Hey all, I thought that since today is Hortal, sorry I have been mis-spelling hartal until this week when I found out the Bangla can’t pronounce some letters and its pronounced Har-tal. SMH (that’s for you Alex and Rochelle). As I promised here is a list of some common words we have been getting to know while we are here. Some basic rules on pronunciation, every time you see a letter S you pronounce it sh. There are four different ways to pronounce the letter D and T, and there are a total of 49 letters, we think, its hard to draw a line. The script looks like Arabic and Mandarin mixed together, it’s quite beautiful.
Vowels
Consonants
Conjuncts
Modifiers
This is an example of a good portion of the letters and conjuncts in the Bangali language. There are many more characters, well over 100 that combine multiple letters into one. Its daunting enough to learn the pronunciations let alone ways to pronounce the letter "D" four different ways by altering your tongue position slightly.
Colors aren’t too bad, they use the color green and red a lot to describe different foods like lal shak is red spinach (even though it isn’t spinach at all its amaranth, same family but still) and shobuj kola for green banana.
English Red Orange Yellow Bright Green Green Terquoise Blue Purple Brown White Black | Bangla Lal Komola Holud Tia Shobuj Firoza Neel Begun Badami Shada Kolo | Pronunciation - Ko-mo-la Hoe-lud - Show-boo-j Fear-o-za - Bay-goon Ba-dam-i Sha-da - |
The days of the week are a little off especially Thursday. The work week here is six days Saturday-Thursday as Friday is the Muslim holy day. Some people in really good jobs get Saturday off too but it’s kind of rare. Every Friday we get our housekeeper flowers as she is Muslim and has to work, we call them flower Fridays or Fol (pronounced fool) Shokrobar in Bangla; she gets the biggest smile.
English Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday | Bangla Shonibar Robibar Shombar Mongolbar Budhbar Brioshpoti bar Shukrobar | Pronunciation Show-nee-bar Roe-bee-bar Shom-bar Mongol-bar Bood-bar Bree-osh-poe-t bar Shoe-crow-bar |
Food is interesting, they eat very few raw fruits and veggies as you can get really sick if you don’t sanitize them properly, refer to the poo post a few weeks back. Here is a list of common fruits and veggies. Something we have been becoming aware of is the use of Formalin in fruits to preserve them. Formalin is a derivative of formaldehyde. It’s a common practice in Asia to use small amounts to help the fruits stay fresh on their way to market as refrigeration is a rare and unreliable thing here. When used in larger quantities (there is not FDA to regulate food safety here) it can cause extreme sickness, liver failure, and death. There was a big problem a few years ago and a few people were tried and put to death actually to make an example. It wasn’t an issue any more until this year when in Dhaka there was a terrible formalin poisoning event where a bunch of people became violently ill from eating lychees and other fruits loaded with the stuff. Anyway be glad you are in the states and don’t have to think twice about how your food is preserved, I’ll take food grade wax any day. BTW the veggie above is called cicinga or snake gourd in English, its awesome.
English Cucumber Potato Garlic Onion Indian Spinach Green Bean Okra Tomato Eggplant Chili Banana Papaya Pineapple Mango Watermelon Coconut | Bangla Sosha Aloo Rosun Piaj Shobuj Shak Barboti Dherosh Tomato Begun Lonka Kola Pepe Anarosh Am Tarmuj Narikel | Pronunciation So-sha Al-loo Ro-soon P-yaj Show-boo-j Sh-aak Bar-bo-ti Dher-osh - Bay-goon Lon-ka - - Ana-rosh - Tar-muj Nar-i-kel |
Some helpful phrases we have come to know and love. The bangle have no use for pleasantries, so you don’t say, “May I please have a cup of coffee,” you say, “I require coffee.” It’s really odd and I find myself saying thank you whenever we leave a store only to have the shop keeper look at me like I’m even more of a bedeshi (not from this country, or as I like to think of it, outlander).
English How much? I require coffee/tea What is your name My name is ____ Cold/hot water Very hot water lukewarm water Hello (Hindu) Hello (Muslim) No Yes Thank you I don’t understand I don’t need | Bangla Dom koto Coffee/ch lagbe Apnar nam ki Apni nam ____ Tanda/gorum pani Beshi gorum pani Com gorum pani Nomoshkar Assalam aleikum Na Ji Dhonnobad Bhuji na Lagbe na | Pronunciation - - - - - - - No-mo-shkar As-a-lam wal-lie-kum - Gee Dough-no-baad Bu-gee na Log-bay na |
The numbers for some reason are proving to be quite a challenge for some reason. The most interesting thing is that there is some odd pattern to number names. In English it’s just the 10’s place + the one’s place. Here the numbers follow a rough pattern, for example, 29, 39, 49, 59 are unotrish, unochollish, unoponchash, unoshayt; however, 99 isn’t part of that pattern it’s not unoeksho like the rest of the _9’s but rather its niranobboi. Go figure.
English 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 | Bangla Ek Sho Tin Char Pach Choy Shat At Noi Dosh Bish Trish Chollish Ponchash Shayt Shottor Ashi Nobboi Ek-sho Dui-sho Tin-sho Char-sho Pach-sho Choy-sho Shat-sho At-sho Noi-sho Ek-hazar | Pronunciation - - - - Posh - - Ot No-e - Bee-sh - Cho-lish Pon-cha-sh Sha-yacht Show-tor - No-boi - - - - - - - - - - |