Hum Aapke Raincoat Family..

When I first saw Hindhi people write the words 'Seetha' and 'Geetha' as 'Seeta' and 'Geeta' I used to get very annoyed. They wanted to write सीता and गीता in roman script but ended up writing सीटा and गीटा. Then later I realized that these hindhi people used the roman alphabet 't' to represent the Devanagari alphabet 'त'. But when learning basic English phonetics I always thought the roman alphabet 't' sounded closer to 'ट'. All English words pronounced 't' with a ट sound. 

I can't think of an English word that would pronounce 't' any different (e.g. tank, took, take, toon, taunt, eat, mental, cut, put, but, teach, torture). They all use a sound closer to ट when pronouncing these words. Which means if you wrote all these words in Devanagari script you'd be using ट to represent 't'. So why would I pronounce 't' as त ? So what do Hindhi people do when they want to write ट in Roman script? To my horror, I found out that these Hindi people used 't' to represent 'ट' as well (for e.g. when they wrote 'tamatar' we should know to pronounce this as टमाटर and not तमातर).  

Damn it!. 

So these people use the roman letter 't' to arbitrarily represent 'ट' or 'त'.  And they expected every one who does not know Hindhi to know about this.

My annoyance was not with the fact that they had a quirk of their own. Every language does. My annoyance was with their assumption that every Indian should 'just know'  this quirk. And the constant 'why you tamilians are writing like this'. It was their quirk. How did it suddenly become my problem? My annoyance reduced a little bit when I found out about San Jose or Jungfraujoch. In these words the 'J' is not pronounced as the regular phonetic affricate /dʒ/. But more like a 'H' sound in the former and a 'Y' sound in the latter. This is not immediately obvious to someone who sees the combination of these letters written for the first time in Roman script. And my very own local parties the damn thamizh folks used 'zha' to represent the retroflex approximant 'ழ'. 

This is so not obvious to non-thamizhs and non-malayalis. The good thing is thamizhs, mallus, spanish people don't look at non-speakers of that language and go "hey you are writing wrong man. we are always writing correctly". We know its our quirk. For example I met a guy whose name was spelt 'Jorge'. The way he wanted others to pronounce his name was 'hore-hay'. He was like the bizzaro world equivalent of Hindhi people using 't' to represent two sounds - in the same name he used 'j' and 'g' to mean the same sound 'ha'. At least he was humble about the quirkiness of his spelling.

To understand this better -  Hindhi inherited Sanskrit's language system where some consonants can be combined with a 'ha' sound to create a whole new set of consonants.. 

For example if Hindhi people wanted to represent sounds क, ब, ज in roman scripts they'd use  ka, ba, ja. 

But Hindhi people have a parallel set of words ख (क + ह) , भ (ब + ह), झ (ज + ह) which other languages don't have so when they want to represent them in Roman script they add the 'ha' sound to roman script that represents the root letter - such as Kha (K + ha), Bha (B + ha), Jha (j + ha). 

This is fine and dandy. There are no native Roman script sounds 'kha' 'bha' 'jha' that conflict so we get it. We don't care. But we get it. The point where I really get confused when roman script has a well defined frequently used sound that these hindhi people hijack for their own purpose. 

They not only do that but also have poor self-awareness to know that its their own quirk. Take for example the sound 'th'. This is used very frequently in English.  The words that use 'th' are for e.g. 'this', 'that', 'then', 'thy', 'them', 'thus', 'therefore,' 'third', 'the', and 'those'. All regular english words use 'th' to sound something like 'त'.

But Hindhi people have ignored this logic. And to show remarkable haste to add the 'ha' sound to every consonant that can walk the Hindhi people do something as crazy as the following. Here is some simple Hindhi sound arithmetic ट + ह = ठ. So these people try to replicate the same arithmetic in roman script as well. So they do 't' + 'h' = 'th'. So now 'th' represents a sound called ठ that no non-hindhi speaker uses or knows about or more importantly cares about. It is roughly pronounced 'tah' in roman script. And so when they write their words in roman script a non-hindhi speaker is supposed to 'just get it' that it represents ठ. 

So when i see the word 'this' should I pronounce it 'tahis' ? No? Why not?  'Meetha' is pronounced 'meetah'. Its seems arbitrary and everyone is just supposed to get this. The craziness doesn't just end there. They have another arithmetic: त + ह = थ. Remember they use 't' to represent त. So they do 't' + 'h' = 'th'.  So now 'th' also refers to this new sound थ.  Now if a hindhi guy uses 'th' he could either be referring to थ or ठ. Go figure!

Now we haven't even begun on the word 'd'. This roman script is used in English words such as donkey, dick, dam, damn, dirty, douchebag etc. In all English usage of this word it resembles the sound ड. But a hindhi reader is already getting ready to type a comment "hey! its Hindi and not Hindhi". 

Oh yeah? So now you are using 'd' to represent the sound 'द'. So what do Hindhi people do when they want to to write the sound ड in Roman script? Well - they use the alphabet 'd'. So 'd' can mean both ड and 'द'. 

So what do they really mean when they use 'dh'. Because in regular english words the 'dh' softener is used to refer to a sound close to 'द'. But when Hindhi people write 'dh' they actually mean the sound ध. You already know why because of the arithmetic 'द' + ह = ध. But then one is wordering about the other arithmetic ड + ह = ढ. How does a Hindhi person write 'ढ' in roman script. Wait for it. Wait for it. they use 'dh'. 

You gotta be kidding me!

So to sum up in a table. This is how one should translate when a roman script is used by actual English words Versus what these Hindhi people mean.

Roman Script	Sound that script indicates in actual English words	Weird possible sounds that Hindhi people can mean when they use script
T	ट (tank, take)	त, ट
Th	त (this, that)	थ, ठ
D	ड (Do, donkey)	ड,  द
dh	ढ (sometimes द)	ढ, ध

What really gets my goat is the way hindhi people differentiate between the अ and the आ sound. Do you know how they differentiate? That's the trick. They don't. बलं is 'bal'. बालं is written as 'bal' as well. I met a person who had this surname 'Bhagwat'. I pronounced that as भगवट. Because I wanted to pronounce it the way it was actually written. But the person corrected me and said "but its भागवत". 

So the अ in in the second syllable 'वत' (which is theoretically व+अ+तं) gets one 'a' in the roman script spelling. But the  'आ' in the first syllable 'भा' (theoretically भ + आ ) doesn't get two 'a's. It gets one 'a' as well. So a unsuspecting non hindhi person must somehow magically find out that the 'a' in the first syllable corresponds to  'आ' and the 'a' in the second syllable corresponds to अ . 

You are deemed horrible if you didn't.

Every language has its quirks. Especially so when it is transliterated to roman script. One would assume a certain amount of humility in the speakers of the language to know that it is their own unique quirk and not act all "this is the correct way" when non-native speakers of the language don't get these quirks. 

Somehow hindhi people have gotten into their head that Thamizhs are the only people who feel the urge to write 'Seetha' and 'geetha'. *Most* non-hindhi people who are familiar with the roman script will logically write it that way. When Canadians, Australians, Brits, Americans and Kiwis  see the word 'Sita' they will probably pronounce it as सीटा. Thats what the 't sound means.

Two years ago, I cried a little when I landed in திருநேல்வெலி and saw the name spelt in the railway platform as 'Tirunelveli'. They're spreading their stupid. 

Damn you!. Damn you!.