<p>Combining the “oo” vowel with a consonant is an adventure. Basically, before the consonant itself, you write something that looks like a capital “C” with a curlicue on each end, and then after the consanant, you make a table with two long legs and a top. However, lucikily, the “oo” by itself will only occur at the beginning of words (drawing it, as you’ve seen, is an artform!)</p>
<p>The link almost sound like an Asian Indian, but it is probably a computer.</p>
<p>Fourth Day of Class - “Coming and Going”</p>
<p>So just finished a four-day break. Working on finishing a book (it’s coming along fine), and everyone wants to help me with my Tamil (and compliments me on my handwriting - I have no idea whether it is a honest critique. It still looks like doodles to me.) I’ve sounded out a lot of street signs (it turns out to be “Penk”, not “Pank”, being “Bank”). And have added “no problem” to my vocabulary.</p>
<p>Also time for my mother to tell me more stories. For some reason, this morning we were discussing the Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar (somewhere between the 3rd and 8th centuries - no one seems to be quite sure.) The story goes that his father was a Brahmin, his mother a Dalit (untouchable), so they could never find a place to live (no one would allow them to live near them). As they had children, they would simply drop them off in various places. The poet was left in a straw hut in Mylapore (now part of Chennai) and was taken in by a weaver, who taught him the trade. As he was weaving, he came up with a two-line poem about how a mustard seen contains the entire universe (think: Blake). And he wrote this huge philosophical poem, which lays out the three ways to have a good life: 1) how to love God; 2) how to work in the world ethically; and 3) how to love other people.</p>
<p>I shared with her our plans (Friendly Water for the World - [Home[/url</a>] ) to send a team of three folks to Bamiyan, Afghanistan in September, to work with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (they are worth looking up - “Our Journey to Smile”) who have asked for our training (they have terrible water). This assumes of course that we can come up with the rest of the funds (we are about half way there), but we are planning “as if”. Well, it comes out in conversation that my mother knew the Afghan Gandhi - Addul Ghaffar Khan ([url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Abdul_Ghaffar_Khan]Khan”>Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Wikipedia]Khan</a> Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com%5DHome%5B/url”>http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com) ). “Yes, he stayed with us at our home,” she said (this would be following one of his multiple stints in a Pakistani prison), “and I cooked for him. In fact, he stayed in your room.” So 34 years, and another story I didn’t know. (Oh, for the chance to write her biography!)</p>
<p>So, back to Tamil:</p>
<p>If you come to Tamil Nadu, you discover that the head motions for Yes and No are different than they are in the West. “Yes” is a figure 8 motion of the head side-to-side, “No” is a straight motion of the head side-to-side. You’ve got to watch carefully, and to do it yourself takes practice. And if you try to hail a cab in Chennai, “go” and “come” are completely different hand motions to what you might be use to.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I discovered this morning that if you want to get up and go someplace, you can’t say, “I’ll take my leave.” No, that would be impolite (and Tamils, except for Iranians, are likely the most polite people on the planet.) You have to say, “I will go and come.” I’ve been hearing the expression for 30 years, and it never made any sense to me, 'cause the words seemed like nonsense syllables. Poyithu varean! I’ve got it now!</p>
<p>I also worked on cardinals and ordinals and number adjectives today - what a mess, especially since modern Tamil seems to have them all confused together! (and different l’s, 'r’s, t’s, and a’s and u’s change into each other to accommodate!) I also learned that while modern Tamil has past, present, and future, classical Tamil has only past and non-past.</p>
