Last week we discussed the inclination for creating words. Often when we speak we say things like cá-t́á, cáśá-bhúśá, jal-t́al, nadii-t́adi, and so on. When we add a second word whose sound rhymes with the first word, are we doing this in error? Or are these added words completely meaningless?

No, they are not meaningless. Human beings try to find rhythm in everything because human life itself is rhythmic. Movement is the natural characteristic of life so rhythm must exist within human movement. If life’s movement were continuous or linear then there would be no scope for rhythm, and without rhythm there can be no happiness either. So in this universe all movement flows in the waves of systaltic order. It is in this rhythm that one encounters the sweetness inherent in movement. Thus people want rhythm in their actions; they want to enjoy the sweetness of the rhythmicity of movement.

Human beings also want to preserve this rhythmicity in their language. Mono-syllabic and bi-syllabic words lack rhythm so in this case an effort is made to introduce some rhythmic order. If one says simply cáśá, cá, jal, nadii, etc. the mind does not feel satisfied due to a lack of rhythm; so instead we say cá-t́á, cál-culo, jal-t́al, cáśá-bhúśo. Granted, it does take more time to pronounce but it sounds better because one discovers a sense of rhythmic order there. Thus these kinds of words cannot be considered compound words. Rather they should be considered rhythmic words.

This reminds me of an interesting story. Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandi was the king of Kásimbájár. He used to remain busy with charity work, so much so that his charitable activities nearly left him destitute. There is a story about his charitableness. Once, during the time when the Maharaja was nearly destitute, a poor Brahman approached him. He told him about his distressful situation and asked him for money to help with the wedding of his daughter. Manindra Chandra was not in a position to give him anything but this made him feel extremely uncomfortable. Suddenly his eyes fell on the hookah he used for smoking tobacco. The basin of the hookah was covered with silver leaf. He told the Brahman: “Look, I don’t have anything to give you, but do one thing. Take my hookah. If you sell the silver in it you can get a little money.”

Manindra Chandra had another great quality in addition to his charitableness. He was a very humorous fellow. There was a British magistrate who came to this country and learned Bengali quite well. Once he asked Manindra Chandra, “Well now, why do you all say things like bhát́-t́át, d́ál-t́ál in your Bengali language?” I have just said that Manindra Chandra had a very humorous nature. Immediately he replied, “Look here, educated people like me don’t say things like this. Esab cáśa-bhúsorái bale-t́ale tháke [Only farmers [cáśa-bhúsorá] talk [bale-t́ale] this way].”

A similar kind of thing also happened in Burdwan although it did not concern rhythmic words but rather the different ways in which words are used. One day the magistrate’s orderly, Bhajahari, did not show up for work. The next day the learned gentleman asked Bhajahari in Bengali, “Bhajahari, why didn’t you come to work yesterday?” Bhajahari replied, “Sir, I had a splitting headache yesterday.”⁽¹⁾ The red face of the magistrate got even redder as he asked – “Your head was caught. Who caught it? Why did they catch it? Who would willingly catch it? Grab them and bring them.” Anyhow, there is a tendency to pronounce words in this way in all the world’s languages. This is due to rhythm.

The other day I was talking about the inclination for naming different places. That day I discussed how the modern pronunciations of certain historically renowned cities like Londres, Moscova and Roma are distortions of their earlier pronunciations, and that these modern distorted pronunciations are not correct. In the case of these foreign words it is distortion or error. There are also many such errors or distortions in Indian naming. In the case of foreign languages, the proper pronunciation of the capital of France is párii [Paris] because in French a is pronounced like á. Here the “Pa” is pronounced pá, the ri is pronounced rii and the s is silent because there is a rule in French that if any consonant other than “c”, “l”, “f”, or “r” comes at the end of a word then it is silent. Thus the proper pronunciation of “Paris” is párii. However ninety-nine percent of the people that I have heard pronounce it “Paris” instead of párii. Another mistaken pronunciation that people make is “Chicago”. The proper pronunciation is shikágo. In the European languages “ch” is typically pronounced like sha rather than ca, so in the United States this city’s name is pronounced shikágo rather than cikágo.

