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Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Villagebelle:

 

 

And Tola just gave us our next word.....

 

CHUL-CHUL

 

 

me thinks like a finicky child.

 

Is it not also like ah MANISH child. Getting into everything.

Manish = troublesome, but looking at the word properly, its MAN...ISH.

Something to do with the male figure ? Only boys are troublesome ?

 

Internet description...MANISH....Indian word.  A boy behaving like a man. Arrogant and rebellious.

But girls are also referred to as CHUL-CHUL and MANISH.

Its interesting !!    

Tola
Originally Posted by Tola:
Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Villagebelle:

 

 

And Tola just gave us our next word.....

 

CHUL-CHUL

 

 

me thinks like a finicky child.

 

Is it not also like ah MANISH child. Getting into everything.

Manish = troublesome, but looking at the word properly, its MAN...ISH.

Something to do with the male figure ? Only boys are troublesome ?

 

Internet description...MANISH....Indian word.  A boy behaving like a man. Arrogant and rebellious.

But girls are also referred to as CHUL-CHUL and MANISH.

Its interesting !!    

It can also be bad behaved or restless child.

Django
Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Tola:
Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Villagebelle:

 

 

And Tola just gave us our next word.....

 

CHUL-CHUL

 

 

me thinks like a finicky child.

 

Is it not also like ah MANISH child. Getting into everything.

Manish = troublesome, but looking at the word properly, its MAN...ISH.

Something to do with the male figure ? Only boys are troublesome ?

 

Internet description...MANISH....Indian word.  A boy behaving like a man. Arrogant and rebellious.

But girls are also referred to as CHUL-CHUL and MANISH.

Its interesting !!    

It can also be bad behaved or restless child.

True.

Tola

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
Originally Posted by Tola:
Originally Posted by Django:

GHURMUSAHA another word for the day.

I don't recognise this word. Description ?

I think of Gharam-masalla - a curry or Guru-ma, made from mango.

GHURMUSAHA...  A person who doesn't speak much.

 

I found this site so i will have some words to post daily.

Excuse me for not posting the link,it will defeat the

purpose for the word of the day.

 

Here is little write up from the site.

 

Most of the Hindi words spoken in Guyana come from the Bhojpuri dialect of Eastern UP and Bihar but as Surendra Gambhir puts it, our language is a koine, a fusion of several languages.  This is why in our Guyanese Hindi vocabulary, you will find words from Tamil, Bengali, Urdu and other Indian languages.  Here is but a sample of words which come to memory.  There are authors such as Dr. Mahabir of Trinidad and more recently Mr. Harry Hergash of Toronto who have published books on Indo-Caribbean words and phrases which may be informational.

 

Django

A few years ago at a Scout craft session, when I asked a boy to pass me the 'cotta-reel', another leader corrected me by saying, you mean 'cotton reel' and it was only then it dawned on me, that she was correct.

 

GHUR-MUS-AHA... I was like that when I first arrived in Canada and people would say I am very quiet.  I would reply that I learn more by listening, but even though I spoke with many Europeans due to my job in Guyana, I was a bit embarrassed about my accent and the way I pronounced words, to be corrected often.

 

What is the Guyanese word for a lazy person ? 

I used to know it, but forgot,  mainly due to decades of isolation from other Guyanese. 

I often suggest to couples  start living in isolation from others of their own kind, whether  Guyanese, Iraqi, Spanish, etc. Possible move and form a network with those of similar culture, especially useful  for socializing at an older age.

I get more from GNI about my Guyanese culture, than I get from people living around here. I like writing and speaking Guyanese, but its sometimes challenging while visiting Guyana, where others might imitate my new accent, in a humorous manner.       

Tola
Originally Posted by Django:

"What is the Guyanese word for a lazy person?"

 

Korhee

 

 

Me see de word and let out a big laugh.

I used to know Korhee well.

There was a guy name 'rubba-head', he was our friend and we used to call him Korhee. We used to tell him, he Korhee, he Papa Korhee and all he uncle Korhee.

One time he got so mad, he fell backwards in a trench.  

Tola
Originally Posted by Tola:
Originally Posted by Django:

"What is the Guyanese word for a lazy person?"

 

Korhee

 

 

Me see de word and let out a big laugh.

I used to know Korhee well.

There was a guy name 'rubba-head', he was our friend and we used to call him Korhee. We used to tell him, he Korhee, he Papa Korhee and all he uncle Korhee.

One time he got so mad, he fell backwards in a trench.  

You guys harassed po "rubba-head",how did he got that name??

Django
Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Tola:
Originally Posted by Django:

"What is the Guyanese word for a lazy person?"

 

Korhee

 

 

Me see de word and let out a big laugh.

I used to know Korhee well.

There was a guy name 'rubba-head', he was our friend and we used to call him Korhee. We used to tell him, he Korhee, he Papa Korhee and all he uncle Korhee.

One time he got so mad, he fell backwards in a trench.  

You guys harassed po "rubba-head",how did he got that name??

Django, me cant control me laughter. Me stomach hurts too much.

 

One day we were playing cricket....Rubba-head said he head was soft like jug-jug sweetie, afta ah cricket ball hit him on he head. So peel-neck said you must have ah rubba-head and we all start calling him rubba-head.

Neck now lives in TO and Rubba-head lives in NY.  Real guys.

 

................................ 

 

Neck is called Peel-neck, because we used to thief a fowl from a guy [parents], who we invite to bush cook, so he is guilty as us, for eating he own fowl.

One day it was Neck's  turn to get a fowl and he thief a fowl from Japs fowl pen, the only problem was, after he kill de fowl, Japs say its dem fowl  and also said 'bai, how come you tek abee peel-neck fowl'.

 

We used to bush cook under a briar tree in the seaside savannah area at Belvedere, now occupied by houses, called squatting area. 

 

Django, I cant write more, I cant control me laughter. True stories. Many of these guys have passed on. Japs died in NY.     

Tola
Last edited by Tola
Originally Posted by Django:
Originally Posted by Anjali:

I like the last few words, have not heard them in a long time.

 

Habar Labar

Anjali.. me think the word is Habar Dabar.

 

quickly

I also know as..... Habar Labar

 

 

It's when you do things  any which way...just to get it done.

 

such as daubing the battamhouse and missing some spots (and get in a heat of trouble)

 

and this leads me to my next word.....

Villagebelle

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