Lost in languages


Why can’t these people speak in English? My friend fumed as a project discussion again lapsed into local lingo. Why don’t you learn the language, someone quipped back.

But what language was that?

When I had shifted from Delhi, I just knew that people in Karnataka spoke Kannada. Soon, I learnt, Bangalore was another world. 
First, you need to identify which of the 7-8 (leaving out the dialects) languages was being spoken.

Oh it's not that difficult, when most of the words end with “u” it’s Telegu, when they end with “aa” it’s Kannada, Malayalam sounds completely different, and Tamil you can make out from the tone….was the advice.  As for Tulu and Coorgi, they are somewhat similar to Malayalam.

Wooah! I stopped trying to figure out languages from then on.

In Germany, I was touched when people would look up words online to get the right English word to explain things to me.

Oh, but when an animated discussion starts everyone lapses back to fluent native German. And then they notice me, and apologize for leaving me out.
But I keep telling them, it’s is really not a problem for me.

It’s like being back in Bangalore

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