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The treasure of ‘desi’ words
Dear colleagues,
Vide my post named “Haryanvi words ka khazaana” of 26 January 2006 under Dev Dahiya’s thread “Chhola tau.” in Humor Forum, I had underlined the importance of adding new words in the Haryanavi Dictionary, which used to have just 323 words (which I counted after taking a print-out) on that date. There is a “Rajasthani Language” dictionary too available on Jatland.com which, as on today, contains 189 words. Members knowing this language may put some effort to expand it a little bit.
I am sure Haryanavi language (which is still considered to be a ‘dialect’) contains much more rich vocabulary than listed in the dictionary which was rarely updated after its launch several years ago. Since now there is a provision that members themselves can edit or add new words by using ‘Wiki’, in my opinion we should make sincere efforts to update it. One member (Mr. Devender Dangi) had made effort in November 2005 and added some new words.
During the course of last couple of weeks, I have been able to compile a list of 158 odd pure desi words and have added them in the dictionary, along with translation. This 1st phase has been completed yesterday, 9 February 2006. For ready reference, I am attaching the list of new words in MS-Word format – see attachment. After this task, as on today, the Haryanavi Dictionary contains a total of 481 odd words.
All of us should realize that with changing times, switching over the medium of school education from Hindi to English and for some of us being away from the motherland, the new generation is losing the grip on the mother-tongue and in some cases, a certain percentage of them have actually started hating the tongue itself, terming it a rude and rough dialect or ‘gawaaron ki jubaan’. To some extent, I had explained this factor in my post Facts about Jats/ Jat Society of 2nd January 2006
There is a Punjabi factor too. I had put one post called “A mix of good and bad elements” in the thread” Are Punjabis Liars? Which could explain this Punjabi factor to some extent.
Having myself studied Punjabi in school and seeing the friction between Punjabis and all of us, I can definitely say that no other language is as rude or rough as Punjabi. But we have to compliment our Sikh brothers who have, with their sincere efforts, made Punjabi a respectful language. Gurmukhi script started in 17th century only, at the time of Guru Gobind Singh – prior to that, only Devanagri script was in use. Guru Granth Sahib, in its original form, is stated to be written in Devanagri only. There is no reason for us to start hating our own mother tongue which is not as rude or rough as others say.
Moreover with the use of new technologies, modern agricultural instruments are common now and desi words related to bullock carts, traditional hand-tools, housing patterns, livestocks etc. are being forgotton by the new generation. In Haryanavi, there are dozens of words about buffalo only and many more relating to bullock-cart, mud houses, traditional kitchen and cooking methods and so on. Hence, preservation of words, both in written and spoken form, is a must.
All of you would appreciate that compilation of pure desi words, translating them accurately and putting them one-by-one while sitting on-line, is a time-consuming and laborious task. Interested members may please take a print-out of the document (and those of the entire dictionary pages) and mistakes in translation etc., if noticed, may please be pointed out.
I am starting compiling more words from various posts in different forums and intend to present one more such list in about 2 months’ time. Those who are unable to edit on-line, may suggest the words to me to be added to the new list. Only those words should be brought to the attention which are purely of desi origin, are not part of our dictionary now and are not used in written form in Hindi language. Hindi itself contains thousands of desi words but since these have become common now, there is no need to overburden the Jatland dictionary with those words.
Many thanks for your attention.