'Oodles of doodles' exhibition at Dream Cafe

(This post was meant to have come out yesterday, but I was having trouble uploading the photos.)

Yesterday I arrived in Kohima. I wasn't originally planning on being here this year during the annual Hornbill Festival (which runs from 1 Dec - 7 Dec at the Kisama Heritage Village just out of town). The traffic in town is terrible and getting to the festival site isn't terribly easy without private transport. And frankly - this coming from someone who is genuinely interested in the different cultures here - after a day or two of performances, all the dances start looking the same (the commentary isn't always that illuminating). Last year, I ended up taking photos of foreign tourists ogling these 'naked' Nagas like they were animals at a zoo (see here). That said, I am looking forward to seeing people compete in the Naga pork eating competition and Naga chilli competitions this year.

But I digress. This year I decided to come for a number of reasons, one important reason being that my friend Canato Jimomi is having his first public exhibition of his artwork at the Dream Cafe. Sadly though, I missed the grand opening at 10am on 29 Nov because I was still in Dimapur. The artist himself refused to let me take a photo of him at the cafe but his photo is in the Nagaland Post article here.



His work typically depicts children and is characterised by a blend of traditional Naga and modern imagery, with a few blends of traditional and Christian thrown in for Christmas (like the little shepherd boy in the photo below and the three Anghs / Three Wise Men here).






You can see more of Canato's work at http://canajimo.blogspot.com/
(Although given the internet situation in Zunheboto, don't count on regular updates while he's there.)

If you're in Kohima for the Hornbill Festival this year, Canato's also got a stall at Kisama where he'll be selling some of his work, including T-shirts, bookmarks and cards. And if you're visiting the War Cemetery, drop in at the Dream Cafe across the road - some of the artwork is still for sale.

Also, the cafe itself has a lovely view (see below). And wifi! Just be prepared for slow service.



Congrats again Cana!

The 'Oodles of Doodles' exhibition runs from 29 Nov 2011 to 7 Dec 2011 at Dream Cafe, next to the Kohima War Cemetery. The cafe is open from 10am to 5pm.

Wild gooseberries!

As I mentioned, one of the nice things about travelling by private car is being able to stop and look at people selling fruit and veg by the roadside. It also gives one the opportunity to stop and pick fruit growing in the middle of nowhere.

And it so happened that we chanced upon a lonely gooseberry tree on a hill. Technically, these are 'Indian gooseberries', though most people here just call them 'gooseberries', or amla, the Assamese word for them [correction: the amla is the Hindi word for them and amlokhi the Assamese word]. In Sumi they're called kholethi if I'm not mistaken. In Assam and Nagaland, I've seen posters advertising their high Vitamin C content and how they're good for your health etc etc.



This particular tree was just bursting with fruit. Our driver Huto ended up climbing up to shake and break off branches, which we then picked up from the ground.



The first time I had Indian gooseberries was 3 years ago on my first trip to Nagaland. Some kind person offered them to me as we set off in a shared Sumo from Zunheboto to Kohima. Completely unsure of what to expect, I found the berries both bitter and sour (and given my general preference for sweet things, my gustatory sense was offended twofold.)

The thing I didn't realise about these gooseberries, is that when you first bite into them, they're very sour. But if you drink water right after eating them, the water tastes sweet. Even if I don't drink water, I find my saliva starts tasting sweet too.

There's a story I've heard about gooseberries from both my Sumi and Ao friends (it's probably a tale shared by most tribes in Nagaland).

It goes something like this: in olden times, a group of not-too-bright people from some village trek down to the plains to barter for salt and other things not available in the hills. On their way back, they find some gooseberries next to a spring and eat them. After eating the gooseberries, they drink the water from the spring. Finding the water sweet, they decide to lug the newly discovered 'sweet water' back to their village. I think in some versions they even leave behind some of the goods they've bartered for.

In any case, it's one of those folktales about a group of not-very-bright people said to exist somewhere.

And on that note, here's a pretty picture I took that morning we picked gooseberries.

On the road: Nagaland (I)

On of the advantages of travelling by private car and not by Sumo (the most common type of vehicle for inter-town travel) in Nagaland, is that you can stop at the roadside stalls anytime to buy fresh fruit. I was fortunate enough to be able to catch a ride with Ab. and her dad from Dimapur to Kohima exactly 2 weeks ago.

Visitors heading up to Kohima from Dimapur to attend this year's Hornbill Festival will no doubt see a few of these pineapple stands on the way.





