Post No. 14,799
Date uploaded in London – 26 July 2025
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Shakespeare’s quote from King Lear
“Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes” means that one should be careful and measured in their words, as poor communication can negatively impact one’s success and opportunities. It emphasizes the importance of speaking clearly and thoughtfully to avoid damaging one’s prospect.
Tamil poet Tiru Valluvar also said,
Guard your tongue if nothing else; For words unguarded cause distress- Tiruk Kural 127.
You may keep open all the other doors of the senses, but beware of an unbridled tongue; for through its very slip remorse enters the soul.
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New words from Shakespeare
Coinages of groups of words used in a certain sense give rise to cliches. Among such expressions created by Shakespeare are- tower of strength – pound of flesh- made of sterner stuff- milk of human kindness – every inch a king-midsummer madness.
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Latin and Italian Anecdote
Despite borrowings from other European languages Italian remains amazingly close to the ancestral tongue, particularly in its learned and literary vocabulary.
The story is told of an Italian high school student, who having been assigned to compose a Latin poem, appeared the next day in class and read off some lines of the verse which caused the class to titter and the professor to remark caustically,
“Perhaps you forgot that the assignment was for a piece of Latin poetry?”
“My verses are Latin, sir”, replied the student in an aggrieved tone. After a careful rereading, the professor was forced to apologise. The verses were perfectly good Latin and, at the same time, perfectly good Italian .
We have similar situations in Tamil and Malayalam. Eluththachan Ramayana in Malayalam is almost Tamil; several Tamil verses in Bharatiyar and Silappadikaram are almost Sanskrit. Even the so called Tamil Thai Valthtu (Greeting to Tamil Mother) is full of Sanskrit words!
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Honorifics in Japanese
The intricacies of Japanese polite forms soldering. In addition to honorific verbs, there is a particle o , prefixed to nouns, which is erroneously translated by honourable, but in reality glorifies the person addressed.
O mizu kudasai means not honourable water please, but, you, honourable person, please bring water.
A story told about the use of honorifics in Japanese as to the effect that a Nazi delegation visiting Japan made itself obnoxious by its rudeness. The sarcastic Japanese reply to this display of occidental uncouthness was to double and triple the honorifics, until by the time the Nazis left the rafters were ringing with super honorifics, lavished in reckless and insincere abandon.
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Too Many Honorifics spoiled a Tamil Servant
One Tamil servant employed by a rich man was too polite. In Tamil THIRU means Mr or Sri. The servant used THIRU in all his sentences without knowing its implication. He used to say Thiru so and so came to give Thiru key to your Thiru house on Thiru Thursday etc.
The boss was very much annoyed by this, and he scolded the servant. He warned that every time you use the word THIRU your pay will be cut at the rate of one Rupee (like Dollar or Pound).
On the same day a THIRU-DAN (which means thief in Tamil entered the house in the middle of the night. The servant saw him entering the house and he wanted to alert his boss and his family. He shouted in raised voice DAN vanthu DIK kondu poyttaan which meant DAN came and DIK stolen and went. He meant TIRU= dan vanthu/came, TIRU- dik kondu Stolen Poyttaan/had gone.
(திரு) –டன் வந்து (திரு)–டிக் கொண்டு போய்ட்டான்!
Without THIRU suffix it did not mean anything to the family members. Because he woke them in the middle of night with this cry they became angry and beat him severely. But he was so loyal that he took them by his hand and showed them what the THIRU-dan/ Thief had stolen.
Once again his boss got angry and said, Oh You Dam Fool! why don’t you say THIRU-DAN Thief had entered the house.
He wept and said, O Boss you asked me never to use THIRU. So instead of saying ,
THIRU-dan= thief
Vanthu+ having come
THIRU-dik= stolen
Poyttaan = had gone
I omitted THIRU and shouted DAN vanthu Dik kondu Poyttaan ,scores of times.
Rich man’s family did not know whether to laugh or cry. They lost heavily in the theft.
