After being married to my Pakistani husband for close to three years, and having known him for four and a half years, I knew a bit about the Urdu language. I was not fluent, by any means - I'm still not! But I could partake in some rudimentary conversations, could greet the Aunties and Uncles, and could eavesdrop on conversations (and sometimes come up with wildly inaccurate thoughts of what the conversations were about.)
But then, an extraordinary surprise. We had a baby. And then my husband started speaking that high-pitched, cooing, sometimes senseless kind of speech one uses when talking to a baby. I've heard it called "motherease" but I guess this was "fatherease." Urdu fatherease. And it lead me to a starting conclusion:
Animals speak different languages too.
For some reason, when people talk to babies, they talk about animals a lot. A disproportionate amount of baby books have to do with animals. And the noises they make. And when M is reading a book to the baby, he reads it in Urdu. Even the animals noises.
These are NOT the animal noises I am used to. It seemed unquestionable to me that a dog say "Ruff! Ruff!" but that's not what my husband thinks. He thinks a dog says "Boh! Boh!" I hadn't thought that animals noises were just cultural. It really did come as a surprise.
For your reference, in case you too are surprised by this revelation, I've listed some of the ones that are different:
Dog - boh-boh
Bird - chain - chain
Mouse - choon-choon
Crow - Kain-Kain
Rooster - "Kukrun-Koon
Duck - Qain - Qain
Goat - Main-Main
Frog - Turr-Turr
Fly - Bhun-Bhun
Donkey - Dheenchoon-Deenchoon
Parrot - Tahn-Tahn
Pigeon - Ghuterghone-Ghoon
Lamb - Bhan-Bhan
Lion - Oooohh (rather than "Rawr", but it doesn't translate well. You'd have to hear M say this one, it's really funny. I make fun of him all the time for it, but he stick up for it. He says his is the sound a REAL lion makes, and "Rawr" is the sound a cartoon lion makes.)
(Pronunciation Note: I think most or all of the N's at the end of those pronunciations are those nasal, almost silent kind.)
(Also, Muslim joke - when I asked M about what a Pig says, he said Pigs don't say anything. And then he joked that it's haram (forbidden) to listen to pigs anyway.)
18 comments:
lol Funny! When we first had my daughter I was telling her what a rooster says cockadoodledoo (of course). My husband laughed and said that is not how a rooster sounds! Funny joke about the pigs. My daughter goes to an Islamic preschool and she likes watching a show called Olivia about a pig family. Well she told one of her teachers and the teacher told her we're Muslims we don't watch shows like that. I am/was verrrry annoyed.
Hilarious!
that was hilarious :)
Ha ha! So true! I remember when I lived in France I learned about the different animal noises and at first found it quite bizarre.
A friend of mine who studied in Japan said once, "You know you are in a foreign country when the animals don't understand you!" I never thought about an animal not understanding me until that moment. At least now I speak enough Nepali to talk to the dogs in Kathmandu! ("Ao ao!" or "jao jao!")
Ha ha, I first learned about animals speaking different languages in high school Spanish class. When I asked M what sounds animals make in Urdu, he looked at me like I was crazy. Our son only knows one animal sounds so far, and its "quack." And "quack" to him means any bird, not just the sound a duck makes, ha ha.
That sounds just like my husband.
Mashallah...
cute :)
I never knew it was different in different languages/cultures. Learn something everyday...lol
Funny...I remember thinking this when I was a Kid. I used to think that animals sounded different in English countries - like with a style or something.
*lote pote with laughter*.. it's not Deenchoo :D:D:D ... *gets her breath back*..
It's Dhainchoo, Dhainchoon :D:D:D:D
Hahahahahhaah
And I think frogs are 'ribbit ribbit" here too :D
Pig? :P Oink Oink :D
Uni, I asked M to spell every single one of those for me, so that's something you'd have to take up with M. :)
Oh maybe he's forgotten the sound of the 'gadha' :P.. its definitely dhain sound, not deen sound :D:D:D
Maybe it's a dialect thing? Biharis do pronounce things differently something, Munwah.
A couple of them sound a bit wrong as Uni mentioned. Some I had completely forgotten, so adding them back to my vocabulary to mention to the Kid.
this ones rather funny and very interesting too, these aren't urdu noises, but even in India, in hindi we use the same noises for animals :)
So i guess its more of asian :)
but its well written and certainly food for thought !
LMAO!!!!
Very interesting post, I love this very much, I am a bachelor but I have got a little newphew, my brother lives in abroad, so my newphew is quite close to me. He is a very smart and sharp mind kid.
He is two years old, I taught him cat sound as "meeooon meeooon", and whenever he sees a cat he just starts running behind the cat and says "meeoon meeooon" :-)
Post a Comment