If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?
I’ve written a letter for the superintendent. The law that has hanged me, that law also states each prisoner is granted a last wish before his execution. I do not know whether this law still stands, but if it truly exists then this is my last wish. Immediately after my hanging, both of my eyes be taken out. But with some care. Keep in mind that these two eyes of mine are saved.
Chokh,The Eyes (1982)
–
RIP Om Puri (1950-2017). The last film of his I saw was Utpalendu Chakraborty’s Chokh(1982), in which he once again donned the role of the mazdoor/laborer and told us that workers of the world (or at least one basti) could indeed unite. To think of India’s Parallel Cinema movement without him and at least one great monologue coming to mind would mean you missed out on a lot of great films!
In Sylheti Bengali, there’s a sweet dish called “ফিদা (phida)” and it sounds like the word for “punch/hit” which is also “ফিদা (fida)”. So as a joke, cousins and siblings would ask “ফিদা খাইটা নি ? (Fidā khā'iṭā ni ?)” which means “Do you want ‘fida’ ?” and if you say yes they might punch you playfully because after all you agreed to a punch (fida), not a sweet dish (phida).
I’ve started a YouTube series called ’Learn Bengali with a native’, for those of you interested in learning the language.
This is the first episode on the Bengali Alphabet (বর্ণমালা), it contains an introduction to the alphabet along with a pronunciation and writing guide for all the vowels. Hope that helps.
South Asian Woman In Urgent Need of Bone Marrow Donor
One of my best friends was diagnosed with leukemia and is in need of a life-saving bone marrow donor. If you’re South Asian could you please register for the cheek swab kit?
Please share widely and encourage your friends to sign up, you could help my best friend beat cancer.
Text “FORLIYNA” to 61474
Update: We just learned from Be the Match that the overwhelming majority of new registrants in the system are SOUTH ASIAN. YALL, WE’RE DOING THIS!!!
Y’ALL YOU ARE DOING THIS. THANK YOU! PLEASE KEEP SHARING. WE WILL FIND HER A MATCH!
Update: if you haven’t registered yet please do. Liyna needs to find a match ASAP. Please sign up, you could save a life.
South Asian Woman In Urgent Need of Bone Marrow Donor
One of my best friends was diagnosed with leukemia and is in need of a life-saving bone marrow donor. If you’re South Asian could you please register for the cheek swab kit?
Please share widely and encourage your friends to sign up, you could help my best friend beat cancer.
Text “FORLIYNA” to 61474
A FAQ:
Who are they looking for?
Ideally, someone who is 18 - 44 of South Asian descent. Gender does not matter (have been asked this a lot). If you are not South Asian, I would still consider requesting a swab kit, because you might be a match/hero for someone else’s best friend.
Thank you everyone for reblogging and sharing, please continue to reblog and share and sign up for this!
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Sabila.”
“Areh jaan! You want her to grow up without any idea about her background, her history, who she is?”
“Backgrounds and history - that’s for the past! You have to see the future. See what is best for her now.”
"What is so wrong about speaking to her in our language? Teaching her what we learnt? You think all those years at the Cadet College were a waste?”
“Even the Cadet College is no more, Sabila. It was all destroyed in the war - there’s nothing left!”
“The war for our culture and language! And we won!”
"With everything destroyed - all our infrastructure, our leaders, our intellectuals, dead and gone! Our kind, gone!”
"They cannot be all gone. I know it. I know our kind are still around. It’s not like all Bangladeshis were killed off in the war.”
"Our kind? Our kind either escapedor died! No two ways about it! And let me tell you - those that escaped? I know for sure that they don’t follow the old ways anymore.”
“‘Old ways’? OLD WAYS!? You think all those years of jadu that we learnt are “old ways”?! Cheech! Maybe maa was right…”
"Right about what?”
“Right about you thinking we are just stupid casi. No respect for our heritage. Maybe I should have listened to her.”
"Sabila! Don’t be ridiculous. I have a lot of respect for our heritage. I just don’t think that trying to teach it to Ayesha now would be useful for her. I mean - firstly, who is she going to speak Bangla to?”
“There are other Bangalis here too, you know. You moved here specifically because of them. And I’m sure there’s at least one jadukara in there.”
"Ya, they move here, with their big names and big jobs and big degrees, and what happens? They become cooks! or taxi drivers!”
"Is there something wrong with being a cook or a taxi driver?”