<p>There is also talk of the “Three Tamils” - poetry, music, and drama", and the three auspicious fruits - bananas, mangos, and jackfruit.Also (not surprising, given the politeness thing,) there is no word for “Stop” (as in Stop sign) - so they’ve started using the word “to stand”.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I measure success by how much I do know, rather than how much I can’t remember. It’s the only way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In Vietnam I saw a T-shirt “Goad is Good”, which if you think about it can be true …</p>
<p>I have a friend (Hindu) married to an American Catholic. They’ve been living in India for 30 years, in the north. But when I used to visit with them, they used to be in Bombay (now Mumbai). She used to go to church every Sunday - Our Lady of Dolores.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I was talking to his sister when she remarked that it made sense that she went to that church every Sunday, as they were childless and relatively poor. Why? I asked. She said because the church is sacred to the Christian version of the Goddess Lakshmi (wealth and fecundity). When I explained what Our Lady of Dolores meant, she said, “that’s impossible. She worships at Our Lady of the Dollars! No one would ever worship a goddess of sorrows.”</p>
<p>Mini, I’m really enjoying reading your tales of travails learning a new language… Thank you for taking the time.</p>
<p>Fifth Class - Taking Stock</p>
<p>Today, I learned to write (or at least transliterate) my name into Tamil. The “David” part wasn’t too bad; there is no pure “D”, but it works okay. “Albert” was a little more of a challenge. The “B” is a transformed “P”, and it really comes out Alberat, but still okay. Luckily, I don’t use my little name “Howard” - that would take all day to write, and requires some of the Sanskrit characters, and still really isn’t there.</p>
<p>I think things are going well - I can write the alphabet, though not recite it, and still don’t know a bunch of the letters on sight. I’ve got the days of the week, most parts of the body, can count to 10 (and have the concepts to go further), I have word order down. I understand declensions, and have the first four of seven sets of conjugations under my built, and I’ll learn most of those through usage. I have learned how to say, “How do you say X” (two different ways), and I can like, dislike, want, and not want things; I can turn verbs into negatives. I’ve got some of the kinship terms, some animals, eight colors (purple is egglplant flower color), and all kinds of interesting exotica. My vocabulary lags - I’m buying some index cards tonight. </p>
<p>I just found out that the words for “country” and “to seek” are the same. The worst part is my hearing; it still isn’t well-attuned, and the t’s, th’s, l’s, and r’s can drive one to distraction (especially when trying to spell). Still, it is only the fifth day.</p>
<p>My wife is now in Nova Scotia, eating crabs and lobsters. So I found the word for lobster, and then to prawn (shrimp). And then, of course, the director’s wife wanted to know all about the prawn farm struggle, and why she shouldn’t eat them (filled with chloramphenicoi and other cancer-causing chemicals - YOU shouldn’t be eating them either!) I promised to birng her a copy of my book “The Color of Freedom” which details our struggles against the prawn farms. She noted that they have gone way up in price now, and I was able to explain why (the farms have given out, and look like gray moonscapes where nothing will grow). <a href=“http://www.friendsoflafti.org/Newsletters_and_Books.php[/url]”>http://www.friendsoflafti.org/Newsletters_and_Books.php</a></p>
<p>All in all, moving along. And I’m having a terrific time!</p>
<p>Sixth Class - Water Buffalo</p>
<p>Well, the streets of South India are alive, as they always are! Buses, taxes, Mercedes, three-wheelers, motorcycles, bicyclists carrrying snacks on polls seven-feet high, vans, ox-carts, cows, goats, dogs, students, housewives, pail-sellers, and…water buffalo. We were headed to class and there were 9 water buffalo slowly making their way towards us, causing all traffic to swerve way to the right, and then way to the left. </p>
<p>I tried to say “9 water buffalo”, carefully using the plural form. My driver looked at me like I’d invented another language. Seems water buffaloes are like “sheeps”. </p>
<p>Then there are the nouns and verbs with interwined meanings. “To create” is also “army” (makes perfect sense from a Shaivite perspective), but what about “to break” and “dress”? Then there is “to hug, embrace, extinguish, switch off” (all one word) and “watertank”. (???!?)</p>
