Awami Ulama League (Islamic wing) wants child marriage in Bangladesh

[gangsta_rap]

....and some Pakistani members complain that Indians come into their discussions on Pakistan and things Pakistani and offend everybody.

??? How is this offensive.

Look at elvish from LOTR. It really does look like it

 

[Joe Shearer]

??? How is this offensive.

Look at elvish from LOTR. It really does look like it

Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes.

 

[Nilgiri]

Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes.

Hahahahaha, that exchange you just had really made me giggle my friend. @GIANTsasquatch meant it as high praise for sure:

As you might imagine, the elves were the most noble of races in Middle Earth...in fact the "first born" (Eldar) was their original name....guardians and shepherds of the younger 2nd born (Edain) humans.

The wise (ancient) Treebeard remarked that it was the elves that taught him how to speak...though I always found Tolkien's humour quite delectably hidden when Treebeard confidently asserted to the two Hobbits who would become his dearest friends that he was the oldest living creature of them all (when in fact he was the 2nd, I've always wondered why the Elves kept that knowledge away from him or if Treebeard simply forgot and was not as all-remembering as he sounded...Tolkien leaves it somewhat a humorous mystery).

@GIANTsasquatch and I have exchanged a fair number of words of which there are no comparative "curses in elvish, entish or the tongues of men" given he is pretty leftie for me...but those were more when we (well at least I ) didn't know the full scope of the other it must be said.

He is a genuine friend/ally of you Bengalis (and actually all cultures of the subcontinent which he has natural curiosity for)...he has defended your people against quite dark forces (that we have all seen here in this forum)...reminiscent of the time (as many a elf and human would remember later when animosity reared its head after much fraying and searing of time and tragedy)...when the Elves and Humans were once the firmest of friends.

Many people only read the LOTR and its prequel "The Hobbit"...and watch the movies....but somewhat avoid the far larger work of Tolkien that sets the stage for it all so to speak (and most are simply not aware of how different and how same the LOTR age is to the far longer ages before it in the Tolkien universe/timeline).

But I would at least recommend you read these books and watch the movies if you haven't my old friend. You certainly remind me in many instances of the great Gandalf, and other times the venerable Bilbo

 

[Joe Shearer]

Hahahahaha, that exchange you just had really made me giggle my friend. @GIANTsasquatch meant it as high praise for sure:

As you might imagine, the elves were the most noble of races in Middle Earth...in fact the "first born" (Eldar) was their original name....guardians and shepherds of the younger 2nd born (Edain) humans.

The wise (ancient) Treebeard remarked that it was the elves that taught him how to speak...though I always found Tolkien's humour quite delectably hidden when Treebeard confidently asserted to the two Hobbits who would become his dearest friends that he was the oldest living creature of them all (when in fact he was the 2nd, I've always wondered why the Elves kept that knowledge away from him or if Treebeard simply forgot and was not as all-remembering as he sounded...Tolkien leaves it somewhat a humorous mystery).

@GIANTsasquatch and I have exchanged a fair number of words of which there are no comparative "curses in elvish, entish or the tongues of men" given he is pretty leftie for me...but those were more when we (well at least I ) didn't know the full scope of the other it must be said.

He is a genuine friend/ally of you Bengalis (and actually all cultures of the subcontinent which he has natural curiosity for)...he has defended your people against quite dark forces (that we have all seen here in this forum)...reminiscent of the time (as many a elf and human would remember later when animosity reared its head after much fraying and searing of time and tragedy)...when the Elves and Humans were once the firmest of friends.

Many people only read the LOTR and its prequel "The Hobbit"...and watch the movies....but somewhat avoid the far larger work of Tolkien that sets the stage for it all so to speak (and most are simply not aware of how different and how same the LOTR age is to the far longer ages before it in the Tolkien universe/timeline).

But I would at least recommend you read these books and watch the movies if you haven't my old friend. You certainly remind me in many instances of the great Gandalf, and other times the venerable Bilbo

It was Kalyan Chatterjee, my junior by a year in La Martiniere, who gave me LOTR to read in 1967, and blew me away. Kalyan is Emeritus Professor of Economics at PSU; he was married to a famous historian who died untimely, and whose books he donated to Presidency, ironically; ironical because at Presidency, being one of the brightest around, he naturally took Physics Honours. Yes, he was at Presidency, too, and then, always lagging me by a year, at IIMC; we were sparring partners and team-mates for seven years. Many of the encounters were with Shashi Tharoor and his sidekick, Ramu Damodaran, who we both agreed was worth ten of Shashi. But Shashi Baba got the girls, then as always; he married Tilottama Mukherjee, our neighbour at 57/14, whose father, T. D. Mukherjee, while an Indian Army ADC to the Governor, K. N. Katju, eloped with the Governor's daughter. Over the years, I got the Hobbit first, then the Silmarillion, then a dozen other books of the oeuvre, all of which are at Dera Bassi, unless my good friend and true rescues them and the rest of my belongings.