“NO! It’s just…they also learnt so much about their culture and what not, but look, the Bilatis, they do not care. I don’t want our Ayesha to suffer because the Bilatis don’t care.”
“Then why not just move back to Bidesh then?”
“Did you forget already? Everything is destroyed. What can we return to? We would suffer. Ayesha would suffer. You want Ayesha to suffer? I got us here for a good life, you know. Lucky for us she is born here, makes things so much easier I think.”
"So you want her to grow up like a Bilati? No concept of her culture at all, is it? Pagol na ki tui?”
"No no no! Sabila, shuno na? It’s not that I want her to not know where she comes from, at all. Na na. I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to learn Bangla right now.”
"Then how is she supposed to learn our literature, our stories, our songs? How is she supposed to be a good jadukara?”
"There are magical people here in Britain you know. With that one school…Hogwarts, I think? Some top people from there. It’s not like she will never know how to perform jadu.”
“But she won’t know how to do it like us! How is she supposed to cast a good tantramantra if she can’t even speak Bangla properly? How is she supposed to make good potions if she doesn’t even know the names of the ingredients? How, Faizal, how?”
"She will learn Bilati magic! It’s not hard, look - Lumos - see, there is light.”
"Where did you get that wand from?”
“Oh, one of my friends took me to Diagon Alley the other day. Said all the Bilati magicians have wands. We should get one for Ayesha. Oh, and you too.”
“And why should I have to learn Bilati wand magic? We didn’t need this faltu wand business back in Bidesh!”
“Things are different, Sabila. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, ha na?”
"Oh, so if the Romans all jump off a bridge I have to jump also? Chagol!”
"If I am a chagol then you are a goru - so stubborn.”
"DON’T YOU DARE FAIZAL…”
“Hey hey, I am only kidding, areh. Sabila. Look. I’m not banning Bangla from the house. You want to tell her all our stories and literature and what not, you can. What I am saying is, for her sake, I think we should talk to her in English. And teach her English. Do everything in English.”
"And what happens if I put ek Bangla khota in my sentence? What, it will be all ulta palta hai hai ki hoisei?”
"One or two things, ok. But we have to be careful not to mix up so much. One of my cousins, he is a child psychologist, he says that sometimes the children get confused when they hear more than one language, so they keep quiet. They don’t know how to say anything! But if you pick one, then they learn easier.”
"Your cousin, ah? You Shafiqs, you think you know everything.”
"You wanted to be a Shafiq. Couldn’t stop talking about it even before we got married. Thought we had the good life.”
"I didn’t think having the good life means we have to forget ourselves!”
“We don’t have to forget ANYTHING! We can teach her Bangla later, when she’s older and can master one language. Then she won’t be so confused. But Sabila, look - even if she knows Bangla now, who is she going to practice with?”
“Us…”
“Yeah, and that’s it. You think the neighbours can talk to her in Bangla? Her school teachers? Her classmates? They will only make fun of her.”
"Oh, you think Bangla is funny?”
"No, I think the Bilatis are stupid. But I don’t want their stupidity to cause my children trouble. So we have to adapt.”
“Then what about the jadu?”
"Again, where is she supposed to cast tantramantra or find ayurveda ingredients? Where is she going to find the sahitya books we loved so much? For all we know, it’s probably banned here. One strange word and whoosh - off to Azkaban. The Bilati Ministry did ban flying carpets after all.”
"Faizal, I don’t think the Bilatis will send a child to Azkaban.”
"Oh you don’t know. I’ve heard them punishing children very strictly for doing magic in front of Muggles. Just small things, but oh - Statute of Secrecy!”
“Listen to you! You sound like a Bilati already. ‘Muggle’, what a lousy word. As if they are like a pig or something.”
“That’s how the Bilatis see jadunai, really.”
"WHAT? Are the Bilatis really that backwards? Are you sure you want to raise Ayesha in this place?”
"It’s better than our other option, Sabila. At least here she still gets a chance to learn some jadu, even if it’s different than ours. Maybe she can be a magical scientist and put our jadu and their magic together. I don’t know. But back in Bidesh? She will be nothing. Worse than here.”
"I’m still not sure about this.”
“I know you’re scared, Sabila. You loved sahitya so much. I do too. That is why I loved you! Your passion for the language, so evident in your eyes! But it will have to wait, jaan…just wait a few years. Just wait till she is old enough to be able to appreciate it. You try to tell her now, she will forget.”
"And you’re sure talking to her in English only and giving her only English books is okay.”
