[Reader-list] article on technical neologisms

[::bea:]

>Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:24:54 +0530
>To: Ravikant <ravikant at sarai.net>
>From: "::bea:" <bea at nungu.com>
>Subject: Re: [Reader-list] article on technical neologisms
>Cc:
>Bcc:
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>
>I really like this article too. It made me think of a great project 
>people on the list might like to see in relation. Its a project on 
>cdrom by victoria de rijke and adrian ward but there is a website 
>too. limited in comparison but you still get the basic idea. Its 
>basically a survey of animal sounds made by children from different 
>ethnic minorities in east london.  you can hear the sound of a frog 
>in bengali, hindi, tamil, arabic, cantonese, hebrew and so on. apart 
>from being incredibly cute it also points toward language // sound 
>as as having the potential for enormous heterogeneity culturally 
>speaking . in the context of the article posted it seems almost a 
>subversive project, pointing to the problematic of a global // 
>homogenizing linguistic growth.  i think i be using butterfly for 
>now on! : ]
>
>ps note that there arent any sounds for pig apart from in cantonese 
>and italian.  !!!
>
>http://www.quack-project.com/
>http://www.quack-project.com/
>http://www.quack-project.com/
>http://www.quack-project.com/
>
>
>>I liked the following article, written by an expat computer engineer, for its
>>refreshingly commonsensical approach to technospeak in a new language. I
>>received it in my mail, so there is no url. Enjoy!
>>
>>ravikant
>>-----------------
>>How a Language grows
>>Agastya Kohli
>>
>>
>>I am no linguist. I have not studied the growth and development of 
>>a language.
>>I am not an expert in the field. But I use languages. I grew up in an
>>environment, where a language wasn't merely a subject you took in school.
>>When you studied a language, you studied it well. So along with learning a
>>couple of languages, I also learned the nature of languages. How they
>>interact with each other, how they interact with the society, how they change
>>over years, grow, develop, flourish, or alternatively, shrink, loose their
>>shine, diminish, and eventually disappear. No, I didn't have a course in
>>college on the topic, but one makes observations, and takes notes.
>>
>>
>>For example, I decided to study a little Spanish. Of course, the 
>>letter "j" is
>>used extensively in Spanish, but is pronounced almost like an "h". 'Jesus' is
>>"hay-soos", and Juan is "hu-aan". So when my teacher told me that the Spanish
>>word for "a young man" is "haw-ven", it sounded like another foreign word to
>>me. But then she wrote it on the board - Joven.
>>
>>
>>When you grow up in India, speaking Hindi all your life, it doesn't take much
>>to make a Yamuna-Jamuna connection, and all of a sudden, Joven looked a lot
>>like "yauvan" - Sanskrit for youth. Sure, a young man was called "haw-ven". I
>>don't remember much else from that Spanish class, but I do remember joven.
>>
>>
>>It didn't take a class in linguistics to make the Yamuna-Jamuna 
>>connection, or
>>to make a Joven-Yauvan connection.  When you study a language, you study the
>>nature of languages simultaneously. Many languages, both Indian and otherwise
>>interchangeably use the sounds "ya" and "ja" (letters I, Y and J), "ra" and
>>"la", "ka" and "ga". I have a German friend named Katja (pronounced Katya),
>>and a Chinese friend who spells the word "are" as "ay - al - ee". No wonder
>>"badariya" is just a derivative of "badaliya" in Hindi, and "bekaar" and
>>"begaar" mean the same thing.
>>
>>
>>And in my opinion, that's how languages grow. Whatever is easier to say is
>>what becomes the norm. The concept of "mukh-sukh" (mouth-comfort) makes a
>>language add words as variants of themselves.
>>
>>
>>Its not just with sounds - its also with word meanings. A language has a word
>>for a concept. Something similar rolls around, and the same word expands its
>>meaning.
>>
>>
>>They had these things called coaches - pulled around by horses. People could
>>sit in them and go places. A number of years later, the horses have now been
>>replaced by internal combustion engines. So what do they call a car in
>>Spanish? A "coche". In English, the word "car" really comes from "carriage" -
>>which is something that gets carried. So a word has a meaning, a related
>>concept attaches itself to it, and the word adapts to accommodate the related
>>concept. That's how languages grow. Sure some people called them automobiles,
>>but a car is still a car in English - one horsepower, or two hundred.
>>
>>
>>Of course, my favorite - sticks of wood with cloth soaked in oil tied at one
>>end. They would light the cloth on fire, hold the stick on the other end, and
>>walk around with it in dark places. It worked as a source of light - they
>>called it a "torch". Fast-forward a few hundred years, technology changes,
>>now they have plastic tubes with batteries on one side and a bulb on the
>>other. It's a source of light - and yes you're right - they called it a
>>"torch". Of course, in America, they call them "flash lights". A different
>>society saw a product, was inspired by a different way of looking at it, and
>>added another word to the language.
