Showing posts with label numeral classifiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numeral classifiers. Show all posts

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Counting wives

The other day I had to catch a taxi out of town to a place called Thecho just to the south of Kathmandu.

The great thing about being in a taxi in Nepal is that I get to unleash my basic Nepali on the poor unsuspecting taxi driver. A situation where both parties are stuck in one-on-one situation for about 30-40 minutes tends to breed patience, at least for the duration of the taxi ride (one can also bond easily over stupid drivers on the road and complain about the amount of traffic and cows on the roads). But to my credit, after a week of 1 hour one-on-one classes I've actually gotten quite good at introducing myself, talking about where I'm from, where I live, how many people are in my family, where they live, what they do etc. I can also ask other people about these same things, though I may only understand 50% of what they tell me.

Now, one thing you should know about Nepali, is that it uses numeral classifiers, similar to languages like Mandarin and Malay, where you almost always have to introduce a numeral classifier before a numeral and the noun it modifies. For example, if you want to say 'two bags', you need to say दुइटा झोला (dui-Taa jholaa), where दुइ (dui) is 'two', झोला (jholaa) is 'bag' and टा (-Taa) is a reduced form of the classifier वटा (-waTaa) which can be used with almost all nouns (like 个 ge in Mandarin). For people however, the classifier ना (-janaa) is used, e.g. दुइजना मन्छे (dui-janaa manchhe) 'two people'. This is something that my Nepali teacher had insisted on.

It therefore struck me as odd when my taxi driver said दुइटा श्रीमती (dui-Taa shrimati), referring to his 'two wives'. Acknowledging that Nepali society can be rather sexist in its treatment of women - one particular example is the festival Teej, where women fast for their husbands' long lives (no festival where husbands do likewise for their wives exists) - I simply took for granted that the use of the 'demeaning' numeral classifier here was an example of culture and social cognition reflected in the language's grammar.

At supper last night, Lauren and I confirmed that both दुइजना (dui-janaa) and दुइटा (dui-Taa) were acceptable when counting wives. However, both were equally acceptable when counting husbands श्रीमन (shriman). This leads me to suspect that despite my teacher's insistence that ना (-janaa) be used with people, वटा (-waTaa) is the more general one, with ना (-janaa) used to denote additional respect for people and in particularly situations (like 位 wei in Mandarin).

So unfortunately, no, the driver saying दुइटा श्रीमती (dui-Taa shrimati) wasn't a clear example of grammar reflecting a condescending view of women. Of course, given that polyandry is not practised in Nepali culture, one would still not expect to hear दुइजना श्रीमन (dui-janaa shriman), let alone दुइटा श्रीमन (dui-Taa shriman) 'two husbands' here!