“It will prepare her for a bright future. We don’t want her to suffer because she doesn’t know the language. People are already going to criticise her because she is not White like the Bilatis. Even though she is born and raised here. The less hurdles she has to jump through, the better.”
“So we have to hide ourselves because the Bilatis are close-minded?”
“I know, I hate it too. But that is how the world works. Not everyone can fight fight fight. That is why we did not go to the war. Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves first.”
“Spoken like a true Bilati.”
“I’m just saying the facts.”
“sigh…”
“Sabila, I promise you, if she wants to learn Bangla, once she’s ready, you can teach her. You don’t have to hide anything. You can tell her about the old days if you want. All I’m asking is, just do it in English. Until she’s old enough. OK?”
"…ok, jaan. I hope you’re right.”
[[source:Rajiv Ashrafi OOPS WRONG BLOG LET ME TRY THIS INSTEAD written to commemorate International Mother Language Day, which in turn commemorates the Bengali Language Movement. It’s a pretty huge deal in Bangladesh. thanks to serkestic for the reminder! a lot of this is based on a true story: I was primarily raised in English because my family figured I would not have any avenues to practice Bangla while being raised in Malaysia. English is my first and primary language. I speak rather broken Bengali and can’t read the language. This project is as much about me trying to reclaim what I’ve lost as it is me having fun with fandom.]]
In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown.
InArabic, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) and وﷲ wallāh(i) (“by God”) are common fillers.[2][3][4]
InAmerican Sign Language,UM can be signed with open-8 held at chin, palm in, eyebrows down (similar to FAVORITE); or bilateral symmetric bent-V, palm out, repeated axial rotation of wrist (similar to QUOTE).
InCatalan,eh/ə/,doncs(“so”),llavors (“therefore”), and o sigui (“it means”) are common fillers.
InCzech,takortakže(“so”),prostě(“simply”),jako (“like”) are used as fillers. Čili (“or”) and že (“that”, a conjunction) might also be others. A person who says jakoandprostě as fillers might sound a bit simple-minded to others.[5]
InDutch,eh,ehm, and dus are some of the more common fillers.
InEsperanto,do (“therefore”) is the most common filler.
InFilipino,ah,eh,ay, and ano are the most common fillers.
InFinnish,niinku(“like”),tota, and öö are the most common fillers.
InFrench,euh /ø/ is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi(“what”),bah,ben(“well”),tu vois (“you see”), and eh bien (roughly “well”, as in “Well, I’m not sure”). Outside of France, other expressions are tu sais (“you know”), t’sais’veux dire? (“you know what I mean?”), or allez une fois (“go one time”). Additional filler words include genre(“kind”),comme (“like”), and style (“style”; “kind”)
InGerman, a more extensive series of filler words, called modal particles, exists, which actually do give the sentence some meaning. More traditional filler words are äh/ɛː/,hm,so/zoː/,tja, and eigentlich(“actually”)
InHebrew,eh is the most common filler. Em is also quite common.
InHindi,matlab (“it means”) and “Mah” are fillers.
InHungarian, common filler words include hát (well…) and asszongya (a variant of azt mondja, which means “it says here…”).
InIcelandic, a common filler is hérna(“here”).Þúst, a contraction of þú veist (“you know”), is popular among younger speakers.
InMandarin Chinese, speakers often say 这个 zhège/zhèige (“this”) or 那个 nàge/nèige (“that”). Another common filler is 就 jìu(“just/precisely”).
InNorwegian, common fillers are øh,altså,på en måte (“in a way”), ikke sant (literally “not true?”, “no kidding”, or “exactly”), vel (“well”), and liksom (“like”). In Bergen, sant (“true”) is often used instead of ikke sant. In the Trøndelag region, skjø’ (“see?” or “understand?”) is also a common filler.
InPersian,bebin (“you see”), چیز “chiz” (“thing”), and مثلا masalan (“for instance”) are commonly-used filler words. As well as in Arabic and Urdu, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) is also used in Persian. Also, eh is a common filler in Persian.
InPortuguese,tipo (“like”) is the most common filler.
InRomanian,deci /detʃʲ/ (“therefore”) is common, especially in school, and ă /ə/ is also very common (can be lengthened according to the pause in speech, rendered in writing as ăăă), whereas păi /pəj/ is widely used by almost anyone.
InRussian, fillers are called слова-паразиты (“vermin words”); the most common are Э-э(“eh”),это(“this”),того(“that”),ну(“well”),значит (“it means”), так(“so”),как его (“what’s it [called]”), типа (“like”), and как бы (“[just] like”).