Between Kohima and Zunheboto we also stopped outside the gate to the village of Usütomi, where some of the villagers were selling produce. (Usütomi was one of the villages I got to visit last year to do a few recordings.)





On offer were oranges, pumpkins, wild brinjals, chillis and some jungle greens.



There were also a few types of yam, as well as large ginger - the village takes it name from the kind of ginger grown there, ausü (Drop the ubiquitous a- prefix and you get usü. Add to which means 'hill', since the village is on a hilltop, like most settlements here. The mi means 'person / people' and is sometimes dropped when people talk about the village itself, not some villages seem to always keep the mi.)



Of course, having a car is no guarantee that things will go according to plan.



Our car had a flat just a few hours out of Dimapur. As is standard practice, there was a useable spare in the car. Given how hopeless I am around machines, I let Ab.'s father and their driver sort out the car business.



But with hours of travel still ahead of us (some of it through knee deep water), it was thought prudent to get the tire repaired just outside Kohima. While waiting for the tire to be fixed, Ab. and I ducked into a nearby rest stop for, surprise surprise, a cup of cha.



They're nothing much to look at, and the toilets are often pretty gross, but I quite enjoy these little rest stops.


In the end, we decided to spend the night in Kohima, given that the new quicker route to Zunheboto wasn't terribly safe to drive along at night (did I mention the car had to cross a river?)

And it was just as well, because the next day, we had another flat just a few hours out of Kohima!

Plans, programmes and projects

Generally, if I wanted to know what someone else was up to at a later point in time, I'd probably ask them, "Do you have any plans for today / tomorrow / later?" or "What're your plans for today / tomorrow / later?"

Except when I'm in India. Here, it was far more common for people to ask, "What is your programme for today / tomorrow?" Consequently, it's what I've come to ask people too.

The first time I heard the word 'programme' used in this context, it sounded as if my life was some sort of show with carefully scheduled performances throughout the day. Ironic of course, given that in my experience of India, nothing has ever run according to schedule - I was once booked to catch a train that turned out to 13 hours late. As a friend pointed out, "Back home, we'd called that train 'cancelled'.

However, the words 'programme' and 'plans' are not always interchangeable. For instance, today my host here in Dimapur was explaining to his sister-in-law that we were running late because "we had a programme at 3.30". In that particular context, I would've said "something came up at 3.30".

On a related note, hearing the word 'programme' used in this context reminded me of when I was on exchange in Lyon. One of the French professors said during orientation that in French, you didn't ask someone "Avez-vous des plans?" but "Avez-vous des projets?" if you meant 'Do you have any plans?", the French word projet being a cognate of English project. (This I believe is for a more formal register of French.) In any case, I wonder if French learners of English often mistakenly ask people if they have any "projects" on for the day...

Right to Information in Zunheboto

After a week and a half without internet and barely any mobile phone reception, I'm back online!

Last Wednesday, Youthnet and the Zunheboto Range Students Union held a Right to Information (RTI) hearing in the Zunheboto Town Hall. It was 4 hours long and mostly in Sumi, with a fair bit of Nagamese and English. The story has since been covered by all the major newspapers: the Nagaland Post, the Morung Express and the Eastern Mirror.



It's risky business here trying to unearth corruption, and I admire the brave members of Youthnet for what they do. This wasn't the first time they'd done what they call 'social auditing' in Nagaland. The process involves an initial meeting with members of the community where they are invited to voice any specific problem areas. They then visit and audit the respective departments to look for discrepancies in the way allocated funds have been spent. A public hearing is then held to openly discuss their findings with the public.

Joshua and Hekani from Youthnet addressing the crowd at the start of the hearing


H S Rotokha speaking as an observer at the end of the hearing




The turnout from the Zunheboto public for the hearing was a little underwhelming though. A few concerned citizens showed up, but most of the adults were representatives from the various departments that had been audited. The vast majority of attendees were students from two nearby schools who were asked to come to see democracy in action. It was important for them to come and see that it was possible to make a difference to how society functioned. I hope some of them got the message, though I suspect getting them to willingly sit through another 4 hours in a freezing hall is going to be difficult.

Joshua even presented a little chart about the effects of corruption for the benefit of the students.


