What does that mean?

First, let’s collect some words used in different languages to say Mother or Father. Mother: Mom, Mummy, Amma, Maa, Ammi, Mater, Mama, Matra, Mere, Awwa, Ammijaan Father: Papa, Paa, Padre, Pere, Pitaji, Appa, Pitra, Baba, Pater, Fader, Vader, Abbajaan Think about what were your first words as an infant. In most cases, children are taught to say words that stand for mother and father as their first words. And what do most kids do? Imitate. They observe the lip movements of whoever is teaching them those words. The easiest sounds for a baby to learn or imitate are Bilabials - sounds produced by closure or near closure of both the lips ‘bi’ + ‘labial’ Bilabial sounds as ‘ p ’, ‘ b ’, ‘ m ’, ‘ w ’ Please do not pronounce them as ‘pii’, ‘bee’, ‘em’ and ‘double u’ We are not speaking about English alphabets, but just sounds. So, they can be pronounced as - ‘ pa ’, ‘ ba ’, ‘ ma ’, ‘ wa ’ After, the bilabials, the next easiest sound for a baby are the...

Wish I had come across this word in the 1990’s when my cousin often threatened my little sister that he will throw her out of the window (kiddingly - the intention was to show her that she’s so small that she can be thrown out of the window, despite the little space between the window grills). So must be clear by now – the next time you want to tell someone – I’ll throw you out of the window – you can save yourself some words and instead say – I’ll defenestrate you :) Hey, it’s not just for throwing people out; you can even defenestrate things!!! ~ ~ ~

We so often use the words ‘Market’, ‘Marketing’ and rarely stop to think if this word is really from the English language. It’s very likely that ‘ Market ’ is borrowed from a South Indian language, Kannada during the British rule in India. Maaruva + Kaţţe = Maarukaţţe ‘Maaruva’ stands for selling ‘Kaţţe’ stands for a platform ‘Maarukaţţe’ – a place for buying and selling In Kannada, if people were to say I’m going to the market, they would call Market as ‘Maarukaţţe’. But in the recent past, we much rather hear people saying ‘Maarkeţţige’ (to the market) rather than ‘Maarukaţţege’. It’s like, the Kannada word gets added as a Loan word in English; and then again Kannada speakers use the English form of their word back in their language. BTW, if you have been wondering how to pronounce ‘ţ’ that I’ve been using for ‘Kaţţe’ Curl your tongue backwards to touch the soft palette and say T as in ‘eighT’. That’s called a ‘ Retroflex ’ sound. Now, getti...

The first few classes of Linguistics and the strangest (funny to pronounce) word I came across was ' Onamotapoeia '. Looks like quite a complicated meaning to be unveiled, isn't it? But you have come across Onamotapoeic words ever since you were a toddler. Remember those 'Bow-wow', 'meow', 'tick-tock', - those are what it means. Words that imitate the sounds of what's been described. Words that resemble natural sounds like - the 'buzz' of bees, the singing 'cuckoo', the 'quack-quack' of ducks and 'oink-oink' of pigs. Onamotapoeic sounds can be understood beyond language barriers. They belong to the language that uses these natural sounds in their vocabulary and for that matter even a kid can interpret what that word stands for - we've all heard those bow-wows and meow meows. ~ ~ ~

I love words and it's fun to know how words and names originate. Kind of, this is a blog that links me to my subject 'Linguistics' as well. Let me start with my last name ' Vernekar ' Well, that's made up of 2 morphemes, Verne + kar 'Verne' stands for a place in Goa, India 'kar' stands for 'Taxes' In short, my last name stands for someone who paid taxes in Verne or is from Verne Similarly, here are some other Goa-based last names: Netalkar = Netarli + kar Revankar = Revana + kar Shirodkar = Shiroda + kar Mangeshkar = Mangeshi +kar Another word - ' Onomastics ', that's where the basics for Place Name and Proper Name dissection can be studied. ~ ~ ~