I know Elvish writing very well, and @GIANTsasquatch really annoyed me comparing it to Bengali, when actually Gujarati is the closest to it. When I got that he had meant it nicely, I struck through the earlier comment I'd made about him.

Kalyan went from Physics at Presidency to some weird combination of highly quanti stuff at IIMC; I never could understand what he was doing. He sailed into Harvard, finished with Operations Research, and taught that for several years, before shifting to Economics, where he caught up with my friends and my ex, who had become world-famous economists by then, one of them, who stole my lady from me, being reputedly Amartya Sen's favourite young Indian economist (young is as young does; he is 68, like me). If you can, go and meet him; he will wash your brain clean and explain patiently that the only antidote to Marxism is Karl Popper.

 

[Nilgiri]

You know about Siddham????

Of course. I didn't always know about the detailed script history (past knowing Brahmi was the "source" in the subcontinent).

That was really the extent of my knowledge when I first visited Japan (many years ago) for instance, and lo and behold, I visited a few Buddhist monasteries/temples when I was there and got the shock of my life to see they are:

a) Chanting Sanskrit, albeit with a pronounced accent (one which adds a complete new dimension to what I have heard and said myself prior to that it must be said...we South Indian mallu-origin Brahmins really are the best at pronouncing the original Sanskrit to the original accuracy imho)

b) upon closer inspection (and a couple monks there were only too kind to indulge my mouth-agape curiosity, with my japanese host helping with translation)...they have it all written down in Siddham script (called Bonji there, Fanzi in China...which by the by is their name "梵字" for Sanskrit generally too) so that they may pronounce it accurately as possible (since the earliest monks had to transmit the sutras and mantras the most efficient way to populations where audible instruction like was done in India was not possible given the completely different language family).

c) They actually devised quite ingenious local forms (of early and medieval Japanese) to translate the siddham script so that the monks down the road of time would have a way to always preserve the original sound as best they could. In fact these monasteries/temples one could say are a vital link preserving much of the earlier Japanese forms that existed before the meiji restoration and language reforms codified and simplified the language into modern Japanese (scripts and spoken forms).

d) Much siddham based sanskrit is in use in Japanese culture once you peel away the surface. A lot of the deities borrowed from India and adopted as Japanese...have a siddham character associated with them. You will find it even in say a road-shrine consecrated to the deity.

@bluesky @Atlas @GeraltofRivia @Mage

Needless to say, this made me study the history of Indian scripts more broadly and somewhat more deeply.

I for one of course know the Tamil script (also parented originally by Brahmi) which I learned as my first alongside latin script.

I also learned Grantha script (this is why I learned quickly and can read most malayalam without much effort, my dad is even better at it...and I probably could learn Sinhalese script pretty quickly @Gibbs @Godman ) around same time I learned devanagari....to help with religious learning and also proved useful to learn Hindi later.

Unfortunately there has been a purging of Grantha script from the "pure/thooya" Tamil system for political reasons post independence...as they like to claim for "simplification"....and they codified rules to apply more broadly to everything etc. But to me it looks quite uglier some of what they did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Tamil_script

(Left is the old, new is the right).

I prefer to write the older way (parents taught me it this way too), I still call it "paathi" script, as it was what my grandma on mom's side (rest her soul) wrote to me in last little block available (after my grandpa was done writing in the main part, always in his proper british english) in Indian postgram back then (pre internet 90s) because it was the only writing she knew.

They have gone all crazy to replace the grantha letters that represent distinct sanskrit sounds (not available in "pure tamil" script...sounds like iksh, Ha, Shri etc) by trying to indoctrinate the proper tamil way to even pronounce those words (or simply replace them with other "proper" tamil words altogether). Given the chance they would probably go after Tamil OM (ௐ)as well.

But they could only do so much, it lingers (even in the middle of the staunchest DMK zones), waiting to return and flourish one day hopefully. One cannot expunge whole millenias of language/cultural development for one's modern era political needs and feelings.

In fact in Chinese they did something similar (simplified Chinese vs traditional Chinese characters)...one of my HK friends has given me many earfuls and soundbites of why traditional characters are the best and why he absolutely hates simplified lol. Of course I am aware of the arguments in favour of simplified too so I am more balanced on the issue.

@VCheng @MUSTAKSHAF

Over the years, I got the Hobbit first, then the Silmarillion, then a dozen other books of the oeuvre, all of which are at Dera Bassi, unless my good friend and true rescues them and the rest of my belongings.

