Everything about Madras Bashai totally explained
Madras Tamil or
Madras bashai (
Tamil: மெட்ராஸ் பாஷை), is a type of
mixed language spoken in the city of
Chennai,
India (previously known as Madras). It is a loose
polyglot blend of
Tamil and
English, with
loanwords from
Telugu,
Kannada,
Malayalam and
Hindi. The term therefore is Tamil for "Madras language"
Madras bashai has its strong influences from
English and
Telugu, with weaker influences from
Hindi and
Kannada. After this dialect became somewhat common in Madras, it became a source of
satire for early
Kollywood movies from the
1950s, in the form of
puns and
double entendres. Subsequent generations in
Chennai identified with it and absorbed English constructs into the dialect, making it what it's today.
Classification
Madras bashai can be thought of as either of the following:
Some consider "Tanglish" to be distinct from "Madras bashai", in that "Tanglish" is considered to be English with Tamil influences and loanwords, while "Madras bashai" is considered the opposite. The Madrasi dialect is however not a type of
Engrish, since it isn't the result of trying to speak English correctly and then failing.
» See also: English language, Madurai Tamil
Grammar
Madras bashai favours Tamil syntactic structures, with heavy use of English words.
The following examples illustrates the heavy use of English words, even for basic concepts:
| English |
Tamil |
Madras bashai |
| Go fast! |
Viraivāga Sel! |
feeda-ā pō! |
| Go straight! |
Nerāga Sel! (Adverb Verb) |
Staita po! (Adverb Verb)
(also "Steittaa po!") |
Code-switching also plays a very important role in Madras bashai. For instance, a person aggrieved with the English in this article may plaintively wail:
» Inta mātiri full-
ā English speak-
paa people like me
eppai understand
paartu? (
(External Link
))
How are people like me to understand this sort of full English speech?
Or a person may sadly shake one's head at the poor grasp of real Tamil among college students in the city, and say:
» Future generation
ellām full-
ā English-
tān pēcuvānka.
Future generations will all only speak completely in English.
It is important to note that if this were expressed fully in Tamil:
» Vaa talaimuai ellām mulukka ānkilamtān pēcuvānka,
even in a colloquial form (as evidenced by the verb,
pēcuvānka, as opposed to
pēcuvārka), the word choice itself would make the sentence sound lofty and formal; words such as
talaimuai are associated with literature, not everyday speech.
Verb conjugation
Tamil verbs are
conjugated differently from
Madurai Tamil. An underlying motive is to shorten the conjugated form of the verb by one or more
syllables by deleting intermediate
vowels, and to replace "slow"
consonants by consonants that can be pronounced more quickly. Since Tamil is an
agglutinative language, a word can still be discerned and understood even after a surprising number of vowels have been removed. The specific context of the word also helps to
disambiguate it in practice. The examples shown here are therefore not as drastic as they might appear.
| Standard Tamil |
Madras bashai |
Meaning |
| irukkiāy (இருக்கிறாய்) |
kiē (கிறே) |
"You are there". |
| irukkiatu (இருக்கிறது) |
kītu (கீது) |
"it is there". |
| iluttukkou (இழுத்துக்கொண்டு) |
istukinu (இஸ்துகினு) |
"Dragged with" (participle of Izhukkiradhu (இழுக்கறது - to drag) |
| kūikkou(கூட்டிக்கொண்டு) |
iukinu (இட்டுகினு) |
"Bring along" |
| appuram (அப்புறம்) |
appālikā,appāllē,appa (அப்பாலிகா, அப்பாலே,அப்ப) |
"Then" |
| kilittuviuvēn (கிழித்துவிடுவேன்) |
kīciuvēn (கீசிடுவேன்) |
"I will tear". |
| inkē ukārunka (இங்கே உட்காருங்கள்) |
inka kuntu nainā (இங்க குந்து நைனா) |
"Please Sit Here". |
| kial paē (கிண்டல் பண்றே) |
kalāykkaē (கலாய்க்கறே) |
"You are kidding me". |
| Anga |
Anthanda |
There |
Readers can understand immediately that this was done to save time, so that in the same period of time a
Madras Tamilar can convey 1.5 times that of a
Madurai Tamilar and 5 times that of a
Coimbatore Tamilar (depending on the length of the drawl, like 'yaeeeeeeenunga?') One anomaly to this shortening rule is, some words get suffixed with the syllable 'ka'. So, summa = summaka, dhoora = dhooraka.
Alternative pronunciation
Some
Tamil words are
pronounced differently from
Madurai Tamil (considered the standard
dialect). This practice is very similar to other
dialects of Tamil. The pronunciation differences are usually accounted for by morphed and/or deleted
vowels.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Madras Bashai'.
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