Sublimity…

Having spent nearly 8 months in this country (yikes!) and particularly the majority of the last 5 out in remote villages, I’ve gotten quite accustomed to hearing Hindi, and despite a complete lack of effort (I haven’t opened any of my material from the Language school since I left there in Dec, and haven’t even asked for translations most of the time when I don’t understand things), I’m starting to feel perfectly comfortable speaking and understanding Hindi. While my vocabulary is still limited (the fact that Hindi has about 5 commonly used synonyms for every single word doesn’t help), what I do know I know fluently. As long as I’m talking about what I’m doing, going to do, the weather, food, and several other common subjects (or at least common for me, eg. crop production or livelihoods), I don’t have to think about what I want to say – it just comes. In fact, I’ve found that (thankfully) I don’t try to translate things in my head anymore (though I never really did a lot of it, Hindi and English are so different that it is very hard to do the mental gymnastics required for constantly translating everything back and forth), I either understand/speak the thought in Hindi or it just doesn’t process at all. There’s even times now when I speak Hindi with people who are fluent in English – it just feels right doing it that way, and honestly, it’s often what comes to mind first (Hindi is just better adapted for working in India, the nuances and subtleties in meaning that are needed to describe India are so much easier in the native language). I took French in school from Grade 4 straight through to Grade 12 (and even took Social Studies in French whenever possible), but I can honestly say that I feel much more comfortable in Hindi now than I ever did in French. Even from an academic perspective, I think I know Hindi grammar better than French grammar – and even English grammar for that matter, seeing as I’ve as of yet never formally learned english grammar. It’s amazing how our minds work, and a perfect example of how experiential learning (and being in situations where you have no other choice but to learn) is such a more effective method than sitting in a classroom. So while I’m still a long way from completely fluent, I’d say I’m fully functional and know enough to get by on my own now, and if I had the desire/need, I could pick up the remaining parts very quickly now.

While on the language subject, I’ve always been amazed at home people here intermix Hindi and English when speaking here (often several times in a sentence) despite the fact that the languages have completely different grammar/structure and are almost completely unrelated. However, the longer I stay here, the simpler it seems, and it’s now gotten to the point where I find myself doing it. Almost anything you want to say can be broken up into bits comprising of nouns (and their associated adjectives) and verbs (along with the grammatical glue – conjunctions etc.). It’s hard to switch languages within fragments, but you can easily switch languages between fragments. The resulting mishmash (often termed “Hinglish”) ends up sounding quite funny, but it’s remarkably easy to process if you can understand the two languages. It’s typical Indian for you, do whatever works best (easiest), most often resulting in something so chaotic that it’s somehow ordered…

To follow my own philosophy of learning by example, I’m giving you a selection of my favorite words/phrases so you too can hopefully appreciate the utility of Hindi and the hilarity of Hinglish. I’ve tried to explain them, but if they don’t seem so special to you, then I guess you just need to come to India – context & nuance are essential here…

• “chelaega” & “ho jaiaega” – Very similar in meaning, these two phrases (roughly meaning “it’ll work”) are absolutely fundamental in this country where everything is uncertain and being pieced together at the last minute from whatever resources are lying around. Yes you can use the English, but it just doesn’t quite convey the full meaning of the Indian context like the Hindi words do.
• “patta nahi” – One of the first phrases I learned after starting work with PSI, it’s saved me in many tricky situations throughout my work so far. For our project (and work in PSI – and even India – in general), knowing how to say “I don’t have a clue” is just plain critical. In most situations, the phrase also implies that you’re not willing/able to do anything about the lack of information, making it even more useful. Oh India, if it’s not your problem directly, you don’t worry about it.
• “bahut tasty hai” – I’m not sure if the problem is that there just isn’t any word for “tasty” in Hindi (I don’t know of one), but it seems that this word has become part of the core vocabulary of Hindi speakers across the country. The mother of the PSI Guesthouse caretaker (who’s been here helping out in the kitchen lately because there’s a big group of trainees in the hostel) use the word tonight, and I’m sure if you asked her, she couldn’t give you 5 more words of English (actually, she’d likely think “tasty” was a Hindi word…). Even in the mountains of Garwhal, in every little tiny village, every man, woman and child seems to know (and use) “tasty”. I guess if you consider the typical Indian diet it’s not all that surprising – pretty much everything here is “tasty”, but the English syllables stick out like a sore-thumb in Hindi and so I still get a kick out of it whenever I hear it in Hindi conversation.
• “halfsuit” – No it’s not something you’d wear to a formal party (though even if it was formal attire, I’d think you’d want to wear more than half a suit). “Halfsuit” is in fact something very different – it refers to small canals that branch of of major ones – otherwise known in proper English as “offshoot”. However, somewhere in the transfer to India/Indians, the pronunciation got garbled so everyone in the irrigation department is now running around thinking they’re being sophisticated using English (though the villagers – who also use the word – seem to think it’s a home-grown Garwhali word) when in fact the only potentially sophisticated thing is what they’re mistakingly referring to – suits and not canals. It took 5 minutes of arguing (and explaining what a “halfsuit” really is) to convince Sapna that the word was really “offshoot”.

I’m sure there are many, many more examples that I’ve heard endless times (and am just forgetting right now) that are equally funny/interesting, but for now that’s all that comes to mind. If I remember more later, I’ll add them to the list.

In the mean time:

“Bye-bye Hindi,
Bye-bye English,
Become Indian,
Bring on the Hinglish!”

Namashkar!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 9:32 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.