<p>Anyhow, I have now gone through NINE (count them - 9!) sets of finite verb conjugations. (I left the “s” off on purpose.) Of course, in the absence of knowing any verbs by heart except five or six, I’ve got the theory down, but the practice…hm.</p>
<p>Today, we did a children’s poem about a Thirsty Crow. I made the teacher actually write it out in Tamil, and it took me 15 minutes to sound out the 12 lines, but, hey, I got there! Now I have to remember what the words mean!</p>
<p>Religion in India is very public, but in its own way. A third of the stores are named after gods and goddesses, it seems, there are Christian churches (Hindus consider Jesus a form of Krishna, usually), mosques sing out the call to prayer, and there are religious symbols painted on the backs of cars and trucks. In the front, instead of a seatbelt, the house driver has Hanuman (who gets a garland of fresh flowers every morning.) My Muslim driver, who, it seems, is not fasting for Ramadan, has Ganesha (the god of new beginnings), also without seatbelt. They all seem to get along (except for the Pentacostals down the coast, who promise a free meal with every Sunday service.)</p>
<p>Has Google’s street view made it to India?</p>
<p>I think so, though I haven’t looked recently.</p>
<p>Seventh Tamil Class - More words!</p>
<p>I’m swimming in words! Too many words! But mostly nouns. Crab and net and nest and crocodile and vessel and too many homophones (to the Western ear) than I can count. So I can go around pointing at things, ask the price (but not understand the price unless said VERY slowly), I can tell you what I had for dinner, breakfast, lunch, tiffin today, yesterday, and the day before, got a little bit of time telling, and perhaps, okay, all right, usually, habitually, rarely, and I don’t understand.</p>
<p>Oh, and NINE conjugations plus relative participles, infinitives, and gerunds. Now I need some VERBS! (but I think we are spending the next two hours in verb drill.)</p>
<p>I got to show my friends here in the library all my pictures - my kids, and my friends in Africa, primarily. They are fascinating by my Maasai friends. Here in India, I’m a vegetarian; in Africa, I’m a meat eater. I explained that the Maasai traditionally eat only beef, cow’s blood, and milk, which horrifies them (not the milk part), and they’ve decided that to call my good Maasai friend in Kenya my “beef brother”.</p>
<p>When I got home yesterday, I discovered that the girls studying on the veranda knew my little song about the thirsty crow, and they sang it to me multiple times, so I almost know it by heart. And I know what most of the words mean too (reading them is still a big challenge.)</p>
<p>I have discovered that in Chennai there are now tons of American schools charging outrageous sums of money for sons and daughters to learn “American”-speak. The new Central Gov’t policy is that everyone learns English (so that folks can work back and forth in both North and South India), which means that everyone has a minimum of two languages, more commonly three, four, or more. And business is BOOMING! The construction of luxury apartments going up around here is just unbelievable! (But the people in the countryside are getting poorer, as inflation - and GMO crops - are doing them in.)</p>
<p>Two more hours, and then two days off, to learn some VERBS!</p>
<p>Eighth Tamil Class - To Hear and Ask</p>
<p>Well, the verb “to hear” and “to ask” is the same (depending on context). To me, it feels like that all the time! Hearing is the hardest part of this entire learning excercise, and I’m always asking folks to slow down (at least I’ve got the adjective and adverb thing “going”), or some equivalent of “what’s that you say?”</p>
<p>Tamil is a very flexible language, which probably accounts for why, unlike Latin or Sanskrit, it has remained alive for more than 3,000 years. The early grammarian Tolkappiam, in recognizing the need to bring in words from Sanskrit, spoke of taking in the words, and “nativizing” them. Of course, if you spend any time here, you see that going on with English!</p>
<p>For reasons that are too arcane and political to make any sense, for the last two months, children have been going to school without any books. (Why they need to be in school to begin with, well, I’m not going there.) Some fight over “standardized curricula”. Any rate, my 13-year-old grandniece is being taught Tamil grammar for the first time in her life, which is pretty interesting, given that she has been taught Hindi and English grammar since age 6.</p>
