Thread by @vakibs

Dumbass English language. Indian languages would have distinguished nouns from adjectives. The sad thing is we are borrowing the names of nationalities from English into Indian languages, instead of even using their own names. Like “French” फ्रेन्च instead of “Français” फ्रानसे.

https://twitter.com/shashitharoor/status/1322189269687959553

The correct method is to take the morphological root for a country and construct the words in our own languages. E.g: “Frānsēya” फ्रान्सेय ఫ్రాన్సేయ for French people and “Frānsa” फ़्रान्स ఫ్రాన్స as an adjective for French products. Similar to “Ānglēya” and “Āngla” for England.

Such grammatical niceties are non-existent in the barbaric language with the barbaric spelling (forget about the grammar altogether) that is lording over our country now. 😒

Whenever I write in Telugu, I have the urge to use the proper grammatical form for different countries, but then sigh and use the dumbass form that we borrowed from English, merely in the interest of being comprehensible to other people, who have now all forgotten the grammar. 😖

For example, “Japanese” is now translated in Telugu as “Japanīsu” జపనీసు (both adj and noun) following the English usage. Similarly, “American”, “Russian”, “German” are all translated as they sound in English. All this is in violation of native grammars, but who cares. 😒

We first have to decide on what the morphological root would be, then the corresponding words will be derived using Taddhit तद्धित pratyaya of Sanskrit. Telugu is a soft language, so we prefer soft sounds ending in vowels. For example: “Rūsu” रूसु instead of “Rūs” रूस्.

https://twitter.com/tenaliramen/status/1322225324176801798

If we take “Rūsudēśa” రూసుదేశం as the name for Russia, the word for Russian person will be “Rausavudu” रौसवुडु రౌసవుడు (masc) or “Rausavurālu/Rausavī” रौसवुरालु/रौसवी రౌసవురాలు/రౌసవి (fem). The adjective “russian” is “Rausava” रौसव రౌసవ. The pattern is similar to Hindu, Haindava.

Similarly, for “Japan”, we can also take “Japānu” జపాను as the root, similar to how it is pronounced by Telugu people today. Then the country would be Japānudēśa జపానుదేశం. The person would be “Jāpānavudu” जापानवुडु జాపానవుడు (m) and adjective is “Jāpānava” जापानव జాపానవ.

I am daily translating songs from various languages into Telugu. When there is a native word in usage for the nationality of a singer, I use it, like “Pārasīka” పారసీక for “Fārsī/Iranian” today. But often, the native grammatically correct form for a country is not in parlance.

https://twitter.com/vakibs/status/1322110746445185026

Because of its central location in Europe, Germany has a great diversity of names in how it is known to its neighbors. Unlike the East Asian countries who use a word connected to the native endonym “Deutsche”, Indians are using the English word “Germany”.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_…

The ending “-man” in “German” (“Jarmanu”) or “Alleman” (another name) is related to Sanskrit “Manu” मनु (and English “man”). So it is easy to derive words in Indian languages.

Adjective: Jarmānava जर्मानव జర్మానవ
Person: Jarmānavudu జర్మానవుడు

Sadly, people today won’t get it.

My theory is that the native word for German “Deutsche” is also related to a Sanskrit etymology “dyōtaka” द्योतक. So it should be possible to derive quite sensible words from this root as well.

https://twitter.com/vakibs/status/1109369371837763585

It seems the news media is a strong force in bringing Anglicized words for various nationalities into Indian languages. See this peculiar pronunciation of “Uighur” being imported into Hindi.

https://twitter.com/avtansa/status/1321451210961027079