Over the 4 hours, many issues were examined, including the lack of sufficient medical staff residing in Zunheboto, the lack of provision of the midday meal by schools, the need for a new water source to cope with the current demand. It was also found that out of 31 'beneficiaries' of the Chief Minister's Corpus Fund - a fund that provides capital to help small enterprises start up, none of them were currently in operation. Youthnet provided a list of these 31 'beneficiaries' along with the various amounts allocated to them.



One item in particular has featured heavily in my commute from Nito Mount to the main town area, as well as in many discussions I've had with people: the state of the roads in Zunheboto. The front page of Monday's Nagaland Post even had photo of a road in Zunheboto that was more sand than gravel. A year ago I saw them repaving the road in Project Colony in 'downtown' Zunheboto. One monsoon season later, and most of it has already been washed away.

Zunheboto is a major town in Nagaland, but it's clearly not the most pleasant place to live in Nagaland. The RTI hearing has caused quite a stir across Nagaland, if the local papers are anything to go by. I hope that as people start taking ownership of their town that things will get better. Then maybe there'll be enough water, reliable power and better phone reception and internet connectivity.

Diphu District Museum

I'm already in Nagaland but thought I'd post a few photos from my short visit to the District Museum in Diphu. It was actually closed the morning that Linda and I were deposited in front of its gate and told to hang around for about half an hour. There was no one inside and no lock on the gate. We walked right in and even found their electricity bill lying on a table!

One the building were the words অসম সাহিত্য সভা Asam Sahitya Sabha 'Assam Literary Society' which I presume is in charge of similar museums in other districts across the state of Assam. Again, I had to assume this was the Karbi Anglong branch.


I suppose there were enough old stone carvings for the place to warrant the name 'museum'. All of them seem to have been dated to the 10th century, which would place them as originating during the kingdom of Kamarupa. There wasn't a lot of useful information on hand, but most of the stone fragments had suitably descriptive labels.

Some labels were, if anything, just honest.

Other backward class

When I first heard the term other backward class, I thought it was a joke.

Then when I read about the creamy layer principle, I was sure it was a joke. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

On previous visits to India, I'd heard the term 'scheduled tribe' used to describe the many tribes / groups of Nagaland. I simply assumed it meant 'officially recognised tribe' (and I wasn't far off the mark with that). But the other day a friend here in Diphu was talking about how he was interviewing candidates for a job, but the job was only available to people from one of the 'other backward classes'. Then a few days later, he was talking about the upcoming local election (which has been postponed till next June) that he's working for and how 'other backward class' is an option on the form for people to state their caste. He was also saying how it was ironic that the former rulers of Assam, the Ahoms, are now considered an 'other backward class'.

After a bit of googling, I discovered that the term backward class is indeed a term used in India, along with scheduled tribe and scheduled caste, to contrast with the term forward class / forward caste. The list for each group is dynamic and calculated based on economic and social factors. However, I'm not 100% sure what factors these are, how they are measured, or even how a group is defined as being a group. The use of these groupings is supposed to be important towards 'positive discrimination' in India, whereby certain jobs and places in education are reserved for people from the 'non-forward classes' (even if these positions are usually not filled for other reasons).

Now I'm all for positive discrimination this way if it is necessary to make up for inequalities in a society (even if people in the majority don't perceive these inequalities and protest against such positive discrimination). But 'backward'? I'm used to Indian English being peppered with colonial era terms and beliefs that now in the West would be considered racist and bigoted, but to designate a group / groups as 'backward'? One might argue that it is simply another term for what others might call 'disadvantaged', but I'm sure even in modern Indian English the term 'backward' carries much more negative connotations of intellectual or physical retardation. I've also heard people in Nepal and India talk about their caste / tribal group as being 'backward' with no hope of moving up in the social hierarchy. If what they're supposed to do is simply follow the 'forward classes', then it's going to be a never-ending game of 'catch-up'.

I suppose I'm more used to the term 'minority' or 'ethnic minority' (even for groups with considerably large memberships). But even in China, the term 少数民族 is used, referring to the 'small number' of members in a particular ethnic group. Over there, certain groups may work towards recognition as an ethnic minority in order to enjoy benefits, such as exemptions from the One Child policy. In India, I'm not quite sure I'd appreciate labeling myself as a member of an 'other backward class' to get a particular job as part of the reservation scheme, but more enlightened members of such 'classes' may be able to work the system.