InSerbian,znači (“means”) and ovaj (“this”) are common fillers.
InSlovak,oné(“that”),tento(“this”),proste (“simply”), or akože are used as fillers. The Hungarian izé(orizí in its Slovak pronunciation) can also be heard, especially in parts of the country with a large Hungarian population. Ta is a filler typical of Eastern Slovak and one of the most parodied features.
InSlovene,pač (“but”, although it has lost that meaning in colloquial, and it is used as a means of explanation), a ne? (“right?”), and no (“well”) are some of the fillers common in central Slovenia, including Ljubljana.
InSpanish, fillers are called muletillas. Some of the most common in American Spanisharee/e/,este (“this”), and o sea (roughly means “I mean”).[6], in Spain the previous fillers are also used, but ¿Vale? (“right?”) and ¿no? are very common too.
InSwedish, fillers are called utfyllningsord; some of the most common are öhm,ja(“yes”),ba (comes from “bara”, which means “just”), assåoralltså (“therefore”, “thus”), va (comes from “vad”, which means “what”), and liksomandtyp (both similar to the English “like”).
InUrdu,yani(“meaning…”),falan falan (“this and that”; “blah blah”), umm, and aaa are also common fillers.
InTelugu,ikkada entante (“Whats here is…”) and tarwatha (“then…”) are common and there are numerous like this.
InTamil,paatheenga-na (“if you see…”) and apparam (“then…”) are common.
InTurkish,yani(“meaning…”),şey (“thing”), “işte” (“that is”), and falan (“as such”, “so on”) are common fillers.
InWelsh,deorynde is used as a filler (loosely the equivalent of “You know?” or “Isn’t it?”). Ym…andY… are used similarly to the English “um…”.
Remember that this stuff is really important for fluency of speech. I’ve encountered a bad attitude among language teachers before: “we don’t teach filler words, because that’s not “normative” vocabulary, and it encourages students to sound unsure.” But that’s so, so wrong.
All people use filler words in conversation and even in formal settings. It’s a way to keep the flow of speech when the train of thought pauses; it holds the audience’s attention and actually helps maintain clarity of thought. What’s more, these words are instrumental for language learners, who need to pause more often in their speech than native speakers. Allowing them to pause without breaking into their language (saying a filler word in their language) or completely breaking the flow of their speech allows them to gain fluency faster.
My high school Japanese teacher did it right: “etto” and “anou” were in the second lesson. Teach filler words, people!! And if you’re studying a language and don’t know them, look at this list!! It has a lot!
Could add these to the Icelandic list:
sko
þarna
ee
uu
skilur(ð)u
tja
I’d translate слова-паразиты as “parasite words” not “vermin” words.
Also, Bulgarian: znachi(”it means” or “so”), ami, and aaa
“Are you sure it won’t give you a headache, love? I really love that you’re making it, but you know it fucks your system over.” Loki gave you a worried glance, nibbling at a beguni as he watched you ladle out the khichuri.
“It’ll be fine,"you waved it off excitedly, choosing to ignore the memories of the times you had gotten sick after eating khichuri. Which was almost every time you had ever eaten it. "It’s been years since I’ve had this, I can’t give a shit right now.” You hadn’t so much as had a whiff of the typical scent of a rainy day Bengali lunch in years, you couldn’t bring yourself to care about the aftermath just yet.
“So you can find an excuse to keep me in bed all weekend even after I’ve cured your headache with seiðr?"Loki grinned, setting the bowls ofilish fries beside your plates. "This smells absolutely delicious, by the way.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” You stood up on your tiptoes and pulled him down to kiss his cheek. “We’re gonna stay in bed all weekend anyway, you know it.”
You had barely pulled the chair towards yourself when he wrapped his arms around your waist to attack your neck with very wet kisses. You shrieked, laughing and struggling to get away as he tickled you.
“Don’t tempt me, love.”
“I’ll tempt you later, I wanna eat now!”
“Okay, okay!”
Obviously, you got a headache later that evening. And obviously, he cured it with seiðr, just as he had predicted. It was worth it, you smiled to yourself as you pressed your nose into Loki’s neck and joined him in a deep slumber, serenaded by the whisper of rain on the window panes.
![IN [LANGUAGE] WE DON'T SAY ...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_84ac7e4b41dc_30.png){kind=avatar}
