Honk ok please!

I had a request a few weeks ago for a bit of a Marathi lesson, so here goes a (relatively) short blog on what I've learned so far in Marathi.

Since I can't figure out a way to use Marathi/Hindi script (they're the same, it's called devanagari script and it looks like this: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/script/images/hindi_trans.gif), I won't even bother. Instead, just trust me when I say you don't want to learn how to say retroflex letters. But phonetic alphabets are surprisingly easy to learn. Instead of memorizing tons of characters like in Chinese or something, I'm just memorize what are essentially letters. Only, in Marathi, J could be J or it might be Z (yes, I'm fully planning on calling my brother Zohn when I return). X is always K and W doesn't exist at all. And there are four letters for D. So anyway, I'm not going to bother with trying to teach you all that. Instead, here's some basic stuff:

The first sentence we learned in Marathi is "I want water." Only, if you were to translate it directly into English, you would be saying I water want. Yes, the grammar goes subject object verb, and yes it can be very difficult putting verbs at the ends of sentences. To say I want water in Marathi, you would say "Mala panee pahijay." Yeah. A few verbs worth knowing if you're ever going to speak Marathi are: nako (don't want-this doesn't conjugate--yes!!), kha (to eat), ja (to go) and as (to be). If you want me to translate any basic sentences, I can probably do it. I know a solid 40 verbs now! My favorite verbs are ones like to call (phone kar) which literally translates to "to make a phone," and study (abhyas kar), which literally translates to "to make a study." The subjects in Marathi are:
Mi - I / Amhi - We
Tu - You / Tumhi - Plural you/respectful you
To - He / Tay - They (group of boys)
Tee - She / Tya - They (group of girls)
Tay - It / Tee - They (mixed gruop)

In terms of vocab, I'm actually surprised by how much I've learned so far!
Namaskaar, of course, is hello. Suprabhat is good morning. Mitra means friend and paus means rain (but dho dho is the sound that rain makes). Tea is chaha but coffee is just coffee. Mango is amba, sugar is sakhar, and vegetables is bahji. Bahji is also what dishes are called in cooking when you're making something with a veggie base. Today I learned how to make a bahji dish that had eggplant, tomatoes, and onion in it (yummm).

Practical things are harder to learn, becuase they're usually phrases, but they often turn out to be the most fun to say. To say, "I can speak a little Marathi," you would say, "Mi thoda thoda Marathi bolto (m)/ bolte (f)." To ask how someone is, you would say "Kai kartes?" which literally translates to "what do you think?" (To reply, a good answer is "chaan!" which means good, and can be used in pretty much any situation--to compliment the cooking, to compliment someone's house, etc. It's what Sucheta says to us when we're doing well in Marathi class, also. If whatever it is is absolutely amazing, you could add "khoop", which means very. My sisters say "soooo nice," in English when they would say "khoop chaan" in Marathi. This is very amusing to me.) To ask what time it is, you would say "kiti vasileh?", and people will generally look at you and just point at their watch. A good word to know in India is "tiketh" (pronounced with an emphasis on the last th), which means spicy. My absolute favorite phrases in Marathi thus far are "bap re!" and "oye ghrr!" which are exclamations. "Bap re," translates to "oh father!" which you use when you're surprised or angry. "Oye ghrr" means, "Oh mother!" which you use when you're very sad or very happy. Sucheta explained that your father isn't supposed to be interested in your feelings, only when you're upset or need protection--unlike your mother who wants to hear about your feelings.

(Rant) This is actually something really interesting about Marathi and about language in general. I think there is definitely feminist theory to be found about the construction of language. In Marathi, you only use the respectful tumhi pronoun when you're speaking to your father, not your mother. You would use it for any teacher, but only for older males, not older females. In my linguistics classes, we talked quite a bit about how language constructs the way you think about the world. What does it say about your culture when you're brought up to automatically respect every older male but not every older female? I think this might be one reason India is still a largely male-dominated society. I could go on and on about this topic for hours, but you get the picture. Just food for thought! (End Rant)

I think I said this in another blog, but I'll reiterate for those of you who missed what a strange adjustment this is. In Marathi, there isn't a word for "please," or even "thank you." Instead you sort of soften the phrase by saying "huhh" after it, which really just makes me feel awkward. I'm still working on how to handle this. I will let you know if and when I make any progress.

I could go into a lot of complicated grammatical structures that have been puzzling me for weeks, but I'll just tell you that things like possessive pronouns are conjugated based on the sex of the noun. For those of you who haven't taken linguistics, that means that there are SIX words for "my," in Marathi. Plurals are also entirely dependent on the sex of the noun, so there are three ways to add an "s" to a word. A final puzzle for you English speakers: there are no prepositions, only POSTpositions.... so all those words that I learned a song about in English class in the 9th grade (around, on, above, to, before, during, under, etc etc) are words that you add to the END of another word, further complicating possessive pronouns. To say, for example, "for my grandmother," you would say "majhee adjeesuti."

Ok, well, I think that's enough for now and it's time for me to get to bed, so I'll leave you with a simple "Yete!" (Yehtay) which literally means, "I'll come back," and is used instead of a word for goodbye.

Yete!

P.S. If you're wondering about the title to this post, "Honk ok please," or "Horn ok please" is on the back of almost every big truck that I've seen thus far, and I think that it basically means, "it's fine to honk at me to let me know you exist because I can't really see behind me." Indian ENGLISH might be just as interesting, if not more interesting to me, than Marathi is. As my sisters would say, "this blog post was soooo nice," so you should leave me a comment to let me know you're all still reading. Much love. =)