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| Words that should make it to the English dictionary |
Prepone” is now a word in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. So is “airdash”. For those who squirm at the made-in-India opposite of “postpone”, the dictionary-makers say: “It enriches the language”. Not just Indian English. Shuddh Hindi words like attar, dhoti, dal are already there in the dictionary.
At the same time, the latest edition of Samsad Bangla Abhidhaan contains words as intrinsically English as “blade”, “blackboard”, “breakfast”, “captain”, “calendar”, “estate”, “envelope” and “engine”, to mention only the first part of the tome. Why not enrich the English dictionary with some Bengali? Worldwide, there are 20-25 crore speakers of Bangla.
Educationist Pabitra Sarkar says it is difficult to find the English equivalents of two kinds of words in Bengali. One: cultural terms like abhisar and abhiman, used to such rich effect in Vaishnava padabalis. Two: kinship terms — beyai, beyan, bhayra bhai, nonod, ja, bhashur… Metro draws up a list:
Abhiman: The original meaning was pride, but the current usage — anger, or something close to it, at being upset with a loved one. This one word is one whole chapter in any relationship, be it between lovers or between parent and child or between siblings or friends. Or just think Radha, when Krishna comes back after having spent the night with Chandrabali.
Poet Sankha Ghosh misses the emotion in the word abhiman in the English vocabulary. “Try to translate it. Abhiman is not anger or sorrow. It is a temporary expression of a feeling about a loved one that he or she is supposed to address. People speaking in other languages must also be feeling the sentiment. I wonder how they express it,” he says.
Abhisar: “Going towards” is the literal meaning. But Sanskrit literature has long carried the meaning of a clandestine meeting between lovers. Think Radha again, on her way to meet Krishna.
Adda: “It has been derived from the Hindi word adda,” says Tarun Mukhopadhyay, a senior professor at the Bengali department of Calcutta University. The Hindi adda means a station, like a bus adda, which means a bus stop.
How does one translate adda, if one needs to translate it at all? “Chat” doesn’t describe the fusion of cups of tea and the endless rising of words, providing intellectual stimulus or just noise. However, current usage replaces the spontaneous gathering with organised ones. Celebs and talking heads are always being invited to an adda nowadays.
Beyai: It has its root in the Sanskrit baibahik, which became behai. The father-in-law of one’s child. What Romeo’s father was to the Capulets. Or Capulet was to the Montagues. Though the word perhaps wouldn’t be used too much as an address.
Beyan: Once behaini (female gender of behai) became behain, she reduced again and turned beyan. What Lady Montague was to the Capulets. What Lady C was to the Ms.
Bhayra bhai: The Sanskrit bhratri evolved into the Prakrit bhayar that became bhayra in Bengali, which means brother-like. The recent dictionaries add a bhai to bhayra. They are the husbands of sisters. So Ram, Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrughna were all bhayra bhais. The four brothers married four cousins.
Byapok: Originally meaning “expansive”, the word is expanding in meaning on the streets. “It’s a typical Bong exclamation for too much,” says 29-year-old Malini Das.
Chaap: It has always meant pressure, but the literal sense of weight has also given way to mental pressure.
Dada: The elder brother. But it is also one of the oldest Bengali expressions of universal brotherhood. Gyanendramohan Ghosh’s dictionary traces one root of the word to the Sanskrit tata, pronounced with a soft “t”, which spawned tatta and then dadda, meaning grandfather. But dadamoshai in Bengali is no more, with all grandfathers, maternal and paternal, being called dadu. So dada in Bengali refers only to the elder brother, drawing from the Sanskrit dayad. Of course, Dada in all languages means Sourav Ganguly.
Dhong: In Haricharan Bandyopadhyay’s dictionary, dhong is the peal of the bell, close enough to “dong”. Now the act of being coy, or flirty, or a tease. A dhongi is a drama queen. “The word has its root in the tribal word dhongo,” Mukhopadhyay says.
Dhop: A hollow sound is all the word conveyed till Sahitya Samsad brought out its enlarged edition of the dictionary. Long before that, youngsters would have told you to lie through the teeth was to “give dhop”. “Dhop has a character of its own,” says 27-year-old Chhaya Bose. Milanda’s canteen at Jadavpur University serves the famous dhoper chop, which means a bigger lie, but tastes okay.
