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Reply to "Word for today"

I have not read this thread completely...only the last page. It is interesting to note most of the words offered here are derivations of hindi. Language is a very peculiar faculty. It is not a faculty we learn at anyone's instruction but one that is infused into receptive structures in the brain ae one grow up in a culture. It makes learning second languages as an adult difficult especially if you do not have a second language.

 

Most of these words fit into the category or creolized words. They are words introduced into the language by kids. Yes, adults seldom participate in the creolization process. The reason words are distorted or contracted or in anyway peculiarly  restructuring is because it is children who are the ones doing it. The process is called relexification.

 

Caribj and I often argue on this subject because he is of the opinion, mistaken I might add, that slave culture give us creoles. Indeed the language begin with them but no one needs to be given a language. Language is ubiquitous. Anywhere humans exist they create a language. This is because we are born with the wiring for language and any language must fit in with the wiring to be meaningful. That is why there is no language that is not translatable...even the highly inflected click languages of Africa.

 

These words are from our children's minds. They hang them on the bony structure of English to flesh out a new language that is creolese. The list here being almost completely hindi based shows the richness of indian contribution to our creolese.  Note, creole languages cannot be learned in a school as we learn highly structured languages as spanish and etc. These languages require immersion in the culture.

 

However, it is also  reliant on Bantu linguistic phonemes or sound patterns. Long use is also changing it in ways that mirrors Hindi phonemes. 

 

FM
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