Bengalis Speaking Hindi

Bengalis have a wicked sense of humor — especially when it involves poking fun at themselves. I speak as if I wasn’t a Bengali myself. Truth is that I was born and brought up outside Bengal; so I can’t claim to be a true blue Bengali.

My siblings and I speak Hindi quite well. Our relatives in Bengal did make fun of our broken Bengali infected with Hindi words. Well, in turn we found their attempted Hindi to be hilarious.

Humor is parochial. You have to know Bangla to appreciate this rotfl funny example of Bengalis speaking Hindi. (Hat tip: Molly B.)

Funny or not?

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Speaking of Bengali, we should note that Bengalis were very successful in the Hindi movie industry as actors, singers, musicians and music directors. Here’s a Bengali song sung by Hemanta Mukherjee, “O Nodi ré“. But wait, there’s more. Lata Mangeshkar sings “O Békarar dil” in Hindi to the same tune (beginning at 3:53 time.)

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So things are a bit busy at my end. I’ve been busy doing a lot of research. To tell the truth, “doing research” is another way of saying “putting off doing the hard work.” Reminds me of my days at Berkeley when I kept putting off writing my thesis by doing research. My advisor lost her patience and told me to “stop futzing around and start writing.”

That was decades ago. But the habit persists.

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I’m back on twitter. My account had been suspended for violation of their (rather inconsistently applied) rules; one appeal was denied; I appeal again after a year; this time it was un-suspended.

So now I’m back on twitter. Go check out @atanudey.

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The previous post, Mason-Dixon Line, had a quiz. What’s wrong with the picture on the left? Click on the picture to embiggen.

The word “poisonous” is incorrect; the right word is “venomous.” If you ingest something that harms you, that is poisonous. I wouldn’t but there are people who relish eating snakes (search rattlesnakes if you care to find out more). Snakes are venomous — meaning if a snake bites you and injects venom, it’s going to be a bad day for you.

Vocabulary matters. Pay attention to words so that you say what you mean and mean what you say.

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New quiz. What does the image on the right say? It’s of course a common admonition but why that notation?

Calculus. It’s fun.

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Now a bonus quote.

“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”

— Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at MIT

Climate change hysteria. It’s insane.

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Be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

4 thoughts on “Bengalis Speaking Hindi”

  1. Rate of change of acceleration. But I did not know its link to the common admonition.

    Had to search in the internet to get the answer.

    This was a good one. Thanks Atanu. And welcome back to Twitter.

    Like

  2. Some hilarious first hand experiences with Bong-hindi.

    “Tum hum pe hindi impose kor sakta hai, kintu fir tum bhishon regret korega” ~A friend on twitter.

    “Tum mujhe fNek do” ~An aunt asking a rickshaw (in allahabad) to stop at her destination as she wanted to get down

    “Aar ulto palta daam bologe to mundu fata denge” ~My mama arguing with a bihari cab driver in Calcutta

    Like

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