But hang on, there's also a catch: the reservation scheme doesn't apply to you if you're a member of an 'other backward class' who's from a well-off or educated family. In that case, you're part of the creamy layer (not quite what you thought I was talking about, right?), and according to the 'creamy layer' principle, you "do not require the protection of reservation" (read an article from The Hindu here). However, it has been argued that this 'creamy layer' concept goes against the Indian Constitution.

I'm not quite sure if and how this 'creamy layer' principle is applied, but it's one of the things about India that as a foreigner, I can't help but find somewhat absurd.

Eating silkworms

I'm actually really surprised I hadn't had silkworms until this week. I'd seen them on skewers in Beijing but never dared to try them. This despite telling people that I eat anything. Well, there are certain things I don't eat, like dog and cat, but in general, I eat most things that are laid in front of me.

So at the guest house when I was given ingki ok, the Karbi name for this delicacy, I happily ate them. (By the way, ok in Karbi means 'meat', and is found in compound nouns denoting more usual meats, e.g. phak ok 'pork' (lit. 'pig meat') and lang ok 'fish' (lit. 'water meat').

But this was just the 'finished' product on the plate. It wasn't until a few days later that I got to see where the ingki came from. The mum of one of our Karbi friends makes traditional Karbi clothes and bags, and buys (from I don't know where) large quantities of the silk cocoons, as seen below. The silk looks a bit rough, but the threads are very strong I'm told.

The worms come in two colours: green and yellow.

I'm a little glad I got to eat some before I'd seen the live ones wriggling around in a basket. I think it's something about the wriggling motion that sets off my feelings of disgust and revulsion.

In any case, the verdict: I was expecting the little worms to be bitter and mushy inside, but they were firmer and tastier than I expected. I told my friends they tasted like chicken (like most strange 'meats'). I'm not sure if I'd ask for them willingly next time though...

On the importance of writing

In light of this week's post about a certain person who shall remain unnamed (lest he receive any more publicity), I thought I'd mention that when I started this blog last year, I made it a point not to turn it into a personal online venting ground. Rather, it was meant be a way of keeping in touch with people back home while I was in Nepal and NE India. It has since become a place where I share interesting things about the places I visit, the languages I come into contact with, and language in general.

In this blog, I try to be as positive as possible, even after spending 3 hours standing on a train or 10 hours on a bus suppressing the urge to throw up because of food poisoning. My little outburst this week was actually many weeks coming, having read some of the idiotic comments this person had been making on Twitter and in articles featured on The Age. The final straw was when he launched a ludicrously personal attack on a colleague who had written a rather lengthy criticism of him. (While I disagreed with some of the original criticisms, the reply was quite disproportionate.) The comment that this person posted on this blog was also equally idiotic, and never even addressed the discrepancy I had tried to point out.

In fact, his style of argument reminded me of a religious fanatic who, in the absence of any good evidence, has to resort to making assumptions about the personal character of the people they're arguing with to make a point. I suppose I got off easy - if I had been any more vehement in my criticism, no doubt he would have called me a 'chronic under-achiever' (as he did my colleague) or something to that effect.

Now the thing is, why did I even bother addressing this person, when most people would probably just sit back and wait for him to disappear into obscurity. My friend who's working out here in Assam even asked me how and why I was able to devote so much time and energy to maintaining a blog. I said there was a point to all of this, beyond the simple narcissistic pleasure of broadcasting one's thoughts.

Recently, my friend Lauren (who has a personal blog lozguistics and also maintains the linguistics-related blog Superlinguo) attended a writing workshop at the University of Melbourne. The main point of the workshop seemed to be to encourage academics to write for a more general audience. There are a number of reasons to do, including the potential for a career change. I suppose one reason I see the need for this is that, at least in Australia, research at universities is largely funded by the government and taxpayers want to see what their money is getting them. Of course this doesn't mean that all research should, or needs to, have immediate recognisable and tangible benefits - knowledge itself is a worthy pursuit. However, as purse strings tighten in a world dominated by a GFC, it is becoming increasingly important for researchers to be able to 'justify' the value of their research in order to remain being funded, whether it's by producing results or by simply creating interest in the general public.

I certainly don't think my little blog comes anywhere to doing this but it's my small way of sharing the knowledge I have with others. Keeping a blog is also good writing practice for me, since I'm also not a great writer and often struggle to write in a concise and engaging manner.

