Vanakkam! The Trials and Tribulations of Tamil

In spite of hearing some discouraging accounts of attempts to learn Tamil, I decided to give it a shot if for no other reason than to try to ward off Alzheimer's. (Language study and crossword puzzles are supposed to help!) Furthermore I have found over time in many settings that people have always met my feeble attempts to communicate in the language at hand with pleasure and usually much amusement. It's a definite ice breaker!
Some of the challenges peculiar to Tamil include the following:
-There are 35 basic vowels and consonants in Tamil. You can see in the signs above the appearance of the written language. Although I have no conscious memory of learning the English/Roman alphabet as a child, I have a much greater appreciation for this achievement by kindergarteners as I struggle to identify Tamil words!
-A number of Tamil sounds have no exact counterpart in English. One set of sounds called "retroflex" sounds requires that the tip of the tongue be turned backwards so that the underside of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth. It feels like yoga for the tongue!
-Many words are very similar except for the length of the vowels e.g. aamaa (yes) and ammaa (mother), padam (picture) and paadam (lesson), pal (tooth) and paal (milk). You can imagine what kind of trouble I can and do get into with this!
-Word order in a sentence is subject, object, verb e.g. Ganesh her saw (Ganesh saw her.). I invariably get this wrong but find it comforting that the Tamil speakers speak English in Tamil order as often as I do the opposite and we seem to get by.

My Tamil teacher, Radhicka, pictured above, has infinite patience fortunately. In addition to teaching me Tamil she is a great source of information on Indian customs and traditions. We try to meet twice a week.

Last week I put my Tamil to the test with some of the creche children asking them to point to various parts of their body as I said, "Where's your...?" How exciting it was to have them respond correctly! They looked puzzled and then laughed when I said, "Where's your tail?"

By the way, Vanakkam, pronounced "one-a come", means Greetings.

Notice the warning in the second sign - "No Eve Teasing". Kodai is a popular destination for Indian tourists, many of whom are young men. Renting row boats or paddle boats on the local lake is a common pastime. Apparently the young men sometimes become a bit unruly out on the lake in the presence of young ladies, hence the sign.

Coming up- communicating in English!