Ento: “Derived from the Sanskrit amrista, which later became uchhishto and then ento,” says Mukhopadhyay. It would be tough to make an editor of an English dictionary understand the concept, forget an English equivalent.
But we have had it in our culture since the time of Ishwar Gupta. It is the practice of marking off food that has been partly eaten, or sometimes just cooked. In its more complex manifestations in traditional Bengali homes, ento transmitted like electricity, corrupting everything that came into its contact, only to be purged by much washing of hands, clothes, utensils or of the floor. It is still observed in some households.
Gamchha: Though Bibi Russel has already made the fabric a part of international fashion, how can Bengal’s own handloom-knit cotton gamchha be translated as the Western commodity called towel? Gamchha goes back to Jayananda’s 16th century Chaitanya Mangala as well as Manasamangal by Vishnu Pal (17th-18th century).
Gul: Few urban kids know gul as fuel, forget seeing the balls of coal dust being dried in the sun. They know gool as the act of harmless fibbing. Gul can also be an imaginative, endearing skill. Bengali literature would be bereft without people who did it well: Ghanada, Tenida…
Guru: In Sanskrit, the guru is one who teaches how to praise the gods. It is an accepted word in English in that sense. But in Bengali, it is another brotherly word, with an added sense of admiration. Mithun is guru, Uttam Kumar the original guru. But there is no teaching involved.
Jhol: A curry is usually passed of as its equivalent but that’s not quite it. It’s both stew and curry, thin and subtle. Goes best with fish.
Kaora: Camp. In bad taste, but intelligently so.
Kayda: Rooted in the Arabic qaeda — yes, the same word as in the terrorist outfit — the word used to carry a sense of bringing something within one’s grip. Now, it stands for style, or attitude.
Keta: A pretence to style, a deterioration of kayda. This too originates in Arabic, in the word qitah. If the meaning in Hutom’s usage in the mid-19th century was “practice or custom”, an 1899 use in poet Hemchandra’s verse published in Hitobadi shows keta had come to mean fashion.
Nyaka: The ultimate example of an untranslatable word. Gyanendramohan in the second edition of his dictionary printed in 1937, cites the Persian word nek, which means an honest to goodness man. The word changed in meaning to an excessively good man and consequently a fool. Ghosh had a supplementary entry to the word — nyaka saja (to pretend to be a fool). This is what the word has itself come to mean today, with pretence being the operative sentiment.
Now it means a blend of coyness and coquetry, something like dhongi, but sharper. Unfortunately like dhongi, mostly applied to women.
Patta: Getting or not getting patta is crucial to one’s standing in the para. The word means importance, but something slightly more. Gyanendramohan suggests its origin as the Sanskrit patra, or letter, as the primary usage was “whereabouts”, comparable to the Hindi patah.
Phataphati: Drawing on the Sanskrit root sphat is the Bengali root of the word phat. Originally it meant to pierce or to crack. Phataphati, which entered Bengali dictionaries no earlier than the new millennium, came to mean fighting in which the combatants are pierced by each other at the same time. Now a synonym of byapok, meaning “too much”, perhaps more popular. See Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey. Phataphati!
Phuchka: The little fried balls of suji, filled with potato and tamarind water, the recipe of which Calcutta should guard as a secret. Not to be confused with gol gappa from some other city.
Rosogolla: Because it is what Bengal is known for. Don’t insult one of the greatest inventions of humankind by calling it cottage cheese ball soaked in sugar syrup.
Sotin: “Those who have the same husband” is the translation of the Sankrit sapatni, which became sapatini and then satini. Some dictionaries cite co-wife as a translation but does the English equivalent carry the resonance of the pain of sotin kanta (if it has to be translated, “a co-wife who is cause of pain like a thorn”)? Or the proverb “Je biti sotiney porey/ Bhinno bidhi tarey gorey” [A girl who has to suffer a co-wife has been created by an (in)different Maker]?
Tolabaaj: Think mafia or goons (or cops) extorting their “due” from shop-keepers. But no way would you guess that collecting tola was a legitimate exercise in even the 1962 edition of Byaboharik Shabdakosh, published by Presidency Library. Tola, back then, stood for portions of fruits and vegetables taken free by the owner of the market or the zamindar.