Finally, returning to he-who-shall-not-be-named, I think part of my frustration with him has also been that there are people in my department who are so much more qualified to comment on the things that he has been talking about. The lesson here is not to wait for people like him to come and 'steal' the limelight with their misinformation (based largely on personal views), but to find ways to engage the public with the knowledge that we do have.
(Incidentally, I was told that if you google 'his' name, my post appears on the first page of results!)

Unhappy with the State Bank of India?

On a completely different topic from my last post, I saw this on the screen at the SBI (State Bank of India ) ATM here in Diphu.

I wonder if there's a person (or people) sitting in front of a computer screen monitoring the number of 'Unhappy' text messages being received every day. Goodness knows what they actually do with such 'information'.

(I'm going to need to find someone willing to text them - I'm hesitant to text them myself for fear of being spammed afterwards.)

A short note on Dean Frenkel and whistling

I wasn't planning on writing anything about Dean Frenkel, whom the Age has described as an "expert speech analyst and vocal instructor" and who has released recently released a book titled Evolution of speech. I'm in a fairly remote place in India, without constant electricity and I've been down with a cold. I don't want to waste my time on the internet on this guy.

But I am angry. I just read Mr Frenkel's reply to a post by Aidan Wilson on Crikey's language blog Fully (sic) that criticises his recent claims and book.

I don't care what Mr Frenkel's qualifications are or what his educational background is. I *really* don't care that he's not a linguist or speech pathologist (I am aware of the hubris of many a linguist). But he writes about topics and make bold claims that even linguists would not have any confidence talking about, and worse, makes claims that can be easily disproved.

For instance, he writes:
It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that whistling as a child helps to train the articulation of ‘W’s for later in life. How does [Wilson] think the fine muscles of the lips are trained?

How is it 'perfectly reasonable' to suggest this?

The 'w' sound in English involves a few things: (1) pulmonic egressive air stream (air coming from the lungs); (2) a vibrating glottis; (3) the back of the tongue moving towards the velum; and (4) rounding of the lips.

Now I've never had problems producing a 'w' sound, which requires the movement of the lips. Incidentally, I've never had trouble producing a 'b' sound, or 'p' sound, which also require the movement of the lips.

But for the life of me, I cannot whistle.

Indian customs

If you thought this post was something about 'traditional Indian customs and practices', stop reading here. It's about my latest experience going through Indian customs at Delhi Airport.

Before I left Singapore, Mum had suggested I take with me some bakkwa, sweetened dried meat (usually pork) from the famous Bee Cheng Hiang franchise in Singapore. They're nicely packaged and would make nice gifts, given that most people I'm staying with are also huge pork eaters.

I didn't think India had any issues with meat imports. Then I saw the customs form. Through the sleepy haze of catching a 2am flight out of Changi Airport, I read at the bottom: Are you carrying any meat / meat products / dairy products ...

Years of travelling to Australia made my hand circle 'Yes' right away. I mean, it's all packaged. I'll show it to them, they'll just wave me through. I'm pretty sure they'd even wave this stuff through in Australia as long as you declare it. Nothing to worry about.

So I went to sleep. I was exhausted. When I woke a few hours later, my mind wandered back to the customs form, a nagging thought at the back of my mind. But it's India.

When I finally got through the immigration queue at Delhi Airport, I noticed that nothing special was written on the little customs slip I had. In Australia, the immigration officer generally asks you what you're declaring and makes a note on the form.

I picked up my luggage and started heading to the Green Channel. A rather bored looking man was going up to every second traveller asking them to put their bags through the X-ray machine next to him. Great. Before he could ask me to put my bags through the machine, I asked him instead where to go to declare things.

- What do you have?
- Some meat. Do I have to declare it?
- If you want to.
- So I don't have to declare it?
- It is better if you declare it.

He pointed me in the direction of three even more bored looking officers sitting on couches behind some empty counters with names like 'Currency Declaration' and 'Goods Declaration'. They didn't bother to get up when they saw me approach. I stood behind a counter and yelled at one of them that I had something to declare, feeling quite ridiculous as I waved the bag of bakkwa in the air.

- What do you have?
- Some meat!
- No meat allowed!
- But it's packaged!
- No meat allowed!
- So what am I supposed to do? Throw it away?

He then waved his hand in some general direction. I turned around but couldn't locate a bin that looked like it was designated for throwing away declared items. When I turned back, I saw the guy was still on the couch and had gone back to his conversation with the other two guys.

I walked towards to the Green Channel. The first guy I had spoken to was busy getting people to put their luggage through the X-ray machine. Just keep going. I headed straight for the door. There were two blank-faced guys there collecting customs slips.

