Is tamil so unique? Then I'm a mutant!

[sunson]

I strolled off into geek-land while teaching some tamil fundae to Deepti. What I realized was no other language seems to have this 'Genericity' that Tamil has

Comments

[lustymonk]

You should watch '3rd rock from the sun' (apparently also Richard's favorite). Those aliens (in human body w/ feelings), for example, converse with opposite sex with conspicuous reference to mating behaviors/clues (which is obvious because all these 'feelings' are new to them since coming to planet earth). Here is a funny reference:

Sally: ".. but there is something about the thickness of your neck and the.. broadness of your shoulders.. that.. makes me think you'd be an agile hunter and provide well for our children." .. Then they would start flirting. (How many woman in the real world does that? :P)

The show is as funny as Seinfeld, I promise.

[bipin]

I'm not sure whether English's (or, for that matter, any other language's) word-roots are what you're referring to. In your example, it seems patently explicit - maamaram = maa (mango) + maram (tree); which is somewhat similar in spirit to some etymologies in English- 'astrology', for example, which is derived from 'astr' (star: think astronaut, asterisk etc.) and 'logos' (science/study: think biology, physiology etc.).

Or perhaps, you're specifically looking for endocentric compound words, which I know exist in English. And, if you want to push it a degree further, maybe even portmanteau words. On whether one could work all words in the language as such, I am not certain :)

But yeah, I've heard the "I'm special because I'm a mutant! ZOMG!" is a unusually effective with the ladies, so you might be better off just ignoring the note above.

[anomalizer]

English is too much of a mongerel language because of which compound words are immediately not recognizable.

[2fargon]

Consider yourself lucky. In reaching Malayalam and to a certain extent Tamil, I curse "non-extensibility" all the freaking time.

This non-extensibility is truly unique, since most other languages I know don't really seem to have this problem.

Now for specific examples, but this works for most words, too, in Malayalam:

Mango is Maanga (Maa + Kai maybe, but note that it is Maanga, not Maaka)
Mango tree is Maavu (go figure)
Mango Leaf is Maavila (Maavu + Ila)

If only Mango tree were Maamaram in Malayalam!

[sunson]

Malayalam is heavily a branch off Tamil. I'm looking for non-dravidian languages. However, 'Maavu' is totally whacky.

[athiran]

and i thought maamaram was whacky. lol.

how about some mampazha pulisheri

[anomalizer]

I would like you to introduce to another language which in English goes by the name "German" which is supposed to be the mother of "Aryan" languages, aryans the arch nemisis of dravidians.

• Bus stop in German is "Bushatlestelle" which literally is Bus+Hatle+Stelle aka. Bus+Stop+Place
• Pollution is "Umweltverschmutzung" which is Umwelt+verschmutzung => Environment+Contamination
• City tour is "Stadtrundfahrt" which is Stadt+rund+fahrt => City+round+drive
• Zipper drive/ late merge(very hard to find an English version since the Yankees believe in the opposite) is "Reißverschlussverfahren" which is Reißverschluss+verfahren => zip + proceed

Put it another way, you choose a few words that describes a simple thing, clobber it together and make a new word. Of course unlike your "maa", there is no prefix-only i.e. incomplete words in the about example.

Tamizh is elegant

[anonymous]

Here's another one: Aa; 1. means Cow - Aavin - means Cow's or from the Cow - pretty neat, not to mention Aavin being just incredibly cool and elegant 2. Aathichuvadi - Aa is now overridden to stand for the letter/alphabets.

Mei also means 1. Truth 2. Body