There is a similar tendency in India’s Assamese language. In Assamese ca is always pronounced like sha. For example, we write tincukiyá but we read it tinsukiyá. We write cit́ibác but we read it sit́ibás. Bear in mind that no word on this earth is meaningless. This should be kept in mind in the case of naming. So the distorted or incorrect pronunciation of proper nouns cannot be supported under any conditions. Proper nouns cannot be changed and must not be changed.

At one time all of Vauṋga-D́abák, all of Samatat́-Bágrii, the western portion of Cat́t́al, the southern part of Barendra and east Rarh, that is, east Midnapore, Hooghly, Howrah, east Burdwan and west Murshidabad, were all under water. Thereafter some land rose from the sea due to the accumulation of silt and sand from the Ganges, the Padma and the rivers of Rarh. This kind of silt and sand bank is called dviipa in Sanskrit – that is, “land enclosed by water”. After this alluvial land appeared, groups of people began migrating there from Rarh. When Sanskrit words evolve through the Prákrta languages they undergo phonetic changes. According to the style of these phonetic changes, the ka, ta, pa, da in Sanskrit words become a in Prákrta, especially in Mágadhii Prákrta. Thus the Sanskrit dviipa became diia in Prákrta and diiyá or diyá in Bengali. Many settlements have the word diiyá included in their name, for example, Nadiiyá from Navadviipa, Háthiiyá from Hastiidviipa, Shriinivásdiiyá from Shriinivásdviipa; Májhdiiyá from Madhyadviipa, etc. Since Madhyadviipa became Majjhdiia and then Májhdiiyá, it is spelled with jha and dii. People mistakenly write Májdiyá. Incidentally, since western Rarh was never underwater you will not find places in western Rarh that have the word diiya included in their name. For the very same reason there are no villages or cities in the far north of Bengal that have diiyá in their name. On the other hand, there are a whole host of places with diiyá in their name in Hooghly, east Burdwan, Nadia, 24 Paraganas, Jessore, Khulna, Chittagong, and so on.

I should point out one more thing in this regards. Approximately seven hundred or seven hundred and fifty years ago a terrible ocean storm caused great swells in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Due to these swells, the water of the Bay of Bengal inundated one hundred and fifty miles inland. All of the settlements in that hundred and fifty miles were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Millions of people, cattle, animals and plants perished in a instant. Gradually the salt waters of the ocean receded and left behind a vast jungle with saline soil. Afterwards the people of western Rarh came in groups with their axes and scythes and other implements, cut down the jungle and colonized the area anew. If you look at the bloodlines of the people of 24 Paraganas you will find that they have come predominantly from Midnapore. Their surnames also reflect this. The spoken language of this region of 24 Paraganas also shows the influence of the languages spoken in the Contai and Tamaluk regions.

Everything was destroyed up to Nadia’s Ranaghat. This jungle became filled with tigers, bears, rhinoceri, huge pythons, king cobras, and so on. As recent as a hundred and fifty years ago there were great numbers of rhinoceri in southern Bengal. Acharya Prafullachandra Roy wrote in his autobiography that during his childhood their tenants used to bring home rhinoceros meat. P. C. Roy was from Ráŕulii village in Khulna District. This village belongs to Páikgách Tháná and a large area of this tháná falls within the Sundarbans.

