The Art of Cribbing

Layman #38

[I guess gender in adjectives, adverbs etc shows how `advanced` our languages are....]

I would doubt that very much. In the normal evolutionary course, all useless constructs should disappear. In fact older languages tend to have both gender and (as Macgupta points out) number. (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin, Arabic.) Some of the more vibrant languages have no gender, and little or no number (e.g. English, Farsi, Tamil, Bengali)

Pankaj #44

Latin has the dual number exactly like Sanskrit. I`m not too sure about classical Greek.

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Arun#43

``Do the oldest languages carry traces of the time when mankind could not count beyond two ? Or was the paired relationship once important enough to merit its own number in the language ?

``

A very interesting observation. IMO, your first conjecture may not be an accurate one. Even in pre-Vedic times, man had domesticated animals like cows, sheep etc. It is a reasonable assumption that he had some means of keeping a count of his herd and that implies a counting ability ranging to few hundreds at least if not more. Your second conjecture is more plausible. May be evolution of a grammatical word for the paired relationships has something to do with the family structure at that time. But it is not clear how the family structure in ancient India was different from other parts of the world so as to justify a separate word for the paired relationships. BTW are you aware of similar grammatical construction in other ancient classical languages such as as Hebrew, latin, Greek etc. That might throw some more light upon the subject.

Cherayam

Thanks for the enquiry. Well, my work is going fine. It is the kind of lull( I hope so :-)) between two creative phases.

Cheers

Howdy y`all

I`m Sorry to take your space Akila but I would like to make a request to Chowk Staff, if possible, to designate a special section on the site which relates to all Charitable organisations working in Southeast, i.e. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh etc etc. The spot would include such details as their contacts, history, missions, their systems of functions, methods of fund collections, annual outcomes, personal experiences of people who`ve worked for charities, useful ideas, methods of setting up the organisations etc etc and we could all contribute our own little bit to this knowledge.

I`ve heard many people say that Chowk is a bekaar vela place meant for useless chatter and maybe it`s true but I`m not quiet willing to believe that just yet. A single water molecule is nothing but get enough of them and they become `wet.`

All in favour say `yay`.

Umer Murtaza Phoenix.

Cherayam #26, says At least we are not fighting.

I ask -- is that a crib ?

-Arun Gupta

Why languages have gender seems clear enough.

What blows my mind is that, e.g. Sanskrit has

singular, plural and dual numbers.

aham : I

AvAm : we two

Vayam : we (more than two)

Who ordered that ? Do the oldest languages carry traces of the time when mankind could not count beyond two ? Or was the paired relationship once important enough to merit its own number in the language ?

-Arun Gupta

Sorry to use this space, but it`s rather important... for a good cause (see.. no moe cribbing about how helpless we are:))

I`m trying to help a kid pay for some IT course he`s taking at an SSI institute in Bombay. I need to ascertain the fee structure, and payment schedule for this course,a s well as the duration... it`s called IMPACT.

Anyone willing to provide info may email me @ postmatser@yahoo.com.

Please do help if u can... It could give a helpless kid a `chance` at life.

With thanks,

PM

Studebaker #35

Persian or Farsi language is genderless. You don`t know whether it is related to male or female.

Like:

He/She went in English

Woh Gaya/Gayee in Urdu. In persian will be `` Oo Raft`` or ``Aan Raft`` without knowing the gender of person.

Neptune:

I guess gender in adjectives, adverbs etc shows how `advanced` our languages are. Generally, the more the number of vowels and consonants, and the more the complexity of the grammar, I would assume the more the language is nuanced or advanced - it is better than having a language that has only 100 words or something...

Can anybody tell me why languages have `gender` as a grammatical concept? What earthly purpose could it possibly serve? (I don`t mean the king:queen kind of gender, I refer to the gender of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns etc.)

Any thoughts?

Dear Pankaj, you are right. Due to my lack of imagination, I suppose, I could only think of my original user id at work at that time, silly me! May be I should change it now.

How is your thesis coming? I really have lot of load this semester. But with all its good and bad, chowk is such an addiction! Got to go.

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Re: Reply #: 23

Pankaj,

I believe the name of the Indonesian Airlines is ``Garuda`` which as you know in sanskrit means ``vulture`` (or is it eagle?). Also the mythological Vaahana (vehicle) of Lord Vishnu.

Regards,

Sridhar

Re: Reply #: 21

Studebaker,

The sanskrit names change gender depending on the emphasis on the last word. eg atulya is male while atulyaa (emphasis on the last word)is female. Same with Achyuta,Amrita,Komala. Even Krishna: just Krishna (means literally black; Lord Krishna was black,hence his name)is male while krishnaa (another name for Draupadi in Mahabharata;she was apparently dark in color)is female. Ram is not correct in sanskrit while Rama is(with the right emphasis on the last word). Sometimes you change what is a neuter gender (this gender is unique in sanskrit)to another gender by changing the emphasis on the last word eg. pushpam is the right word for a flower (a neuter gender)but you make it Pushpaa and it becomes a feminine gender. Devarsi is probably the distorted form of Devarishi (literally means - celestial sage),a male name.

Re: Reply #: 22

scout,

Thirugnanasambhandam is the name of a shivite devotee who sang a lot of Tamil songs in praise of God Shiva (one of the Hindu trinities)more than a thousand years ago. ``Thiru`` is used in Tamil as a prefix for someone respectable: an equivalent of ``Shri`` in hindi (i don`t know a similar term in urdu). ``gyana`` is sanskrit in origin and means: knowledge; ``sambhanda`` means in relation to: in this case knowledge; so the whole name really means ``a respectable and knowledgeable (in scriptures)person``.

sridhar

The coolest Punjabi cum Sanskrit name I ever heard in my life was ``Pawan Chan-na``. I met the bearer of this name in Oslo where he was an aid to the Indian Consulate General. I think the meaning of this name is ``wind & moolight``. Am I right?

Cherayam

I was wondering what could be the meaning of this musical sounding name ``Cherayam``.Since I am not aware of any Sanskrit root to this name, so I guessed it could belong to any South Indian languages. This possibility is overruled by whatever I know about you :-). Then I realised that if you break this name down into three parts it contains the info about dept, and name. There might exist other permutations though but this one seems to be more likely.

PS Thanx for the correction Neptune. Perhaps as Cherayam also pointed out, the correct root is ``ja`` that means birth as in ``janm``.