Nice, you read all of the silmarillion? Well now I feel like the big dope kind of assuming too much

Kalyan went from Physics at Presidency to some weird combination of highly quanti stuff at IIMC; I never could understand what he was doing. He sailed into Harvard, finished with Operations Research, and taught that for several years, before shifting to Economics, where he caught up with my friends and my ex, who had become world-famous economists by then, one of them, who stole my lady from me, being reputedly Amartya Sen's favourite young Indian economist (young is as young does; he is 68, like me). If you can, go and meet him; he will wash your brain clean and explain patiently that the only antidote to Marxism is Karl Popper.

Mindblown! Will have to save this for reference later.

The Indian economist I have a crush on right now is Gita Gopinath ...she's married though, so it will have to be just a cup of tea and a chat if I am so lucky.

 

[VikingRaider]

we South Indian mallu-origin Brahmins

What is this mallu- origin ? Read sometimes online but do not understand !

 

[Nilgiri]

What is this mallu- origin ? Read sometimes online but do not understand !

Mallu means from Kerala....same root as Malayalam etc.

@Atlas It can be deemed as quite offensive depending on context...so dont go around using it first thing when you meet a Keralite etc or talking about them etc. Best way is to say Malayali. Mallu is more on very friendly self-depreciating personal level etc...because it has been "reclaimed" somewhat like other (original offensive intent) slurs around the world.

 

[VikingRaider]

Mallu means from Kerala....same root as Malayalam etc.

@Atlas It can be deemed as quite offensive depending on context...so dont go around using it first thing when you meet a Keralite etc or talking about them etc. Best way is to say Malayali. Mallu is more on very friendly self-depreciating personal level etc...because it has been "reclaimed" somewhat like other (original offensive intent) slurs around the world.

Oh I see ! Thanks for the newly added information !

 

[Nilgiri]

Oh I see ! Thanks for the newly added information !

I am Tamil too...so I guess "madrasi" is the better one for me (though north indians tend to call all southerners that given Madras state history I suppose) ...but I have nearly full ancestral family origins on malabar coast (hence my origins statement)....the city my ancestors eventually migrated to due to british raj ascendancy+urbanisation etc is now found in TN and we are thus Tamil identity for some generations now....though we (and my border region) retain lot of earlier influences from our earlier origins too (even in language as basic as numbers)....given the two languages are quite close and the history of the area more generally.

In fact my great grandmother mother tongue was malayalam still...I never got to meet her, but she brought up my dad...and its part of the reason he is quite good at malayalam...well past what Tamilian naturally would be.

 

[Joe Shearer]

What is this mallu- origin ? Read sometimes online but do not understand !

He is probably saying that he is by origin a Palghat Iyer, re-settled in Coimbatore or somewhere nearby; the two locations are almost walking distance by old standards. The Palghat Gap is historically one of India's most critical trade routes: goods from across the Arabian Sea were unloaded at Calicut (now Kozhikode - lessons on how to pronounce 'zh' available at a very reasonable fee), and transported across from the west coast to the east coast through the Palghat Gap. Just to close the loop, these were shipped out to the fabulous east from Poompuhar. If you are at all even mildly adventurous, you will find out more about this and the golden age of Tamizh culture, and perhaps even read those classics, the Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai, two of the most stirring tales to come out from any part of the sub-continent. DO NOT MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO READ THEM, preferably in that order. The climax of Silappadikaram is blood-chilling. There is a statue of the wronged and vengeful Kannagi somewhere on the Madras Beach front, and it arouses fear, reverence, pity, humility, all together in a thousand little flickers of emotion.

When my Barisali mother, born in Kurnool, saw me off to south India in 1981, she warned me never to try to outwit two kinds - the Palghat Iyers and the Kumbakonam Iyengars. Since I had married into a regional variation of the latter, I was to be especially careful of the former. So there you are: T. N. Seshan's kinsman rampaging around on PDF:
দূর থেকে প্রণাম করেন, কর্ত্তা, উনাদের বুদ্ধি, কৌশল আর জিদের সামনে সাধারণ মানুষ নিরুপায় !

 

[Mage]

I for one of course know the Tamil script (also parented originally by Brahmi) which I learned as my first alongside latin script.

I have found Tamil scripts look very similar to Thai scripts. Any connection between them? Wikipedia states, they both evolved from Tamil-brahmi script.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I have found Tamil scripts look very similar to Thai scripts. Any connection between them? Wikipedia states, they both evolved from Tamil-brahmi script.

Not really. But you might not have to look too far.