In Sanskrit and Prákrta the suffixes aka, raka, ruka, etc. are added to mean “small”. For example, mánava [person] becomes mánavaka [small boy or dwarf]. In English the suffixes “let”, “kin”, “ock”, etc. are added as diminutives. For example, “rivulet” comes from “river”, “armlet” from “arm”, “mankin” from “man”, “hillock” from “hill”, and so on. In Sanskrit vatsaruka → vaccharua → báchru. From this comes the word báchur [calf]. Go + ruka = goruka → gorua → goru [cow] (thus it is spelled with o – many people incorrectly spell this word garu). Similarly, the suffix raka is added to dviipa to mean “small island”. As such, dviiparaka → diiaraa in Prákrta → diiyárá in Hindi, diiyar in Bhojpuri, dirá in Angika. However in Angika the word ca-a-r (car) is more common. In the Shershahabad Bengali dialect of Malda District these two words, dirá and car, are used side by side.

Earlier it was mentioned that the ka, ta, pa and da in Sanskrit words change into a in Prákrta, especially in Mágadhii Prákrta. Since the Sanskrit word diipa, which means “lamp” in English, has a pa at the end it changes into diia in Prákrta. In the north Indo-Aryan languages it is called diiyá.

The word ávali in Sanskrit denotes “many-ness” (ávalii is also correct, just as both kali and kalii are both correct). Thus diipávalii in Sanskrit means “many lamps”. From this comes diiáoyálii in Prákrta and diioyáli (diiwáli) in modern Hindi. In modern Bengali it is deoyálii.

There are some words which were used in old Bengali and medieval Bengali that are no longer used in modern Bengali, for example, Sanskrit darpańa → Prákrta dappana → old Bengali dápan. The word dápan was used in old Bengali and medieval Bengali but neither this word nor any corruption of it is used in modern Bengali. In medieval Bengali one comes across these lines:

Háther káḿkan má leu dápana
Appane appá bujhata nia mana

They mean: “Don’t take a mirror to see the bracelets on your wrist/Understand yourself with your own mind.”

Another Sanskrit synonym for “mirror”, mukura, used to be used in Bengali. Mukura is not used nowadays in the spoken language but it is used in the literary language. The common modern Bengali word árshii is a Sanskrit-derivative. The original Sanskrit word is ádarshii or ádarsha, either one. In Hindi both árshii and árshá are used and the same holds true in Marathi. Áyaná, however, is a Farsi word. Áyaná in Farsi means both “glass” and “mirror”. Áyaná is an unnecessary Farsi word. There is no particular advantage in using the word áyaná when Bengali already has its own word, árshii. While áyaná means káca [glass] (káca is a Sanskrit word), the word siisá is also used in Farsi for high-quality or thick glass, what is called sphat́ika in Sanskrit. In Bengali “lead” is called siisá; its Sanskrit name is siisaka. The word siisá does not mean “glass” in Bengali.

The word cashm in Farsi means “eye”. The word cashmá is used in Farsi to mean “near the eyes”; its Sanskrit equivalent is upanetram. In Bengali none of us say upanetram, nor do we wear upanetram; we wear cashmá [eyeglasses]. If we give up Farsi we may become cashamkhoŕ [shameless] (one who fails to see is called cashamkhoŕ in Farsi). Another meaning of the word cashmá in Farsi is “fountain”; it also means “glass” as well. In Kashmiri both cashmá and nága are used equally for “fountain”. When fountains or springs are named in Kashmir they are given this kind of name in some places, such as Sheśnág, Anantanág, and so on.

In Sanskrit the word nága has three different meanings. One meaning is “mountain spring”, the second is “mountain python”, and the third is “mountain mammoth”. Samapluśińá samamashakena samanágena sama ebhistribhih lokaeh, that is, no one enjoys any special respect or disrespect from the Supreme Consciousness. A termite or a mosquito is the same as a mountain mammoth, or indeed this entire manifest universe.

Anyhow, we were talking about place-names. In Bengal there are a great many native words used for place-names. One such word is d́áuṋgá. Any settlement which has risen from the sea and which is not very old is a d́áuṋgá. There are many places in east Rarh and Bagŕi which include the name d́áuṋgá, for example, Beldáuṋgá. In Calcutta we find Nárkold́áuṋgá. The former name of the place in Calcutta which is nowadays called College Square was Pat́old́áuṋgá; that is, the people used to cultivate pat́ol [wax gourd] in that d́áuṋgá which has risen from the bosom of the sea. At any rate, if one comes across a settlement with the word d́áuṋgá included in its name, one can be sure that that settlement has risen from the bottom of the sea. You will come across the word d́áuṋgá far less in lands which were not under water.