<p>Today, I received permission not to have to learn the singular “honorifics” in the conjugations. Whew! They would be somewhere between “Thou” and “You” - as in English, the plural form does just fine for the job. Now my head is full of relative participles (“the boy who came”) infinities, gerunds (Seeing and Hearing), verbal participles (“having eaten, he will sleep”), and continuous forms. We have all of these in English and, in theory, if one learns them, they are easier in Tamil. The continuous tense is a post-18th Century development.</p>
<p>The most fun is still writing the words out! The script is downright beautiful, and amazing to set one’s pen to. Now if only all those t’s, th’s, n’s, l’s, r’s, and d’s would make any sense!</p>
<p>9th Tamil Class - Dipan</p>
<p>So we are driving through the streets, and there are sandwich boards outside the oonavahams (hotels, canteens - except a hotel in Tamil Nad is a place to eat), and they all seem to have the same word on them. “Dipan” - well, the “d” isn’t quite right, and the “n” is not a complete “n”, but it is clearly “Dipan” - what the heck is “Dipan”? </p>
<p>After two days, it finally comes to me. “Tiffin!” It’s tiffin. Now, of course, you’ve never heard that word in the U.S. And, in two years living in England, I never heard it in England either. But the Tamils all think it is an English word, so I’ll take their “word” for it. Tiffin would be (I think) a snack you have with tea. Except it is no longer a snack you have with tea. It is breakfast. Breakfast? Why breakfast? Because tiffin can be any mean that doesn’t include cooked rice. Except in Pongal. Which is a dish of a spiced cooked rice. Go figure. Dipan! is served. </p>
<p>We’ve had one of my grandnephews staying with us for a day. He was born in Tamil Nadu, but left and has lived in South Carolina since the age of 3. Went to University of South Carolina, but is now here, in dental school. At last, not another doctor! He probably wasn’t a great student, hence not a doctor, nor in dental school in the U.S. He is in school in Karnataka, where they don’t speak Tamil, which is fine, 'cause he doesn’t speak Tamil either. He claims to understand quite a bit (I know his parents, and of course they speak Tamil), but I seem to have more words than he does. </p>
<p>Last night, he left for Coimbatore for a three-day workshop on “inner engineering” taught by Jagdeesh, the tennis-playing guru of the Isha Foundation (and a really nice guru indeed). I joked with him that if he is taking an engineering course, he must make sure to get a certificate. Either that, or a 90-day guarantee for his “tune-up”.</p>
<p>Books are back in the Tamil classrooms. The Supreme Court says so. Sigh. For me, it’s back to adverbs. (There is an English teacher here who is working on her dissertation - she insists on speaking to me in English, and I try to answer her in Tamil, which is frustrating for her, 'cause she wants to hear my speech. I explain that, with my New York accent, it isn’t going to help much.</p>
<p>10th class - my head is stuffed! Too many verbs! and adverbs are still the bain of my existence.</p>
<p>But I like this one - Oli means “Sound”. Oli means “Light”. Of course, in reading this, you can’t hear the difference. Don’t worry, in hearing it, neither can I! But it’s pretty neat that “sound” and “light” are so close (and once might have been spelled interchangeably). And if you want to go to the Oli Oli show, make sure to use the subjunctive. (???!!?)</p>
<p>So more on tiffin - take this with a tiffin pot worth of salt.</p>
<p>Some Englishman near Delhi in the latish 18th Century decided to have a late afternoon “tipple”. The fact that he had one when he woke up in the morning, at 10 a.m., at lunch, and at supper doesn’t enter into the conversation. So he started having his tipple at the club, and when he did it with friends, they were tippling (or tiffling, if you believe the Oxford English Dictionary). Well, everyone knows you can’t go tippling without something to nosh on. Especially spicy meats. Beef preferred. In India, not so much. But the servants would put out the tippling with the tipple, and they’d all get tippled. Whether they were eating kibble or Kipling I’ll leave to some other scholar to determine.</p>
<p>Well, one thing led to another, and as Indians like their big meal around 1 p.m., the English took on the habit, and brought their tippling with them. Pretty soon, a big rice meal for lunch (without spicy meats) became tiffin.</p>