I considered for a moment whipping out a pen and changing my answer to 'No'. Looking at the faces of the two men, I decided to take a gamble. The bag of 'illegal' goods still dangling from my arm, I walked towards the one on the left and thrust the customs slip in his hand..

He took the little piece of paper without so much as a glance. I kept walking. Freedom!

As I walked out, I couldn't help but feel a little glad that $80 worth of bakkwa didn't end up in a bin. I also realised that I would have felt a little guilty if I had just said 'No' on the form and walked out the door. I guess I'm so used to being truthful (or at least semi-truthful) whenever I clear customs in Australia. I usually have trouble lying straight to someone's face.

But it's India.

RIP: Bhupen Hazarika

Today, the news programmes in India are all about one person: Bhupen Hazarika ভূপেন হাজৰিকা. Now, I know a number of people who read this blog are from / based in India, and I must ask your forgiveness for not knowing who he was before today, but something tells me that I'm going to be hearing a lot about him in the coming days.

This great Assamese singer passed away in Mumbai this afternoon. He sang in a number of Indian languages and was beloved all over India and in Bangladesh, but he has a special place in people's hearts here in his homeland of Assam. I'm told that he even sang in Karbi when he used to visit Karbi Anglong.

I was told that he received a doctorate in communication from Columbia University. According to Wikipedia, his thesis was titled "Proposals for Preparing India's Basic Education to Use Audio-Visual Techniques in Adult Education". From the stories I've been told, it seems that he was an advocate for tolerance and equality.

One story in particular, was about how in 1983, when there was massive violence in Assam against illegal immigrants (mainly from Bangladesh) [read more here], Bhupen Hazarika walked across the state from West to East, visiting villages and performing to people wherever he went. He sang a song about the Assamese not being a poor people that he'd written 10 years earlier and said that he had nothing new to tell people, because he'd already said what he wanted to say 10 years before.

I'm not sure how accurate the story was, but it's clear that most people here have been touched by him. I'm pretty sure over the next few days there will be a period of state-wide (if not nation-wide) mourning for him.

The Assamese song 'Buku hum hum kore'


The Hindi version 'Dil hum hum kare'

Where are you from?

That last post reminded me of the oddest and most annoying conversation I've ever had about my origins. It was with a German guy who I met while I was living in Lyon, France. The conversation was in English and went something like this :

- Where are you from?
- Singapore, but I live in Australia.
- No, where are you from originally?
- I was born in Singapore.
- Yes, but where are your parents from?
- They were born in Singapore.
- What about your grandparents?
- My grandmothers are from SE Asia, but my grandfathers were from China.
- Oh, so you're from China!

There was sure no fooling this guy...

I come from a land down under

One of the first things I learn to say in a foreign language is how to say, "I'm from..." or "I come from...", mainly because one of the first things people ask me is where I'm from. It's also a reasonable useful phrase for any language learner.

However, I find the phrase tricky to learn for 2 reasons. The first one is probably more specific to the geographically displaced person that I am. I usually say "I come from Singapore but live in Australia", even if my friends in Nepal and India will typically introduce me as their friend from Australia. It just seems less troublesome when I'm travelling in Asia and Europe, especially since I don't look like what many people expect an Australian to look like i.e. white, nor do I sound particularly Australian (although I did meet an American lady who insisted I had an Australian accent, which I found rather puzzling).

But discounting any potential geographic confusion of one's origins, the phrase is potentially problematic if you're asking for a literal translation in another language. I've found a few times that when I ask people how to say "I come from...", they often give me a sentence that is better translated as 'I am coming from...' or 'I have come from...', which tells the hearer the last place I visited, as opposed to my country / land of origin.

I suspect it's translating the verb 'come' that throws my tutors off - they're trying to convey the meaning of motion, when the English doesn't actually convey this.

Using the verb venir 'to come' works fine in French, although it's possible to just use the verb 'to be' and a preposition:
Je viens de Singapour 'I come from Singapore.'
Je suis de Singapour. 'I am from Singapore.'

But in Russian, what I'd say is:
Я из Сингапура ya iz Singapur-a 'I am from Singapore.' (lit. 'I from Singapore' with a preposition and no verb meaning 'to be')
I can't even think of a verb corresponding to 'come' that would be appropriate here. If I did use one here, I'd feel like I was talking about recently arriving from Singapore.