Of course the word d́áuṋgá is also often used to refer to elevated land. In Rarh the word d́áuṋgál is used for high land and the word námál is used for low land. There is a locality in Dumka which is called D́áuṋgálpáŕá. The town of Suri also has a locality called D́áuṋgálpáŕá. There is a place near Asansol, a dry land, called Táld́áuṋgá, however Bankura District’s Táld́áḿrá does not come from the word d́áuṋgá.

In Bengali a very high hill or mountain is called parvata. If it is smaller then it is called páháŕ (hill). Even smaller is called páháŕii (small hill). The station now called Bokaro Steel City was formerly called Mará Páhárii. Many people used to mistakenly pronounce it Márápháŕii. Mará páháŕii means a small hill of mará [dead] stone. I myself have personally crushed and powdered a fistful of the stone from this area with my bare hands; For this reason it has been named Mará Páháŕii. Similarly, we get Belpáháŕii, Senpáháŕii, Jhánt́ipáháŕii, Kálipáháŕii (near Asansol), and so on. Smaller than a páháŕii is a d́uḿri or d́áḿrá [hillock]. The next smaller is called a t́ilá and even smaller is a d́hibi, for example, ui-d́hibi [anthill]. Naturally, the name Táld́áḿrá comes from the word d́ámrá. Of course, a cluster of palm trees [tál gách] is also called táldáḿrá. Anyhow it is quite certain that the name does not come from the word d́áuṋgá. In very old Bengali a t́ilá used to be called a t́ál. We come across these lines in the Bengali of twelve hundred years ago:

T́álata ghar mor náhi páriveshii
Hánŕita bhát nái niti áveshii

[I live on a small hillock. I have hardly any neighbours. There is no rice left in the container. I fast almost daily.]

Some of the lowlands in the eastern part of Birbhum are called námál, for example, the thánás of Labhpur, Nannur, Mayureshwar, Rampurhat, Nalhati, Murari, etc. In the western region the areas of Dubrajpur, Khayrasol, Suri, Mamudbazaar, Ilembazaar, Rajnagar, etc. are d́áuṋgál, while Bolpur, Sainthia, etc. are partially d́áuṋgál and partially námál. Námál land produces a better yield except in the case of paddy which produces a better yield in d́áuṋgál land because the soil is clayey. The people of námál land have the conception that if their girls are given in marriage to d́áuṋgál boys then they will get bored, because they are forced to eat lots of poppy seed.⁽²⁾ So the námál people say “Don’t give your daughters in marriage there. If you do they get bored.”

The word d́áuṋgá is a very ancient, prehistoric Austric word. There are many such Austric words used in Bengali and d́áuṋgá is one of them. These Austric words are also plentiful in the Viirhoŕ language. In the Santhali Haŕ language Austric words have undergone some alteration. On the other hand, the Orán’s Kuruk language is a Dravidian language. It has very few Austric words. Bengali has many Austric words such as d́áuṋgá, but Kuruk and other Dravidian languages have very few, although we cannot say that they have none at all.

