Jan 04
Many English words have their origin in Indian languages. Probably because the English found themselves to be deficient in expressing many ideas and borrowed the words from the languages of the countries they went to.
Some of the common words of Hindi origin are bungalow, caravan, juggernaut (from Lord Jagannath in Puri, Orissa) , Raja and the most famous of them all (responsible for making hundreds of ordinary people millionaires in the US of A) yoga. There are even words, very famous ones at that, which have originated from Tamil like curry, Mulligatawny (Don’t ever get fooled by the presence of Mulligatawny soup on the menu, it is just Plain Rasam!), Catamaran and Coolie.
Few days back, I was watching the movie Umrao Jaan, the new one starring Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. Contrary to the reviews of the various movie channels, the movie was pretty ok and watchable. The plot happens in and around Lucknow. Though i can understand Hindi pretty well, i had to rewind and switch on the sub-titles at many places to understand the dialect spoken which, i assume, had lot of Urdu in it.
When the English reached these parts of India, they must have been amused by the local language and would definitely have been inspired to borrow words and phrases. One such interesting word, which featured in the movie a lot was “Ammi”. This word was used by Ameeran to refer to her mother. The English fell in love with this word and wanted it to take it back to Britain with them.
But, they had a problem. A minor variation of it, Amy, was a common name in Britain. So, they couldn’t take back the word as such. So, they had to innovate. One smart English officer called Lt. Ayma Moron suggested that they use this word in Britain for the same meaning i.e mother, but they add a letter in the front and change the word a bit. So, a group of them got together and started trying out the various combinations. After breaking their heads a lot, they decided on using the letter M and to “anglicize” the word “ammi” as “mummy”.
There you go, all you lucknow people, feel proud that the word mummy has its origins in your very own ammi!
Technorati Tags: aishwarya Rai ash Abhishek bachchan Umrao Jaan Lucknow Ameeran origin of word
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March 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Lt. Ayma Moron… that supposed to be a joke in there?
I feel a touch of the simpsons prank calls…
April 19th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Do you know the origin of your name. Try to learn the difference between presenting jokes and facts.
April 19th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
hi anonymous ..the meaning of my name “rajaram” is very difficult to comprehend!
Pl advise me as to how i should differentiate between presenting facts and jokes.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:24 am
What is the exact english word for “MOTTAI” in tamil?
July 10th, 2007 at 12:29 am
bald ??
July 14th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
bald means vazhukai not mottai
March 30th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
What’s english for “sambandhi” in Tamil.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:56 am
sambandhi is kinsman/kinswoman/kinsperson
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
TONSURE means mottai
July 29th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
mottai, kaadhu kutthu english meaning?
August 28th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Mottai is tonsured head
December 15th, 2009 at 8:35 am
What a great research on the origin of words. Good try. But I just would like to say thats MOMMY and not Mummy.
And now MOM in short.
Kay. Now stop your research or you could end up saying “Yeah… Yeah… This Mommy originally originated from Maama, Maami. And MOMMY originally originated from TAMIL Maami.”
April 24th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Really great on the orgin of words. i would like to know the corresponding word for valaikappu(tamil) in english…
June 14th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
thanks madhu