Similarly, in (Lower) Assamese I was first taught:
[would love to put the Assamese text here at some point]
Moy Singapur-pora ahisu.
(forgive the transliteration, this was based on my own transcriptions, and I have a LOT of trouble with the back vowels)

And in Sumi:
Niye Singapur lono ighi va.

However, both literally mean, 'I have come from Singapore.' (or to match the word order, 'I Singapore from have come'). The form of the verb 'to come' ahisu in (Lower) Assamese and the use of va with the verb ighi 'to come' in Sumi are used in sentences that one would typically translate as being in the perfect aspect in English. I suspect that both sentences suggest that I have recently arrived from Singapore, which is not the intended meaning.

Rather, in order to convey the meaning of origin, it might be necessary in languages to say something like 'I am Singaporean.' In Chinese, I would probably say:
我是新加坡人。
wo shi xinjiapo ren
(where 人 ren means 'person'.)

In Sumi, the equivalent of this would be:
Niye Singapur-mi.
with the suffix -mi meaning 'person' and no verb meaning 'to be'.

Alternatively, what I've learn to say in Nepali, is:
मेरो देश सिंगापुर हो, तर म ऑस्ट्रेलियामा बास्छु।
mero des Singaapur ho, tara ma Australiya-maa baaschhu
which literally means 'My country (des) is Singapore, but I live in Australia.'

Similarly, in Assamese, I can say:
mor dex Singapore, kintu moi bortoman Australiat thaku
'My country is Singapore, but nowadays I live in Australia.'

Of course, this often assumes that your country of origin is the same as your current nationality, which is not always the case. However, things are never that simple - some people I know who read this blog certainly have more complicated geographical origins!

I'd therefore be interested to hear of other ways to introduce where you come from in these and other languages. I'd also be interested to know why people choose to introduce themselves in this particular way.

Eventually, I suppose I will start introducing myself as being 'Australian'. Although I'm more likely to give a nod to Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton and say, "I am Australian", instead of "I come from a land down under."

Tea vs Chai, the Tekka Centre and my last name (II)

In yesterday's post I talked about the correspondence between Hokkien 't' and Mandarin 'zh' (a retroflex sound produced with the tongue slightly further back than the sound represented by 'ch' in 'chunk' and without the puff of air). Both sounds are descended from an earlier 'tr' cluster in Early Middle Chinese, as reconstructed by historical linguists.

What does this have to do with the word for 'tea'?

People who know Hindi, may laugh surreptitiously when they hear people order a 'chai tea', since चय chay means 'tea' in Hindi, so the order is basically for a 'tea tea'. In English though, 'chai tea' is perfectly acceptable because the word 'chai' has been borrowed to designate what one would call मसाला चय masaalaa chai 'spiced tea' in India.

The Hindi word for tea is चय chay is much closer to the Mandarin cha (the 'ch' sound here is pronounced like the retoflex 'zh', the only difference is that it is accompanied by a puff of air). Other Indo-Aryan languages like Nepali have चिया chiyā. Within Indo-European, we also have Russian чай chay. The Japanese also use cha. In contrast, English has tea, French thé and Malay teh. Hebrew too uses תה te (I was taught that תה נענע te nana is '(spear)mint tea' in Hebrew). These languages all have a word for 'tea' that's closer to the Hokkien / Minnan word te (tone not given).

The reason for this difference is that languages like English borrowed (whether directly or indirectly) the word from one of the Minnan dialects / languages, while languages like Russian and Hindi borrowed the word from other Chinese languages like Mandarin or Cantonese. The Wikipedia article explains this in greater detail and gives more examples from other languages.

Etymologically though, Mandarin cha and Hokkien te share the same origin. Pulleyblank (1991) gives the reconstructed forms draɨ /drɛ (Early Middle Chinese) and trɦa: (Late Middle Chinese). Again, we see the correspondence between the Mandarin retroflex sounds (written in pinyin as 'zh' and 'ch') and Minnan 't',

So voilà, it took me two posts to do it, but there you have it - the common thread linking my last name, the name of the Tekka Centre and the name of one of the most consumed beverages on the planet.

[This post was inspired by 3 separate conversations I've had in the last month about each of these topics. Tomorrow I'm off to the great tea-growing state of Assam in NE India. The word in Assamese চাহ (transliterated as chah) is clearly related to the non-Minnan form of the word, but is now pronounced 'sah' in Assamese. Something for me to get used to saying again!]