The very common Bengali word pallii is originally a Dravidian word. Like Iŕápallii and Tirucirápallii, we also have Bhat́t́apallii and Palliigrám. No matter how much we try to polish and dress up the word pallii in an effort to pass it off as Sanskrit, it is originally Dravidian. Many people believe that the Bengali word páŕá [neighbourhood] is a corruption of the word pallii. In other words, the word Páŕágán comes from Palliigráma. However this is erroneous. It is true that the word gán comes from the word gráma [village] but páŕá does not come from pallii. Páŕá is an eastern Indian word which is used extensively in Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Nagpuri and Chattisgari. The Hindustani synonym for páŕá is muhallá. Where we say e páŕáy [in this neighbourhood] in Bengali, we say is muhalláme in Hindustani. The word muhallá comes from Farsi. Incidentally, I should point out that in Sanskrit the word pallii does not mean páŕá. In Sanskrit the word pallii means t́ikt́iki [a small house lizard] and krkalása means girgit́i [another variety of lizard]. This t́ikt́iki is called chipkalii in Hindi. In Maethilii, Magahii and Bhojpuri it is called bichaotii. In Angika it is called t́ikt́ikiyá, and you all know that in English it is called “lizard”.

In Sanskrit the word nadii refers to both small and large rivers. However in the Austric language common in Rarh all rivers except for very large rivers are called joŕ. In the spoken language of the Málpáháŕii community of western Rarh the gods used to be called mashán. So they named the river which they used to believe was a holy or divine river, the Mashán-joŕ. We should not imitate others who say másháinjoŕ or myáshánjor. As far as I am concerned, one should not say másháinjoŕ; one should speak correctly.

A similar, well-known word in Rarh is haŕká. In the old Austric language it meant “flood”. The common usage of the word haŕká in Rarh is for a flood that comes and goes suddenly. The Austric synonym for “bridge” is sánko, so the place where there is a sánko over a joŕ is called Joŕásánko. Similarly there is a Sánkomuŕo in Rarh.

Sol and suli are both Austric words. A large village built on high land [t́ilá] is called a sol; if it is small in size then it is called a suli, for example, Khayrasol. A place where an abundance of khayrá fish (khadirá matsya) can be found in its ponds, pools and creeks is called Khayrásol (a small town on the outskirts of Birbhum). That which has a lot of sheoŕá trees is Siháŕasol (Burdwan District’s Shiyársol). The sol that was founded by a certain gentleman named Ásán Miina is Asansol (a subdivision town in Burdwan District). It is notable that all three – Asansol, Khayrasol and Siháŕsol – are all near each other. In the western part of Midnapore District there is a village of the Lodhá community called Lodhásuli.

The villages situated in western Rarh and northern Orissa used to be called sáhii or sái, for example, Bábusáhii and Ciŕimársái (Midnapore). Places or villages encircled on all sides by hills used to be called kerá or kelá in western Rarh and northern Orissa, for example, Seráikelá, Keraikelá, Nandankelá, etc.

If a small village is surrounded by dry fields then it is called d́ihi, for example, Bámund́i, Tentuld́i, Gaoráuṋgad́i, Jaridih, Girid́i, etc. If it is a large village then it is called d́ihá, for example, Dumka District’s Hánsd́ihá – that is, that d́ihá where large numbers of swans are taken care of, or that d́ihá whose nearby swamps and pools play host to large numbers of cranes during the winter season. Needless to say, the words d́ihi and d́ihá are both Austric. It should be noted that the villages and towns named d́ihi-d́ihá are not in the rainy part of Bengal (with a few exceptions). They are all located in western Rarh because western Rarh is a dry land. The localities in east Calcutta named d́ihi were most likely settled at the time by people from Rarh who cleared the Sundarbans and used the name d́ihi. Similarly, one does not come across villages or towns in western Rarh with the word diiyá in their name because diiyá is another name for dviipa [island]. Where will you find islands in the dry lands of western Rarh? However, the words joŕá or juŕi are used in western Rarh in the names of villages or towns encircled by rivers, for example, Jerid́i and Shukjoŕá.

