Hi, In fact many times I laugh at my own self when I think of my younger days and the way we used to pronounce the words without in the least bit realizing that they were English words. The railways tracks were just a few metres away from my aunt's house in Majorda and every time a train passed we used to say "Guddus train geli". It was much much later that I realized that it was actually 'goods' train.Some of these English words rendered into Konkani were brought by people coming from Bombay as the famous word, auntie. Richard Cabral ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frederick "FN" Noronha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 11:00 PM Subject: [Goanet] Shut-up, men!
> 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 _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
