But at his first formal press conference last week, Premier Shastri confirmed his support for Hindi, and as for bureaucratic snafus, he said simply, "There will have to be some waste of time." With that, Shastri flew off to Bombay to participate in the dedication of India's first factory for the manufacture of plutoniumâfor which there is no Hindi word.
Savarkar has made our language rich. Today we use many words once coined by him. But we know very little how he had to fight for introducing their use and how he was ridiculed by scholars of those days. Ah, those words were created by a sage and not by a Government Department. For âReporterâ he suggested âVartaharâ, one who carries away the news. Today we say Mahapaur and not Mayor. Same goes for Sampadak (Editor) and the titles of others in the newspaper industry. In the Film industry, the words we use freely were all gifted by Savarkar. But at the time he suggested those words he was laughed at and ridiculed.
If you feel that youngsters should be able to speak fluent Marathi, then make them read Savarkarâs essays loudly every day. They will become great Scholars of language as well as of thoughts.
06-21-2007, 02:44 AM (This post was last modified: 06-21-2007, 06:12 AM by Bodhi.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Jun 20 2007, 05:02 PM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Jun 20 2007, 05:02 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->I think Hindi uses Digdarshak for a movie director, in Telugu its Darsakudu.
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digdarshak is Marathi and nirdeshak is director in Hindi.
nirmAtA producer,
nAyaka hero,
nAyikA heroine,
abhinetA actor
abhinetrI actress
sangItakAra music director
gItakAra lyricist,
vitaraka distributor
vidUSaka is comedian,
khalanAyaka/khalanAyikA is villain,
madhyAntar is intermission
chitrapaTa is screen
chala-chitra is movie/motion-picture.....
news reporter (paper or TV) in Hindi is samvAdadAtA.
Folks, sorry for a digression. I had always an interest to know the etymology of "bad words". <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> How did the expressions grow? What were the external and internal influences. So let me start of with a sample and questions.
<b>Thevdiya Payan</b> (in tamil it is used to indicate a b@st@rd): 'Payan' means boy. Thevdiya is derived from 'Thevar Adiyarkal'. Thevar means god, adiyarkal means 'dedicated people'. Yes you guessed it correctly, it refers to the Devadasis. And we all know how the system degenerated to a level where some of them turned to become prostitutes. As a prostitute's son does not know his father (usually), the words are used.
The only <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> swear word in Telugu I know is the equivalent to Thevdiya Payan. What is the etymology of the word "Nanja"?
In American English the words 'mo fu...' is prevalent. I am sure everybody knows what it means. Also there is a similar word in Hindi 'Madar.....' And kicking up a notch we also have 'Behan....' Fortunately or unfortunately tamil has similar words 'Okka...' (for sister) and 'Ungama....' (for mother)
Did we get influenced by the British, or did we influence the British? If we influenced the British, how did the Hindi and Tamil languages influence each other, w.r.t to these two words. Or is the "acts" implied by the swear words so universal in nature, that different groups evolved those words separately?
Note: I have heard the tamil words, and guessed that is it what it means. Never was able to confirm the meaning with friends or parents :-) I am not sure if the usage is through out Tamil Nadu. Definitely in 'Madras baashai' it is used. If it is just Madras, then it could point to influence from the Sowkcarpet folks.
I feel understanding the history behind the words, is one form of giving out our narrative. Almost all the time it points to our culture and tradition and way of life. If somebody wrote a book on "bad words" and narrate the history behind it, I would buy it.
good turn of discussion. While I will let experts throw more light, I just wanted to interject this part.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Did we get influenced by the British, or did we influence the British?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course it will be hard to find abusive words in the traditional written literature, but in popular lixicon of North, almost all abusive words are exclusively of Farsi/Arabic origin, starting with harAm-jAdA/jAdI for b@st@rd, which literally in Farsi means born in harAm - the islamic concept.
<!--QuoteBegin-SwamyG+Jun 22 2007, 09:11 PM-->QUOTE(SwamyG @ Jun 22 2007, 09:11 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Did we get influenced by the British, or did we influence the British?
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These could be recent concoctions. I always thought that Indians adopted and translated English swear words for their own use. It just doesn't seem "native" to me. But it could just be me.
<!--QuoteBegin-Pandyan+Jun 23 2007, 01:21 AM-->QUOTE(Pandyan @ Jun 23 2007, 01:21 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-SwamyG+Jun 22 2007, 09:11 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SwamyG @ Jun 22 2007, 09:11 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Did we get influenced by the British, or did we influence the British?
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These could be recent concoctions. I always thought that Indians adopted and translated English swear words for their own use. It just doesn't seem "native" to me. But it could just be me.
Most cuss words are to define egregious social acts. As can be seen the words define social behavior which is beyond the norm or morals of that society. So the insult monger is accusing the other of egregious social behavior as sort of demeaning the other.
06-23-2007, 08:30 AM (This post was last modified: 06-23-2007, 08:33 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
If neologisms have to attain popularity then they have to reach the masses, the primary responsibility for this lies with the tv channels, newspapers and other media, at present none of them care although they market themselves as Telugu channel, Tamil newspaper etc.
Nextly each language needs something similar to "Academie Francaise" which will regulate the language and popularise new terms, again the biggest ruckus against this will no doubt be from the "secularists" who will cry "Hindu fascism" the movement such a proposal is mooted, they will ofcourse claim that our languages are being enriched (funny how the French and many others don't seem to think so about English domination) even as basic vocabulary (such as mom and dad) is lost.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> How did the expressions grow? What were the external and internal influences. So let me start of with a sample and questions.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> swear word in Telugu I know is the equivalent to Thevdiya Payan. What is the etymology of the word "Nanja"?