Table of Contents
Last week we discussed the inclination for creating words.
Often when we speak we say things like cá-t́á, cáśá-bhúśá, jal-t́al, nadii-t́adi, and so on. When we add a second word whose sound rhymes with the first word, are we doing this in error?
These added words are not meaningless.
Human beings try to find rhythm in everything because human life itself is rhythmic.
Movement is the natural characteristic of life so rhythm must exist within human movement.
If life’s movement were continuous or linear then there would be no scope for rhythm.
Without rhythm there can be no happiness either.
So in this universe, all movement flows in the waves of systaltic order.
It is in this rhythm that one encounters the sweetness inherent in movement.
Thus, people want:
- rhythm in their actions they want
- to enjoy the sweetness of the rhythmicity of movement
Human beings also want to preserve this rhythmicity in their language.
Mono-syllabic and bi-syllabic words lack rhythm.
So effort is made to introduce some rhythmic order.
If one says simply cáśá, cá, jal, nadii, etc. the mind does not feel satisfied due to a lack of rhythm.
So instead, we say cá-t́á, cál-culo, jal-t́al, cáśá-bhúśo.
Granted, it does take more time to pronounce but it sounds better because one discovers a sense of rhythmic order there.
Thus these kinds of words cannot be considered compound words.
Rather they should be considered rhythmic words.
This reminds me of an interesting story.
Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandi was the king of Kásimbájár.
He used to remain busy with charity work, so much so that his charitable activities nearly left him destitute.
Once, during the time when the Maharaja was nearly destitute, a poor Brahman approached him.
The Brahman told him about his distressful situation and asked for money to help with the wedding of his daughter.
Manindra Chandra was not in a position to give him anything but this made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
Suddenly his eyes fell on the hookah he used for smoking tobacco.
The basin of the hookah was covered with silver leaf.
Manindra Chandra had another great quality in addition to his charitableness.
He was a very humorous fellow.
There was a British magistrate who came to this country and learned Bengali quite well.
Once he asked Manindra Chandra:
A similar kind of thing also happened in Burdwan although it did not concern rhythmic words but rather the different ways in which words are used.
One day the magistrate’s orderly, Bhajahari, did not show up for work.
The next day the learned gentleman asked Bhajahari in Bengali, “Bhajahari, why didn’t you come to work yesterday?” Bhajahari replied, “Sir, I had a splitting headache yesterday.”(1)
The red face of the magistrate got even redder as he asked – “Your head was caught. Who caught it? Why did they catch it? Who would willingly catch it? Grab them and bring them.”
Anyhow, there is a tendency to pronounce words in this way in all the world’s languages. This is due to rhythm.
The other day I was talking about the inclination for naming different places.
That day I discussed how the modern pronunciations of certain historically renowned cities like Londres, Moscova and Roma are distortions of their earlier pronunciations, and that these modern distorted pronunciations are not correct.
In the case of these foreign words it is distortion or error.
There are also many such errors or distortions in Indian naming.
In the case of foreign languages, the proper pronunciation of the capital of France is párii [Paris] because in French a is pronounced like á.
Here the “Pa” is pronounced pá, the ri is pronounced rii and the s is silent because there is a rule in French that if any consonant other than “c”, “l”, “f”, or “r” comes at the end of a word then it is silent.
Thus the proper pronunciation of “Paris” is párii.
However 99% of people pronounce it “Paris” instead of párii.
Another mistaken pronunciation is “Chicago”.
The proper pronunciation is shikágo.
In the European languages “ch” is typically pronounced like sha rather than ca, so in the United States this city’s name is pronounced shikágo rather than cikágo.
There is a similar tendency in India’s Assamese language.
In Assamese ca is always pronounced like sha.
For example, we write tincukiyá but we read it tinsukiyá. We write cit́ibác but we read it sit́ibás. Bear in mind that no word on this earth is meaningless. This should be kept in mind in the case of naming. So the distorted or incorrect pronunciation of proper nouns cannot be supported under any conditions. Proper nouns cannot be changed and must not be changed.
At one time all of Vauṋga-D́abák, all of Samatat́-Bágrii, the western portion of Cat́t́al, the southern part of Barendra and east Rarh, that is, east Midnapore, Hooghly, Howrah, east Burdwan and west Murshidabad, were all under water. Thereafter some land rose from the sea due to the accumulation of silt and sand from the Ganges, the Padma and the rivers of Rarh. This kind of silt and sand bank is called dviipa in Sanskrit – that is, “land enclosed by water”. After this alluvial land appeared, groups of people began migrating there from Rarh. When Sanskrit words evolve through the Prákrta languages they undergo phonetic changes. According to the style of these phonetic changes, the ka, ta, pa, da in Sanskrit words become a in Prákrta, especially in Mágadhii Prákrta. Thus the Sanskrit dviipa became diia in Prákrta and diiyá or diyá in Bengali. Many settlements have the word diiyá included in their name, for example, Nadiiyá from Navadviipa, Háthiiyá from Hastiidviipa, Shriinivásdiiyá from Shriinivásdviipa; Májhdiiyá from Madhyadviipa, etc. Since Madhyadviipa became Majjhdiia and then Májhdiiyá, it is spelled with jha and dii. People mistakenly write Májdiyá. Incidentally, since western Rarh was never underwater you will not find places in western Rarh that have the word diiya included in their name. For the very same reason there are no villages or cities in the far north of Bengal that have diiyá in their name. On the other hand, there are a whole host of places with diiyá in their name in Hooghly, east Burdwan, Nadia, 24 Paraganas, Jessore, Khulna, Chittagong, and so on.
I should point out one more thing in this regards. Approximately seven hundred or seven hundred and fifty years ago a terrible ocean storm caused great swells in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Due to these swells, the water of the Bay of Bengal inundated one hundred and fifty miles inland. All of the settlements in that hundred and fifty miles were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Millions of people, cattle, animals and plants perished in a instant. Gradually the salt waters of the ocean receded and left behind a vast jungle with saline soil. Afterwards the people of western Rarh came in groups with their axes and scythes and other implements, cut down the jungle and colonized the area anew. If you look at the bloodlines of the people of 24 Paraganas you will find that they have come predominantly from Midnapore. Their surnames also reflect this. The spoken language of this region of 24 Paraganas also shows the influence of the languages spoken in the Contai and Tamaluk regions.
Everything was destroyed up to Nadia’s Ranaghat. This jungle became filled with tigers, bears, rhinoceri, huge pythons, king cobras, and so on. As recent as a hundred and fifty years ago there were great numbers of rhinoceri in southern Bengal. Acharya Prafullachandra Roy wrote in his autobiography that during his childhood their tenants used to bring home rhinoceros meat. P. C. Roy was from Ráŕulii village in Khulna District. This village belongs to Páikgách Tháná and a large area of this tháná falls within the Sundarbans.
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