Olouguti tolouguti
Kosouguti ghai
Eikhon hathor gutito
Heikhon hathoth pai
Read these lines out aloud, slowly. Listen to the sounds and see how they roll off the tongue. Try, don’t be afraid. They’re just sounds. Sounds become words. Words become meaning. In every language. Bite into the sounds. Slowly, go faster. See how it feels.
Some of you may know this poem already. It’s a popular Assamese action rhyme and rhymes like this exist in all cultures, all languages. I found a similar Maori rhyme on the net that goes:
Kapo kapo ringa ringa
Paki paki parirau
Whati whati to hope
Huri matau huri matao e
Huri matau huri matao e
Huri maui huri maui e
Huri maui huri maui e
It feels great to roll that huri maui, huri maui around the tongue. I do know what the poem means (the net, remember?), but not how the words should be said. It doesn’t matter… that will come when I meet a Maori person.
Most of us feel so intimidated by languages we don’t know, we stop listening. But, stop and take a few breaths — over time, that overwhelmed feeling will lift. Familiarity and negotiation helps ears open up, and tongues to wag.
Of course, there are always those afraid they’ll get it wrong and so they refuse to speak. To them I say, don’t worry, be chatty, because there’s no right way or wrong. Language exists in being expressed and we can only express it the way we know. We make language happen. Well, cats and bats too. So, bury the ghosts of grammarians past. They are for scholars, not students of life.
Comprehension — and communication — doesn’t come from understanding the meaning of words alone; it comes from the context, the voice, the eyes, mood, tonal variations, body language, the way the shoulders lift and the fingers point and the shapes the lips make.
Sometimes, though, you can be completely off the mark. I once sang a Russian children’s song because it was about the sun, the moon, mama and me — only to be told by a red-faced (red, because she was laughing so hard) Mongolian woman that this was a relic of the Soviet era, glorifying the motherland, and now completely politically inappropriate!
Political inappropriateness is what prompted my friend, Paro Anand, the well-known children’s writer, to drop her given name, Parvati. She went to school abroad for a bit and didn’t fancy being introduced as ‘Poverty from India’… Incidentally, Paro’s also a fabulous storyteller!
A little girl in an isolated dalit colony in a tiny village in the deep south of Tamil Nadu many, many years ago, offers a different spin. There was one school in her colony, with one teacher, who sometimes showed up. She wore a bright red hibiscus in her hair and when asked what her favourite subject was, she replied: “English”.
After a great deal of persuasion, she read aloud a passage from her textbook — the only English book she possessed — the words all jumbling into each other, she herself shaking like a leaf, holding the book in one hand and her mother’s hand with the other. For her, English was strange and unfamiliar, but she was up for the challenge. That’s what the magic of sounds means. That’s what it does.
So, what good will it do, learning the local language? Will it bring world peace?
PS: For the meaning of Olouguti and Kapo , you could take a guess. Or check the Net. Or ask an Assamese or Maori person. In the process, make a friend. Last option: Ask me. But you have to ask.