WORDSPEAK
When words transcend barriers
ANAND
THE "Wordspeak" of December 2004 was about a contest organised by the German Language Council to find the most appealing word in German. The winner was Habseligkeiten, suggesting not a person's property or financial assets, but his or her personal belongings, and with a friendly, sympathetic undertone that makes the proprietor of those things seem rather likeable.
The column, written in a hurry while on road at the time of President Bush's visit to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, received a response like no other "Wordspeak". Readers were also asked to e-mail, with some explanation, what they thought was the most beautiful word in their language. They responded with great gusto. An occasional e-mail still straggles in at the time of writing this column, two months later.
As expected, most readers found certain words to be beautiful or appealing for personal reasons or associations, rather than the form or the sound (structure and phonetics) of the words themselves. Kristel Mukhopadhyay had this comment: "As for the `most appealing' German word (I still don't know what `appealing' means in that particular instance), I think I would choose Sehnsucht. Sehnen means longing for, aching for something or somebody, Sucht is really addiction... It can mean almost the same, depending on the context, but I love the sound of Sehnsucht."
Among Indian readers, the largest number of responses came from readers whose first languages were Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu or Kannada. The responses were in inverse proportion when one moved north. There was none from Kashmiri.
Reader Dilip Dhondhe did not offer a word of his choice, but a verse by the 17th Century Marathi poet, Sant Tukaram, which I must quote here because of its beauty:
Words are the only jewels I possess
Words are the only clothes that I wear
Words are the only food that sustains my life
Words are the only wealth I distribute among people.
Says Tuka, witness the word
He is God
I worship Him with my words.
(More information about this at www.tukaram.com.)
Sheela Nandini of Hyderabad sent a long and academic missive on the Arabic makhtub, meaning "it is written", as used in the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Marta and Ulysses from Canada suggested saudade from Brazilian Portuguese, with the explanation that it meant "homesickness, fond remembrance, nostalgia. It is a word that expresses a positive feeling even for something that you've missed." I. Thiruvelan of Chennai chose German Mahlzeit (time to eat) over Habseligkeiten, from the time he had spent in Germany as a visiting inspecting engineer of factories.
Among words that were found beautiful by many readers were anbu (love or affection, Tamil), sukh (happiness, Bengali), sneham (love, Malayalam), samarpan (surrender, Hindi), koil (the abode of the lord, Tamil), chellame (my dearest pet, Tamil), and daakshinya (Kannda), which H.R. Seetharam said, is a "combination of shyness, consideration for the other person and a feeling of gratitude. A typical example is as follows. When you go to someone's house and you are offered food, the lady of the house usually says, `Don't feel daakshinya. Take it,' meaning you can eat it and have more helpings also."
The clear winner, chosen by scores of readers, was amma. One of the most persuasive argument in its favour was by C. Ramesh Kumar: "Amma transcends all language barriers and finds itself nestled in the hearts of all people irrespective of colour, creed and religion. The word amma doesn't need any explanation in any land. It is understood in any dialect to mean mother." To counter a jawbreaker from German quoted in my column, windschutzscheibewaschanlage that has 28 letters, the same reader offered a Telugu tongue twister with 40 letters, amandanandakandalithahrudayaravidundanai, meaning a heart filled with profound pleasure and happiness.
E-mail the author at anand@journalist.com
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