<p>In north India today, tiffin is lunch. There are tens of thousands of tiffinwallahs delivering tiffin in tiffinpots, mounted on bicycles, to every corner of Mumbai. Some are vegetarian tiffin. Some are VERY vegetarian tiffin, as in Jain - no onions, carrots, garlic, etc. Others are non-pork meat tiffins. Almost all are without the spicy beef. Sadly, the tiffinwallahs of Mumbai are now losing out to McDosa.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mumbai-central.com/specials/tiffin.html[/url]”>http://www.mumbai-central.com/specials/tiffin.html</a></p>
<p>Then, the British in Madras got the tippling idea. They stayed with snack. No spicy meats. Pretty soon it was found that the tippling served for afternoon snack (no rice) made for a yummy breakfast. Hence “Dipan” for breakfast. No rice meal, except Pongal - spicy rice (leave the beef out of it.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile some Gandhian friends of mine from Coimbatore have decided to do a “cycleyatra” to promote putting Prohibition into the new Tamil textbooks. Nevermind that the textbooks are already printed. Nevermind that the Supreme Court decided yesterday that they are to be used. Nevermind that both major political parties make money off the alcohol licenses. No, they are going to “protest” to get Prohibition put into the textbooks. (Maybe to replace “tippling”. Who knows?)</p>
<p>Big news in the newspaper today. Here in Tamil Nadu, politicians really care about their constituents. So the new (old) Chief Minister has made an important decision, one that she made when she was last Chief Minister. All temple elephants - in Thanjavur, Madurai, Kancheepuram, etc. - are to go on holiday to a hill station pleasure resort for rest and relaxation. Actually, it was called “rejuvenation” (or regeneration). They will be able to lie around in the shade, go swimming, eat, hang out together, get a daily massage, maybe even an earlift if they like. It is a rest that is well-deserved, after years of blessing all the travelers who have passed their way. Hope they don’t have to walk there - for some it would be over 300 miles!</p>
<p>I’m taking a five-day break too, though no rest. On Monday (India Independence Day) I’m helping celebrate the opening of a leprosy clinic, I think. Then it is down to Kuthur, where I will offer a refresher course in the principles behind the biosand water filters - [url=<a href=“http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com%5DHome%5B/url”>http://www.friendlywaterfortheworld.com]Home[/url</a>] The LAFTI staff can make them just fine, but I don’t think they really appreciate the principles behind them, and hence can’t pass it on to others. Many of the staff have only a 6th or 8th grade education - and while they have done valiant, dogged, and sometimes heroic work, there are certain things that are hard, such as the germ theory of disease. (Maybe I’ll figure out how to borrow a microscope.)</p>
<p>My grammar teacher just returned, having taken her “viva” exam for her Ph.D. Passed with flying colors! I’ve learned the six tastes - salty, sweet, bitter, sour, astringent, and spicy/pungent. The god Muruga has six faces, so he can appreciate them all individually, one for each direction. He also has six temples. The word “six” in Tamil is the same as the word for “river” and I’m wondering whether there was an ancient time when Tamil territory was demarcated by six rivers?</p>
<p>I learned how to say “don’t worry, be happy” in Tamil. Now I can sit on the veranda crosslegged, righthand up like a sadhu, lefthand around a silver tumbler of coffee, and bless the passersby. Of course, to call it coffee is stretching the point - it is a really half a cup of hot milk and water with half a teaspoon of Nescafe. Nonetheless, I am Coffee Swami.</p>
<p>mini, fyi:
[US</a> apologises for diplomat’s ‘dirty’ Indians comment - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/us-apologises-diplomats-dirty-indians-200651304.html]US”>http://news.yahoo.com/us-apologises-diplomats-dirty-indians-200651304.html)
begin quote:
During her speech in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai, Chao was quoted as saying: "I was on a 24-hour train trip from Delhi to (the eastern Indian state of) Orissa.</p>
<p>“But, after 72 hours, the train still did not reach the destination… and my skin became dirty and dark like the Tamilians.”</p>
<p>Following her speech, the US Consulate in Chennai on Saturday issued a “statement of apology”.