The word ráŕh comes from the old Austric word ráŕhá or ráŕho which means “land of red soil”. Viirabhúmi means viirácárińáḿ bhúmi in Sanskrit and its altered name is Viirabhúma, or Varjyabhúmi in Vedic. Its altered form is Varrabhúmi and also Viirabhúma. Biira means “forest” in the Austric language. Biirabhúmi means “land abounding in forests”. If the word is taken to mean “forest” then undoubtedly this creates an awkward combination because the word biira is Austric and the word bhúmi is Sanskrit. Birbhum was undoubtedly once full of forests. Mamudbazaar Tháná, Rajnagar Tháná, Khayrasol Tháná, southwest Dumka, east Deoghar and west Pakur, which until 1855 was a part of Birbhum, were all full of forests. The word ráŕhá or ráŕho which we find in the Austric language means “land of red soil”. Similarly, if we accept the meaning “forest” for the Austric word biira then it can definitely offer an explanation behind the name Birbhum, Rarh’s own cultural territory. More research needs to be done on this matter.

It should be mentioned in this regard that with one or two exceptions one does not come across any place in the environs of Calcutta with the name d́ihi-d́ihá, but one does come across d́áuṋgá and beŕe. The Bengali word báŕi comes from the Sanskrit word vát́i and the word báŕiyá or beŕe comes from the word vát́iká. Thus baḿshveŕiyá or bánshbeŕe comes from the Sanskrit vaḿshavát́iká. In north Bengal báŕiyá has changed into báŕi instead of beŕe, for example, Khaŕibáŕi, Khágaŕábáŕi, Nakasálbáŕi, etc. The region which had a forest of reeds [nalkhágŕá] (ikŕá in old Assamese) is Khágŕábáŕi. Khaŕibáŕi is where there is a jungle of wood suitable for use as fuel (khaŕi means “firewood”). Also there is Bagŕibáŕi (Sanskrit badarii → bagaŕi, that is, “plums”), Sháluniibáŕi (shál tree, in Assamese sháluni), Nalbáŕi (reed jungle), etc.

In southern Bengal we find places with the suffix beŕe such as Ulubeŕe (Uluberiyá), Cakrabeŕe, Gaoriibeŕe, Láuṋgalbeŕe, etc.⁽³⁾ There is another meaning of the word beŕe. Villages that were surrounded by jungle used to be named after the predominant tree in that jungle. For example, the village that was surrounded by a gol tree jungle was given the name Golábáŕi. There are still villages by the name Golábáŕi in Howrah and 24 Paraganas.

It was mentioned earlier that Calcutta was once underwater. After those regions rose out of the water, trees that favoured salty soil began growing there, for example, sundari, hentál [a type of palm], mangrove, báin, etc. Many places were named after such jungles, such as Garánhát́á, Hentálii, and so forth. The area of Calcutta known nowadays as Entally was formerly called Hentálii. There used to be a jungle there of huge hintal trees with thorns and tigers used to hide in it hoping to catch deer. With the distorted English pronunciation it became Entally. At that time different kinds of crops were grown in different areas of Calcutta. These areas were also named according to the local crop; for example, the area where betel was grown was named Guvábágán (the Sanskrit word for “betel” is guváka and from this comes the Bengali gubá). Similarly we get Nebubágán, Hartukiibágán, and so on.

In southern Bengal there are many places with kháli in their name, for example, Pat́uyákháli, Sandeshkháli, Hánskháli, Dhanekháli, etc. In southern and eastern Bengali there were not so many roads or land routes. People used to travel from one place to another by canals, rivers and swamps. Generally girls would travel to their father’s house when the rivers and creeks would fill with water, which made boat traffic convenient and plentiful.

Náo laiyá sháon másere bandhu náiyar laiyá yáio

–Mymensing

[Take me (the bride) to my father’s house by boat in the month of Shrávańa.]

