Sextalingual
Published by Yazad Jal June 16th, 2004 in Humour, Culture and Society, About MeRavikiran shows off how many languages he knows. (BTW, There is some debate whether Tulu is just a dialect or a full fledged language)
Well my turn to show off. English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and French. Can read and write in all. French is very rusty now, but at one time I could tell you about the sexual adventures of Julien Sorrel in française. Well I had to write an exam about it!
Am very fluent in English and I prefer to call it my mother tongue. My “supposed” mother tongue is Gujarati. However even my grandmoms didn’t converse in Gujju — they spoke in English!
My Hindi improved dramatically due to daily tussles with Delhi’s class A cheats — the auto wallahs. Marathi improved in a similar fashion — thanks to the veritable chaps in the BMC.
I can speak Gujju to save my life, but often the guy on the other side will die — laughing.
Apart from this, I can swear in various languages including Tamil, Kannada and German.
Need to learn a new language — am thinking of either Spanish or Bengali. Then I’ll know six languages and be sextalingual.
I’m a basta-lingual. I can speak bastardized versions of any language I’ve listened to for 3 days.
When I initially read “sextalingual,” I presumed languages gave you orgasms. :-)
Perhaps thats coz I am basta-lingual like Kingsley… or may be the only time I took English seriously was prior to my GRE.
I am a true multi-lingual. When I talk to my friends, its a mixture of Hindi, Marathi and English. Shudh bhasa appunne kabhi seekhi hi nahi.
Ha! Then I am a linguistic version of serial killer! I can kill any language unknown to me within minutes after listening to it for the first time simply by speaking it! cool, huh?
You mean your marathi is better than your gujarati?
If Bal Thackeray heard this he would french-kiss you in public. :)
Tulu is a full-fledged language. The only way it could be a dialect is if Tamil were also a dialect of Kannada.
And as I was saying, I was talking of languages I was exposed to in *childhood*. That way I can also understand Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil Sanskrit now.
Kings, Niket, Dilip, LOL!
BTW, orgasms have a language of their own but as my mother occasionally reads this blog, I shall leave the expression of the language to your imagination!
Gaurav, yes. I need to quickly brush up my Gujju as a French kiss from BT is NOT what I want in the least.
Ravi, I too learnt all the languages in childhood. The latest was French which I started learning at the age of 12.
Does Tulu have a script? Doesn’t it use the Kannada one? I know it’s fairly different from Telugu and slightly different from Kannada, but I’ve always seen it mentioned as a dialect.
Ravi
Was that a flippant remark or is there some truth to Tamil being a dialect of Kannada? I have read no such background anywhere. I only know that Malayalam was an off-shoot of a dialect of Tamil (can’t remember the name..)
I only meant to say that Tulu is as different from Kannada as Tamil is from Kannada. Trust me, the only reason there is any confusion at all about whether it is a different language or not is that it doesn’t have a state of its own, or a script of its own for that matter. But if someone were speaking in Tulu, a Kannada speaker would have as much difficulty in understanding as he would have in understanding Tamil or Malayalam. And the vice versa case is rare because you won’t find a Tulu speaker who doesn’t know Kannada, except children of migrants who’ve lived out of Karnataka all their lives. Then they don’t understand Kannada at all.
By way of comparison, Konkani is treated as a separate language from Marathi even though a Marathi speaker can at least follow a conversation in Konkani. Tulu and Kannada are much more different.
Kannada derived from ancient tamil. Kingsley would be able to vouch for it. Tamil didnt derive from kannada.
Tamil is by far the oldest language south of the Vindhyas. (I do think it is the oldest language, but thats just an unverified, biased opinion of mine. Discount it)
Tamil, Kannada, Tulu and Malayalam are all descendants of the South Dravidian language. As a literary language, Tamil is the oldest among these. But unlike Kerala, where people did speak Tamil before it turned into Malayalam, we don’t know if people in Karnataka ever spoke Tamil. So it can’t be called an offshoot of Tamil, unless you extend the definition of Tamil all the way to proto-Dravidian.
You are such a sensible guy Kings. You’ve saved me the trouble of writing a rant about this.
And you still haven’t told me whether my answer is correct or not.
From WordIQ:
By all 3 counts, Tulu would be a dialect.
Not that. I am talking of the question you asked on my blog.
I wonder if debating about anything else on Earth gives us Tamil’s such orgasmic pleasure as this topic does.
After I understand perfectly well that I gain nothing out of making a stupid rant on how or why Tamil is the Oldest - I am overcome by(an equally stupid) sense of pride. Chauvenism I guess is not a decision, it’s probably a natural reaction.
Tamil sucks hairy goat, and i’m a Tamilian. Any language that’s spoken differently at home, on the road, and on TV sucks. and please don’t start a thiru-quarrel with me ;-)
LOL@asli
Hey,
Am just curious - why has the cartel not reacted to the Hiibel Vs Nevada????
In case you got want a brief walk thru - follow the links to his site…
MadMan chiming in from Mauritius here.
Yazad, post that darn “why is India poor” series, you lazy sod!
Will lucky sods soaking in Mauritius basically keep doing so and stop troubling me?
Now that you’ve touched a nerve, I’m gonna bawl. I rarely do this, so read on…
I’ve strained my right trapezius muscle, and have CCF (cough/cold/fever). CCF is nearly done luckily. The backlog at work is not.
I am writing the “Why is India Poor” series. Want to prepare a stock of 3-4 pieces before I start posting so that the momentum is kept up.
And well, a cartel meeting is being arranged on Sunday.
What is the right trapezius muscle? And may I know why you are moonlighting as a trapeze artist?
And look what you have done. Cartel meetings are supposed to be held in secret. At least don’t give away the exact time and location, or we’ll have anti-globalisation protesters smashing the windows of the McDonalds where we’re meeting.
Speaking of language, my weekly dose of humor comes from columnist Mumtaz Hamid Rao of the Pakistan Observer. He hates America, India and modernization. He spews venom with a “let us use all words from Barron’s GRE” attitude. My bro was convinced that Rao is probably a RAW agent masquerading as a PTV director.:-) See Rao’s latest column and ROFLYAO.
cmon guys post some articles you are a cartel right! and all you guys have managed in the past month are 4 articles or were they FIIIIIIIIIve and most of them concerned CK, plese post some food for thought
Perhaps I am missing the point. But what is so desirable about being sextalingual? (Big big eyes fluttering eyelashes)
Being sextalingual means you are good with your tongue. Being bastalingual means… I better shut up now.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Oh I only know English and Hindi and scraps of Punjabi and Arabic, very very long way to go to become sextalingual…. And good with my tongue :-)))))
Hehehe… Sexta sounds like an old Intel joke.
Q. What do they introduce after the Pentium Chip?
A. The Sexium chip ;)