end quote</p>
<p>So different than the India of my H and inlaws. Gujarati has 44 letters and so much easier than English because each letter has only one sound, and each sound only one letter, plus no cursive/printing differences! Related to Sanskrit (and Hindi), vastly different than the Dravidian languages. Still have had no reason to learn it. You could be Devindra in the north- named after the holy Devas. It is no wonder the country chose English as well as Hindi for official languages- just as easy to learn English as some other Indian language, it was in use everywhere and no local political ramifications.</p>
<p>Indians pay a lot more attention to minutia of relations- to us a cousin is a cousin but for them it matters which it is, a mother’s (or father’s) sister’s (or brother’s) son or daughter is only one example. I sometimes tell my H to just call the person referred to as a cousin- takes me awhile to get to that point otherwise.</p>
<p>Mother-in-law is back in India and paid for a formal portrait- in Western clothes (top and pants)!</p>
<p>How are the numbers written? I can see similar origins with ours in Gujarati, do you see any in Tamil? Do they use the swastika (that Hitler borrowed and reversed) symbol like they do in Gujarat as a symbol for something good in an ad?</p>
<p>So, back from the work! Spent the last two days helping with land redistribution efforts - 52 women took title to an acre each, land their ancestors hand worked as landless laborers for 700-800 years. And they are actually paying for the land - no freebies involved - through the produce of their labor. I got to make all kinds of small talk in Tamil - families, friends, travels, etc. Some of my words are clearly literary - I learned a few colloquial equivalents. And everyone wanted me to rattle on, again and again, about what I had for lunch - they seem to get a kick out of that. I score high marks for my 10 different ways of saying “no problem”, “all right”, “okay”, and for knowing 10 different kinds of pickles.</p>
<p>It’s a start. Old friends who I’ve never been able to speak to in English are shocked when I ask about their children, and can sometimes make sense of the answer. I was also able to teach a game - “Elephant/Palm Tree” - to 40 children, almost all in Tamil - children are very forgiving when it comes to language. I also seem to have picked up that while many folks know all the verbal conjugations, at least in theory, in practice, about three-quarters of the time, they chop off the endings! Works for me! (then I only have understand the verb, and make sure they are using the positive rather than the negative form. </p>
<p>Winds are whipping the building just now - big rains to follow, it is dark, electricity has gone off, and it is only four in the afternoon!</p>
<p>wis - I can read Devanagari Script - Tamil isn’t at all like it. Numbers aren’t either. No swastikas - it seems to be a northern thing. </p>
<p>And yes, the relations, and the preferred marriage - father’s sisters’s son to mother’s brother’s daughter. So there needs to be a name for each character in the Indian Peyton Place.</p>
<p>12th Class -To and Fro</p>
<p>Well, in Tamil, be forewarned - do not come FROM some place. Especially if you have to write it (though it is unpronounceable to a western ear as well).</p>
<p>You see, you start with a little word like “house” - it’ really not too bad - “veedhu” - it’s just two characters, with vowels attached. But if you want to travel FROM your house - OY! You have to add seven characters, and six vowels, I think. One of the consonants is a combination of consonants. The rest are a bunch of weird ls, ds, ts, and etc. Start with anything longer than a house, and it takes up the whole line.</p>
<p>And don’t do a continuous tense coming from the house either. You’ll take a simple verb, and add about 9 or 10 characters I think, all unpronounceable, each with its own vowel or lack thereof.</p>
<p>Going “to” some place, in contrast, is just fine. Going in works okay too (except if you want to go into yourself!).</p>
<p>So the big news is that a Gandhian anti-corruption activist was jailed because he told the government he wasn’t going to eat. The government said he needed permission not to eat, and especially not to eat at certain locations. So they put him in jail, where he refused to eat. And tens of thousands of people took to the streets. Today, in Goa, the local government has decreed “Take No Bribe” Day. You can take bribes every other day, but this particular Thursday, government people have been told that bribes are off limits. I’m sure just about everything will shut down. Why do today what you can put off til tomorrow, with a little money changing hands between friends?</p>
<p>Anyhow, he has now been released from jail on the condition that he can only not eat for two weeks. Meanwhile, there are lots of hungry people - perhaps they can figure out a way to protest by eating. Dieters, take note: you too can fast in solidarity.</p>