You Are What You Speak

We think in words...not only those of us who need to talk things out, but even those who struggle to express ourselves in words. The way you think about the world is colored to a great degree by the words and expressions available to you. Every word denotes a concept, which makes a category - some things are in, and some are out. What is a dog? An Aunt? What is blue? Learning a new language is shaking up my categories a little, and giving me some insight into the world my friends and neighbors inhabit. Just for fun, here are a few observations.

If possible, verbs are even more central in Nepali than in English. The verb is always last in a sentence, denoting completion of the thought. Nepali uses complete sentences for pretty much everything. For example, there is no single word for "no." Depending on the circumstances, "no" might be expressed as chaina (there isn't any), hoina (it isn't so), garena (he didn't), jadina (I won't go), or etc.

One of the first things I asked about here was how to say, "goodbye." My friend told me a word, and I used it that week on the street, only to have people laugh at me. When I asked her about it later, she said, oh, you should only use that when you are leaving someone's home. Turns out the word I was using for "goodbye" on the street (basnos) essentially means, "Please don't get up." Other forms of "goodbye" translate roughly as "May we meet again," "Travel carefully," "I'm going," and "I've already gone."

Precise numbers, on the other hand, are not nearly as important as in English. To make a noun plural, Nepali adds the suffix -haru. (The number also gets the suffix -waataa, so the sentence quickly becomes cumbersome.) But in practice, this is not important unless you are emphasizing the multiplicity of something. For example, last year I told a friend I had two son-haru. She thought it odd that I included -haru, because, as she said, it's not like I have a whole bunch of them. (Maybe I do now, after Daniel?) It wasn't incorrect, but sounded strange in conversation. Likewise, I don't have to say I'm going to buy pea-haru at the market; just pea. The item itself is more important than how many - everyone knows I'm not going to buy just one pea!

But back to categories, here's one that's no surprise: There is one English word for rice. But in Nepali, there is one word for rice growing in the field (dan), another for uncooked rice (chaamal), and a third for cooked rice (bhaat). In the local usage of Nepali, there is one word for bread: roti. Flat breads, muffins, pancakes, loaves; it's all roti. As the prevalence of western food increases, English words have to be imported as well. Hence, loaf bread in the market is "toast roti," and cookies/crackers are "biscuits."

This happens with grammatical categories, too, which forces my mind to process things I haven't had to do before. We have a single word in English - "how" - that we use to ask the state of people/objects ("How is the pie today?") and the manner of actions ("How did you meet her?"). The first is an adjectival use; the second, adverbial. Nepali has two separate words for these two usages, which means before I can form a sentence, I need to know which type of "how" I am contemplating.

The verb "to be" has two different forms as well. These come from the same infinitive, hunnu, but Nepali separates the ideas of description and existence from equation.

This book IS red. Yo kitaab raato CHHA. (description)

This (object) IS a red book. Yo raato kitaab HO. (equation)

or

My car ISN'T (here). Mero gari (yahaa) CHHAINA. (existence)

My car ISN'T a Bolero. Mero gari Bolero HOINA. (equation)

I noticed that people used both forms of "I am" to describe their religion, and whichever I used, I ran the risk of being corrected. It turns out, people were probably just hearing it differently in their heads: "I am Christian" (Ma Christian chhu) versus "I am a Hindu" (Ma Hindu hu).

But the most marked area where Nepali redefines our mental categories is in family relationships. How many types of siblings are there? Nepali has four: older brother, younger brother, older sister, younger sister, each with a separate word. Then there are separate words for each "type" of aunt and uncle, depending on which side of the family they are on, whether they are older or younger than your parent, and whether they are related by blood or marriage. In English a sister-in-law is, linguistically anyway, just a qualified type of sister. But in Nepali she is a relative with her own linguistic category - separate categories, of course, depending on whether she is your husband's sister or your brother's wife, and older or younger. But there is no word for cousin; the words for siblings are used. In this case, it would seem, family is family.