At an idle hour at the Cafe Prakash, my chartered accountant friend Dinesh -- recently back from a holiday across Europe -- drew my attention to the word "Shut-up men". This is often used in Goan (read: Konkani-influenced) English. But Dinesh feels strongly about it not working in translation.
"It's quite insulting," he notes. "It's a literal translation of 'ugi rao, re'". Of course, he's right. There are other Konkani words that have crept their way into English. Or the other way round, with English words entering Konkani. Sometimes in a comical way. For instance, shock-absorber becomes "cha-kup-cer". A washer becomes a "vicer". "Klinder' is the Konkani word for a (bus) cleaner. Does anyone have more to add to the list? In the girls schools, a lot of girls address each other as "men", as in "No men!" The best explanation I heard for the predominance of the term "Uncle" (or "Aunty") in a Goan context, is that it's used as a Konkani word (which simply means an 'elderly or middle-aged Goan Catholic man/woman' and not the widely accepted English meaning of dad's brother/sister or mum's brother/sister). Domnic would probably be able to write an entire chapter on this! And Prof A V Afonso, some time back, mentioned to me that he was collating the colourful swear-words in the Konkani language.... FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