 

[Nilgiri]

I have found Tamil scripts look very similar to Thai scripts. Any connection between them? Wikipedia states, they both evolved from Tamil-brahmi script.

Yes Thai script comes from Khmer....which in turn has links from the Pallava (Grantha) script....which came from Brahmi. Tamil-Brahmi is often inserted there in the chain as well. The Pallavas themselves are somewhat of interlopers (they are not an original Tamil dynasty) that overlaid their own culture (quite significantly) to the area.

How Khmer comes in to picture is interesting. The pallavas were great patrons of traders, priests, scholars, artisans, seafarers etc etc and their cultural links with South East Asia is established but study is ongoing as to the extent. They influenced a great deal of south east asian script including the original javanese script, khmer, burmese, champa etc. When the Pali canon and spread of buddhism unfolded over time there too...the existing links with Grantha were simply solidified since it was a script to capture all the sanskrit syllables (rather than having to overlay new with devanagari etc)

Somewhat a side note about khmer/thai, I was talking to @Joe Shearer about sanskrit syllables in Japan and how they are captured in script sometimes no longer used by the Japanese themselves (formally in modern writing/speaking).

A similar thing has happened in Thai and Khmer, except they have kept the writing side of it into the modern day. Thus in Thai and Khmer, there are many silent characters/consonants because they originally were to help with the exact sanskrit pronunciation...but over time they were deemed excessive and the spoken forms of the language simply reverted to localised efficiency/simplicity. However the silent characters are still kept in the written words to this day (the writing form I believe was always held sacred by the Khmer and Thai kings and preserved by royal edict, quite unlike what emperor meiji did in Japan to codify and simplify everything that existed into hiragana and katakana)... So something of a living day artifact of the earlier more sanskrit sounding language in those two countries.

 

[GeraltofRivia]

b) upon closer inspection (and a couple monks there were only too kind to indulge my mouth-agape curiosity, with my japanese host helping with translation)...they have it all written down in Siddham script (called Bonji there, Fanzi in China...which by the by is their name "梵字" for Sanskrit generally too) so that they may pronounce it accurately as possible (since the earliest monks had to transmit the sutras and mantras the most efficient way to populations where audible instruction like was done in India was not possible given the completely different language family).

.

There are similar things in Buddhist temple in China. These are apparently sacred words in Buddhism I found in Chinese source. The last line is the Chinese pronunciation (in the closest possible way) that tries to preserve the original sound as much as possible.

 

[Nilgiri]

He is probably saying that he is by origin a Palghat Iyer, re-settled in Coimbatore or somewhere nearby; the two locations are almost walking distance by old standards. The Palghat Gap is historically one of India's most critical trade routes: goods from across the Arabian Sea were unloaded at Calicut (now Kozhikode - lessons on how to pronounce 'zh' available at a very reasonable fee), and transported across from the west coast to the east coast through the Palghat Gap. Just to close the loop, these were shipped out to the fabulous east from Poompuhar. If you are at all even mildly adventurous, you will find out more about this and the golden age of Tamizh culture, and perhaps even read those classics, the Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai, two of the most stirring tales to come out from any part of the sub-continent. DO NOT MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO READ THEM, preferably in that order. The climax of Silappadikaram is blood-chilling. There is a statue of the wronged and vengeful Kannagi somewhere on the Madras Beach front, and it arouses fear, reverence, pity, humility, all together in a thousand little flickers of emotion.

When my Barisali mother, born in Kurnool, saw me off to south India in 1981, she warned me never to try to outwit two kinds - the Palghat Iyers and the Kumbakonam Iyengars. Since I had married into a regional variation of the latter, I was to be especially careful of the former. So there you are: T. N. Seshan's kinsman rampaging around on PDF:
দূর থেকে প্রণাম করেন, কর্ত্তা, উনাদের বুদ্ধি, কৌশল আর জিদের সামনে সাধারণ মানুষ নিরুপায় !

Haha...."zh" (ழ்) is very special letter/sound...great fun for tongue twisters too. "Akh" as well (ஃ)...all though it is more a primordial for the pure consonant sounds (represented with puli on top)...though there are words like எஃகு (steel) and its pretty handy to convert P into F sound given we dont have a character for F.

I agree those two are epics (the order it important for sure given 2nd is a sequel)... when Kannagi comes to the court of the Pandya king demanding justice is such a poignant part of all Tamil literature. She is worshipped as deity in many parts still...and also subsumed under the greater aegis of Mariamman.

It is good to have a story about the ferocity of womanhood at such high epic level...very much in the overall guise of Shakti that you Bongs know only too well....womanhood afterall provide for the miracle of life itself in the end. It is very much why we put mother before father in ...Mata, Pita, Guru, Deivam for each person ...she is the source.