Celebrating how we can be pleasantly surprised to have things in common, and yes, it's also an excuse to show more pics of my recent trip to India...
But having gone through a few words that Indian English shares with Australian English (check them out here), let's go the other way and showcase some words in Hindi/Urdu (and other Indian languages) shared with the southeast European languages I work with.
🎥 Many years ago, after having commented how much I enjoyed Bollywood films as a child, a lovely Indian colleague of mine gave me some brilliant Bollywood films to watch. While watching them, I was surprised to hear a few words that I, and most others who also know a Balkan language, didn't need subtitles to understand, and here are three of them...
👿 Dushman
Every proper Bollywood film has a villain, who is often an ‘enemy’ or ‘foe’, which in Hindi/Urdu is a ‘dushman’. And guess what? 'Enemy' is also 'dushman' not only in most southeast European languages but also most Turkic, Caucasian and Central Asian languages. Russian also adopted ‘dushman’ as a term in 1980s to refer to the Soviet Army’s adversaries in Afghanistan, the Mujahadeen.
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😌 Rahat
Another word often mentioned in Bollywood films. In Hindi/Urdu this means ‘comforting’, ‘quiet’, ‘tranquility’, ‘ease’. And in languages such as Bulgarian or Macedonian (where it’s ‘raat’), it means exactly the same.
🌳 Chinar
A constant feature in many Balkan city centres is a 600-year-old tree – a fabled ‘chinar’. Go to Kashmir and you'll find the same 600-year-old chinars. These are oriental plantar trees and are native to a wide area stretching from the Balkans through to India. You're bound to find a majestic chinar growing in many botanical gardens throughout India.
🗺️ So how come the same words appear in such geographically disparate regions?
Let’s look half-way because we have Persian to thank for these words.
As a literary language of an ancient, widespread and sophisticated culture, Persian heavily influenced (Ottoman) Turkish, which in turn left its mark in the Balkans after more than 5 centuries of Ottoman rule. More about this influence here
In the other direction, Persian was India’s official language during its six centuries of Muslim rule, which in turn left its mark on local South Asian languages.
📸 Oh, I mentioned photos… here they are! Here's a taster...
Needing some 'rahat' with your translations from Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Montenegrin or Serbian into English? Stand out from your 'dushman' and be the 'chinar' in your business and have them done by an accredited and experienced translator, me! Drop me a line at info@nicknasev.com and let's discuss your needs.
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