It was the emperor Shershah who originally constructed the long road from Dhaka District’s Suvarńagrám to Át́aka in The Punjab. He did not name the road after himself. It was the people who gave it the name Badshah Road. Later the British extended the road up to Peshawar and renamed it the Grand Trunk Road. It should be mentioned here that the word saraka [road] is not a foreign word. It is actually a Sanskrit word. Sr + ńaka = saraka, that is, “that which is for moving [sará]”, not for standing, sitting or lying down. Due to mass confusion, the word saraka was replaced by saŕaka. Saŕak in chaste Hindi is a feminine gender word. Many people well-versed in Hindi do not realize that the correct form of the word saŕak is saraka. The words sarańa, sarańii, upasarańii and sáráńa in Rarhi Bengali all come from the verbal root sr. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning here that the builder of the Badshah Road, Shershah, came from the former Sahabad District’s, modern Rohatas District’s, Sasaram. The word śasárám has also undergone distortion. It was named Sahasraráma or Sahasarám after a famous local personage by the name of Sahasrarám Singh.⁽⁴⁾ This place is still called Sahasarám in the local language, Bhojpuri.

Bear in mind here that the words sará and hat́á are not identical in meaning. The word hat́á, or hat́ná in Hindi, means “to move from the front” and sará means “to go on moving”, so the work of sará cannot be done by hat́á or hat́ná although the work of hat́á can be done by sará. Another meaning of the word sará in Bengali is “to bring into use”, for example, ghát́t́á sará hacche ná [the quay is not being used], básant́á sará hacche ná [the container is not being used]. In the domestic life of Bengal, the container or utensil which is used often for regular needs is called sará in Bengali rather than any other word.

Southern Bengal did not have sufficient roads for land travel. People used to travel nearly everywhere by water with the exception of a few areas near Tripura.⁽⁵⁾ Imagine, for instance, that someone wants to go to Barishal’s Bhát́igrám. First they have to travel some distance by steamer from Khulna.⁽⁶⁾ Thereafter, once the depth of the water decreases, they have to leave the steamer behind and go by launch.⁽⁷⁾ Then, after travelling a little further in a boat they have to continue by footpath to Bhát́igrám. A steamer can travel down a large river or canal but not down a small river or canal; a boat is needed to travel down the small rivers and canals. Now the villages that used to be connected to the main waterways through canals [khál] were given the name kháli, for example, Pat́uyákháli, Dhanekháli, Jelekháli, Sandeshkháli, etc. When you see the name kháli you can assume that there is or was a canal near that village, and that the canal joined a large waterway.

The name kholá is attached to those villages which have no relation with any khál but which have very large trees full of birds, for example, Sharańkholá, Harińkholá, etc. Kholá is a native word which means “bird”. The Sanskrit synonyms for pákhii [bird] are pakśii, vihaga, vihauṋga, vihauṋgama, and so forth. Similarly, the Sanskrit equivalents for “deer” are kuraga, kurauṋga, kurauṋgama, etc. and for “horse” they are turaga, turauṋga, turauṋgama, and so on.

The word kholá has other meanings in Bengali. The first is the covering of a fruit or some such thing. You must have all seen a kholá ghar [house with a pantile roof] and also used the word. Here also the word kholá means “covering”. Two words are commonly used in Bengali to refer to the covering of a fruit – kholá and khosá. If the covering is hard then it is called kholá, for example, the kholá of a coconut, but if it is soft then it is called khosá. For example, a banana has a khosá. However in Calcutta Bengali a banana skin and a coconut shell are both called kholá. Of course, there is a special word for coconut shell – málá (nárkoler málá).

Bengali has its own words for “flower” – mocá and muci. The word mocá means “large flower” and muci means “small flower”. Since a banana flower is large in size it is called mocá, but a coconut flower is quite small so it is called muci. The jackfruit flower is also called muci. In these kinds of philological discussions one learns not only the history of names but many other things as well, and in this way it becomes easy to narrow down the history.

Boats were once used everywhere in Bengal apart from some areas bordering Tripura, the far north of Bengal and western Rarh.⁽⁸⁾ During that era rivers and boats played such a prominent role in everyday life that people imagined that there was a river of life lying between physicality and spiritual salvation.⁽⁹⁾ There is a poem from twelve hundred years ago:

Sone bharitii karuńá návii
Rúpá thoi náhik t́hávii
Váhátu kámalii gaan unvese
Geli jám váhuŕai kaise

[The boat of compassion is overloaded with gold. There is no room for silver.]