>>
>>
>>They tell me, that a language that doesn't grow - that doesn't change with
>>time will eventually die. And I completely agree with them. But I am not sure
>>I understand the definition of "grow" and "change with time". The way I see
>>it, a language grows by innovation. When a people use a language, they come
>>across something new that needs to be communicated; a word gets altered,
>>adapted, changed, to communicate the new concept.
>>We  - the community that works and plays with Hindi seems to work 
>>differently.
>>We don't want the language to innovate. We want the language to borrow. A new
>>concept comes along, usually with a word in English, and without thinking
>>twice about how Hindi would express the same concept, we borrow the word.
>>There are examples all over the place.
>>
>>
>>When Xerox first developed a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to use on a
>>computer, they also developed a pointing device. It was an instrument
>>connected to the computer that controlled an arrow like cursor on the screen.
>>You moved the device, it moved the arrow, and by clicking the buttons you
>>could provide input to the computer. The device was an oblong shaped half
>>sphere, about 4 inches long, with a cable that ran to the back of the
>>computer. To some creative mind, it looked like a small mouse with a long
>>tail, so they called it a mouse. In Spanish, they call it a "ratos" (think
>>rat). In Hindi, we can easily call it a "moosa" (Sanskrit for mouse). But its
>>so much easier to just call it a "mouse" even in Hindi. Do we not have a word
>>for the concept? Why do we need to borrow a completely foreign word for
>>something that we already have a word for?
>>
>>
>>One afternoon, my two-year-old nephew was sitting in front of a computer,
>>looking at the cursor - a solid block on the screen - blinking. On, off. On,
>>off. He pointed at it, and said "titlee" (butterfly). And I thought to
>>myself, if a cursor looks like a butterfly to a two year old, that is what we
>>should call it in Hindi. Titlee. After all, why is a mouse acceptable, but
>>not a much prettier butterfly.
>>
>>
>>I've always referred to my TV's remote control as "bandook" (gun). Sure, its
>>not exactly the same thing - but its an expansion of a concept. If you can
>>"aim-and-shoot" with a camera and a gun, how different is a remote control
>>really?
>>
>>
>>Lets stick with computers and technology for a little while longer. Why is a
>>window (as in Microsoft Windows) not called a "patt" in Hindi? Most of the
>>time that's what it is - an information board, a "pop up screen". Why do we
>>seem to use "website" as a word in Hindi? To me, it's a "parav/padav"
>>(stopping point). Why is an Internet portal called a portal? Because it's a
>>launching point from where a surfer can go in many different directions. May
>>be we should call it a "chauraahaa" in Hindi. 
>>
>>
>>Lets go outside the world of hi-tech. Hindi newspapers always talk 
>>about which
>>party has how many "seats" in the parliament. How come we don't use the word
>>"baithak" for it? Since when is "metro" a Hindi word for a local train system
>>in a city? It's not even a word in English!
>>
>>
>>Doordarshan and Aakashvani of course have been abandoned as Hindi words for
>>television and radio - they have simply become proper nouns - names of
>>corporations, leaving us with nothing better than "Teevee" as a Hindi word.
>>
>>
>>How come we call the burning cloth version of a torch a "mashaal", 
>>but we call
>>the battery-bulb version a "torch" in Hindi? We have a "gaari/gaadi" - as a
>>moving vehicle. But for some reason, a car is just as much a Hindi word. Was
>>this because Hindi needed to "change with the times"? Or is this something
>>else?
>>
>>
>>Yes, a language must grow. If it doesn't, it perishes. But does a language
>>grow because people who use it are creative and innovative with it? They
>>think it, they speak it, they write it, and they use it? Or does it grow
>>because they're too lazy to try to explain things to their readers in their
>>own words, and find it much easier to simply borrow and replace?
>>
>>
>>By simply borrowing words from another language, is Hindi growing? Or is it
>>loosing its identity as the soul of over half of the population of the
>>country, and becoming a language incapable of being the national
>>communication channel of India? If most of the words in Hindi are not native,
>>would it still remain and independent language? Would people read any
>>literature written in it? Would there be any Nobel prizes for Hindi scholars?
>>Or would they simply be ignored and described as a "mish-mash language that
>>came about after the British invaded India"?
>>
>>
>>They might call me a purist, who doesn't want to see the language modernize
>>itself. But I'll let them know - I coined the Hindi word for a remote
>>control. It doesn't get any more modern than wirelessly influencing an
>>electrical appliance. And, I coined the Hindi word for a cursor - sure I
>>needed help from a two year old kid to come up with that one - but he did
>>better than most professional Hindi journalists out there.
>>
>>
>>
>>About the Author
>>
>>
>>Agastya Kohli, born Jan 31, 1975, and brought up in Delhi, moved to Chicago,
>>IL for his Bachelors in Computer Engineering from Illinois Institute of
>>Technology, roughly ten years ago. After a stay of four years in Chicago, and
>>completion of the degree program, he moved to Dallas, TX and worked as a
>>Network and Unix System Administrator for a little under 2 years. He then
>>moved again to the greater Seattle, WA metro area, and has been working in
>>the wireless telecom industry for the last 4 years in various capacities.
>>
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