When did "passion-for-tamil" become synonymous with writing-tamil-fallaciously? I have recently seen the following words in a poster that invites people to attend some conference organized by self-professed only-tamil-correct-or-not people.
The words are ஆகத்து (aagaththu) and புத்துணற்சி (puththuNaRchi).
The first word is Tamil equivalent(?!!) for August and the second word is supposed to be புத்துணர்ச்சி which means "refreshing feelings", "new perception", etc.
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2 comments:
{Chuckles}.
This reminds me of a lesson in my high school Tamil textbook.
The lesson was called "Taimozhiyil Kalvi". For the benefit of the uninitiated, this roughly translates into "Education in (one's) Mother Tongue".
The lesson talked much about how countries like Japan and Germany had universities that taught (gasp!) not in English, but in their own languages, had technical journals not in English, but in their own languages, and so on. The writer went on to conclude that if we didn't follow suit and have universities that taught everything in Tamil, we would die a gruesome death, or words to that effect.
What the article didn't say was that countries like Japan and Germany are a) small and self contained, and talk only one language albeit in different dialects. b) People there spend more time and money than we do on things like basic research - if you discover something first, there's some point in publishing it in a language you know. If you spend more time worrying about the language in which you write rather than what it is that you're going to write, heaven help you! c) Universities in countries like Japan and Germany do subscribe to English technical journals. Love them or hate them, they very much exist :)
(Love for one's) Language isn't a bad thing. Language, like money, is definitely important - but it isn't everything. One needs to remember that it was us humans who came up with whatever languages we speak, and not the other way round.
The truth never did prevent fanatics from believing in what they wanted to, though.
Come to think of it, I'm unable to make a connection between the post and my comment :)
Which probably makes me a fanatic as well ;)
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