What’s In a Name – Don’t Explain That in Tulu Nadu
By Prabhakara Bhat
It was William Shakespeare who, through the voice of the character Juliet in his play “Romeo and Juliet”, famously asked, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"! Well, people from Tulu Nadu certainly agree with him as far as names are concerned.
Why - because It is etched in their ethos. The region is home to people speaking so many different languages - Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Beary, Marathi, Malayalam and so on, with each language having numerous variations of its own, that the same thing being called in different names is inevitable. People in Tulu Nadu follow many different religions and engage in numerous cultural and sports activities that are so kaleidoscopic that fighting over names seems just boring and futile. Call what you want and every one will understand. "To each his own" seems to be the mantra.
Take, for example, the names of cities and towns. While people in other places still fight over names such as Bengaluru vs. Bangalore, Belagavi vs. Belgaum, Mumbai vs. Bombay, Pune vs. Poona, Kolkata vs. Calcutta, Chennai vs. Madras, Kozhikode vs. Calicut, and so on, people from Tulu Nadu are very nonchalant about names. The City of Mangalore is a prime example. It is called Mangaluru or Manglooru in Kannada, Mangalore in English, Kudla in Tulu, Kodial in Konkani, Maikāla in Beary language and Mangalapuram in Malayalam. This phenomenon is not just limited to the city. Look at smaller towns – Karkala is also called Karla, Moodabidri is called Bedra and Uppinagady is called Ubar. Even Dakshina Kannada district is also called South Canara.
Varieties are not limited to just places. Look at calling someone stupid or an idiot. Tulu Nadu has a gradation of names for someone like that, starting from bodaala, sadlu, ande, ande pirki, going all the way up to ande dursu.
I grew up in a joint family. There were 13 of us children in the household. For any one, calling those who are younger was not a problem – just call them by their actual names. However, we were not supposed call those who are older than us by name. You can’t call everyone as just “anna” (older brother) and akka (older sister). So, typical of local convention, older brothers were called doddanna, anna, puttanna, kunhanna and oppanna in the order of seniority and sisters were similarly called doddakka, akka, puttakka, kunhakka and oppakka!
While on the topic of names, imagine someone coming from Bangalore to Mangalore for the first time and going to a restaurant. The waiter is likely to reel off the names of items from the menu as - podi, goli baje, chattambade, otte ambade, biscuit ambade, sajjige, bajilu, usli, pundigatti, bans, kendatthadya, idli, neeru dose, thuppa dose, masala dose, saada dose. The customer is likely to fall off from the chair in bewilderment before the waiter even reaches up to idli.
The above list is just a start. You might have numerous such examples and experiences. Come on folks, don’t hold back. Share them with us in this blog!
