Don't Say That Word!
With today being Mother Language Day, thought I should put down something that’s been nagging me. Curse words. Cuss words. Or to simply put it “bad words.”
There is something about words that refer to genital parts and sex, that is considered vulgar and commonplace in most languages. Sadly, I don’t know any of those in my language. Except the general categories of animals that are derogatory, if you asked me to curse in my language, I would probably have to stay quiet. Anyone wanting to learn a language, learns the bad ones first. If you asked me some in mine, I would have to hang my head in shame! I’m trying not to feel too bad about that.
This lack of “knowledge” got me thinking. A mother tongue is inherited from the family, and mostly the vocabulary you develop will be very close to the vocabulary of people at home. This happens more so if you live in a place where your mother tongue isn’t the language spoken. Your chance of listening to people speak it outside your home is very less. And it is outside where one picks up curse words - while travelling, in schools. In my case, I learnt curse words in English, Hindi, Kannada and sometimes fancy people taught us a few words in French and Spanish. I would have to rely on Tamil cinema to learn some. Fun fact here, my mother tongue is a dialect that is often made fun of in Tamil cinema, but I hoped to learn some of the standard ones but thanks to the censor board, those get cut or beeped out!
So I’d have to come back home. At home, my parents and grandparents never scolded us by using any objectionable word. No chance there. And I don’t live in Palakkad or Ernakulam to hear some wayward mama or angry paati curse anyone with choicy words. A few weeks back my mom was remembering the words her caretaker used to scold her, and that got my dad and grandparents remembering some of the words too. I had never in my life heard those words, let alone know what they mean! I immediately started making down notes of the words and what they meant. I realised some referred to people’s intellect, some regarding nonconformists, and some generic ones. But that was all. When I had repeated one of the words to write it down, my mom made a face of disgust and said, “Don’t say that word!” When that’s the case, I couldn’t possibly ask her to tell me worse ones, if they do exist.
Listening to some of the words, I was sure I would not use them but I believe I should know all these words, and then I’ll choose not to use them (or maybe I will if I don’t want anyone to understand). Losing any part of language, especially the vulgar parts, is losing history and our understanding of the social dynamics of the times. Help me find out some more of these choicy words please!