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BASIC ENGLISH
British government bought the copyright of BASIC ENGLISH for £23,000. By reducing the longer, more complicated words to their definitions in terms of the more frequently used words, they concluded that it was possible to get along with as few as 850 words in English language. This at the rate of a dozen a day could be mastered in less than three months.
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THE LANGUAGE IS THE BEST WHICH AT EVERY SINGLE POINT, IS EASIEST TO THE GREATEST POSSIBLE NUMBER OF HUMAN BEINGS –JESPERSEN
GIBSON CODE
In 1629,the philosopher Descartes outlined a scheme for a constructed language based on numbers that would represent words and notions. Dalgarno’s system, presented in 1661, consisted of an ingenious arrangement of Latin and Greek vowels and consonants. Later many others gave different ideas. GIBSON CODE, compiled by a coast artillery officer , uses only numerical symbols. Nouns start with 1,2, or 3, verbs with 4, adjectives with 5, adverbs with 6, pronouns with 7, pronouns with 7, conjunctions with 8, prepositions with 9; verb tenses are indicated by adding 10,20, 30 to verbs. While even numbered endings on nouns indicate the plural and odd numbers the singular.
In GIBSON CODE, a sentence like – the boy eats the red apple— would read as follows 5-111-409-10-5-516-2013. This does not differ too much from cable codes in commercial use, and has, unfortunately limited application. It also fails to take into consideration structural diversities in the different languages.
Sir Denison Ross suggested using Chinese pictographs. So far 500 such attempts were made to construct a new language including Esperanto. None succeeded so far.
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CATCH A SLAVE, LEARN A LANGUAGE- ROMAN METHOD.
The history of foreign language learning is almost as old as language itself. Agastya leant tamil from Subrahmanya and wrote a grammar for Tamil. Tirumular came from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu in ninth century and learnt tamil and composed 3000 verses. Before that, Panchatantra stories were translated b into many languages who knew more than one language. Later Christian missionaries came to different parts of India and learnt the regional languages.
In the ancient world, wealthy Romans had Greek imparted by teacher-slaves to their children and often to themselves; Cato the Elder is said to have learnt Greek in this fashion at the age of 84. Saint Augustine who lived about 400 CE, has left us in his Confessions an account of a method for learning languages.
Queen Elizabeth was said to have been quite proficient in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin. When Harvard was founded in 1636, knowledge of Latin was Latin was made compulsory for admission. thus, foreign language learning was spread.
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ONE CAN LEARN TO SPEAK AND UNDERSTAND A LANGUAGE ONLY BY HEARING AND IMITATATING SPEAKERS OF THAT LANGUAGE—LEONARD BLUEFIELD.
NOWADAYS NRI CHILDREN LIVING IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THOSE COUNTRIES FLUENTLY JUST BY LISTENING TO NATIVE SPEAKERS.
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A WORLD LANGUAGE IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR MANKIND AT THE PRESENT MOMENT THAN ANY CONCEIVABLE ADVANCE IN TELEVISION AND TELEPHONY – LEWIS MUMFORD
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NEXT TO GOD, THY PARENTS- WILLIAM PENN
The quote “Next to God, thy parents” by William Penn emphasizes the high regard and importance of parents within a family structure, suggesting they are second only to God in their influence and significance. It highlights the idea that parents deserve reverence, love, and respect for their role in guiding and nurturing their children. The phrase “Next to God” implies a position of authority and respect, suggesting that children should honour and obey their parents, just as they would honour God.
Hindus say, “Matha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam” . it is a Sanskrit phrase that translates to “Mother, Father, Teacher, God”. It signifies the order of reverence in Indian culture, placing the highest respect on the mother, followed by the father, then the teacher, and finally, God.
–Subham—
Tags- Language Anecdotes, Shakespeare, Valluvar, Japanes, Honorifics, Tamil Story, Thief came, Gibson Code, Cato the Elder, Slave, Teaching, Latin and Italian,
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