Language problem

iyerviji · Jun 25, 2012

Cutemonster's post on Look before you eat reminded me of this incident which was told by my DH.

Now a days there are many love marriages and the customs, food etc are different in each caste. There are also language problems even when a person from Chennai is married to a Keralite, though both are tamilians but from different places.

Once in a newly married couples house , the man told his wife to keep Kuzambu in the bathroom. In tamil kuzambu means sambhar and in malayalam it is thailam or oil. Not knowing that her husband had asked to keep the thailam in the bathroom the wife kept the sambhar in a small bowl in the bathroom. When the husband came to take bath he got good smell of the sambhar and called out to his wife asking her why she kept sambhar in the bathroom. Then his sister told him that his wife being from chennai thought kuzambu means sambhar. They had a good laugh.

When a person from Tamilnadu gets married to a person from Kerala has lot of language problems.

When I got married also I could not understand some words spoken by my husband because he used to speak mostly malayalam words and though I was born in Kerala I was brought up in Hyderabad so speak mostly tamil words only.

Mindian · Jun 25, 2012

OMG viji what an obedient wife she is. Wouldnt she ask why he would need sambhar in the bathroom ?? LOL
anyway tell me about it.. you know K is from tamil side and me from palakkad.. we have had hilarious conversations..

one thing that is topmost in my head is when my MIL was sick.. with great concern I told her "neengal innaki onnume kazhikillai" ( you have not eaten anything today ) I guess she was too sick to reply but later she laughed and asked me what I was trying to tell her. when I said that I was asking her to eat something she said I had actually told her that she had not passed motion that day :hide: LOL

knbg · Jun 25, 2012

Dear Viji aunty,
Had a good laugh reading your post and our dear Mindi's FB.:rotfl:thumbsup
There is a saying,
Tamizh 'pani'yil ....telugu 'pani' senjaal.....malayala 'pani' varum.

pani means 'mist' in tamil, 'work' in telugu and 'flu' in malayalam.

So the saying goes like this,
If you work in mist you would get flu.:rotfl

kkrish · Jun 26, 2012

Vijikka
That was so hilarious!
Like Mindi says, why didn't she ask her husband about sambar in bathroom.

As a new bride one day my m-i-l asked me to bring "oru kottai puli"..meaning just the amount. I innocently went back and said I searched but there was no seed in the tamarind box. My mom-i-law was smiling away.

Sriniketan · Jun 26, 2012

Viji,
True some funny incidents do happen, but later on it stays in our sweet memories, isn't it...
Enjoyed the fbs of our friends here too!

Sriniketan

freddycat · Jun 26, 2012

Vijima,

It is a funny story. Even raised in the same part of TN, we still find so many difference in our eating habits.

My parents/grand parents house, we like to have plain thuvaram paruppu masiyal with lots of Ghee, in fact every lunch starts with paruppu before taking sambhar, as the second course. But, ILs family adds onion/red chilli/tomato and it's like 'half way' sambhar (without veg/tamarind). At ILs house - paruppu/sambhar are one and same.

Viswamitra · Jun 26, 2012

Dear Viji,

I had a hearty laugh after reading your post and Mindian's and Bhargavi's response. Immediately, It made me remember our experience when we visited Calicut for Bank audit. I had 3 assistants who came with me to do the bank audit. In order to keep them in good humor, I suggested that we all go for a Malayalam movie. One of my colleagues said he would inquire about the nearest theater but returned after sometime with heads down disappointed. He told us that he asked one of the staff in the hotel and he suggested that we have to go to Erode for the nearest Theater. Later, the hotel staff came running to our room telling that my friend walked away when he was explaining the direction to the theater. As soon as he started, "Ee roadu poi" meaning "You need to go on this road" my colleague gave up and returned.

Viswa

vinoran · Jun 26, 2012

Oh !! ji,
It is somewhat OK and can manage in our country, but living in another country it is little difficult to manage and understand the language. I am at present living in Bangkok and many words are similar to our language like Tamil and Hindi, but sometimes the words they use are carrying not a good meaning (it is bad to us even to use)in our language but it means different to them
What a wonderful world we are living !!!![

crazywriter · Jun 26, 2012

Hahahahaa!!! lot of funny incidents. I would like to add one too. We also come from Kerala, and our mother tongue is Tamil. sometimes my aunts and uncles speak in malayalam with each other. on one such occassion, an uncle said, "ivide ellarum thoonguva"! what he meant to say is everyone here is sleeping. in malayalam thoongunnu means is hanging, and the tamil word for sleeping is thoongara. so he ended up saying that everyone is hanging here! this caused a lot of mirth among us!