Anyhow, the rivers used to be plied by boat and there were quays for mooring them. In some places where there was no quay the boats were kept tied to a large tree. Nowadays if a dishonest person takes advantage of their friendship with a famous person to do some mischief, and no one else dares to say anything to them about it, then we say “They have tied their boat to a large tree.” In Midnapore, Howrah, 24 Paraganas, Khulna, Noyakhali and other places ghát́ [quay] is called ghát́á and hát́ [market] is called hát́á, for example, Páthureghát́á, Gariyáhát́á, Beleghát́á, Murgiihát́á, Darmáhát́á, Káliighát́á, Gáighát́á, Harińghát́á, and so forth.

The names of some settlements in this country are inextricably linked to certain English names. After the British occupied India they imposed the “policy of subsidiary alliance”. As a result of this policy some kings in this country accepted the authority of the British, for example the kings of Tripura, Coochbihar and Mayurbhanj. They had a contract with the British. The British took their army into all those kingdoms where the kings or great landowners did not accept their authority. They allowed those who surrendered to them out of fear to keep their zamindarship, but they snatched away the kingdoms of those who did not accept their authority and fought against them. Then they installed their own obedient zamindars in their place. Something or other was named after all those British officers who achieved success in these campaigns. For example, after the kingdom of Palamu was defeated, the district headquarters city was named Daltonganj after Mr. Dalton. The Octorloney Monument in Calcutta maidan was built in the name of General Octorloney. Nowadays the Octorloney Monument has been renamed Shahid Minar. This is not proper since it is a distortion of history. Something new should have been dedicated to the memory of the Shahids. Similarly, they have made Pamarganj, Macluskeyganj, Leslieganj, and so on.

Incidentally, it should be pointed out the English word “general” has undergone a distortion of pronunciation to become jándrel in Bengali. We call powerful [jabardast] people jándrel lok. Bear in mind that the word jabardast is Farsi. Dasta means “hand”, and if that hand is applied forcibly to something or possesses something forcibly then it is jabardast. In Panjabi “general” became járnál. If you look around a little you may able to find a couple of Járnál Singhs present.

Even though the English word “colonel” does not have an “r” it is pronounced karńel. From this comes the Panjabi word kárnáil. Similarly, the English word “recruit” has become raḿrut́ in Panjabi and the English “surrender” has become sáláńd́ár.

As a result of the Britishers’ distorted pronunciation the names of many famous cities in this country have become distorted. I have already talked about the distortion of the name Kalikátá (Calcutta) in this regard. A similar thing has happened with the city Bombay. Many fishing families were living in the suburbs of the modern city of Bombay. These fishing families were the old inhabitants of the city before it became Bombay. Their traditional deity was the goddess Mumbávatii. Vatii becomes bai in Maháráśt́rii Prákrta, so accordingly Mumbávatii became Mumbábai and, with the passage of time, Mumbái. The word mumbái has been common in both Marathi and Gujarati since that time and remains so. The British turned this Mumbái into Bombay and this “Bombay” became Bombái in Hindi and Bengali. Kothákár jal kotháy ese dánŕála [Where does the water come from; where does it end up?].⁽¹⁰⁾ Recently the government of Maharashtra has changed the name Bombái to Mumbái. This is a praiseworthy action. Calcutta should promptly be changed to Kalikátá in English. Why should the same proper noun be called differently by different people! This destroys the sense of value of a proper noun. If you ask someone named Sardar Hazara Singh his name will he say that his name is “Leader Thousand Lions”? Should we call Krishnanagar “Black City” in English? Someone who gets a kick out of calling Krishnanagar “Black City” should follow suit and call Calcutta “Lime and Rope”. Only then will their penchant for imitation be complete.

Footnotes

(1) The literal idiom is: “My head was badly caught”. The words used by the magistrate are all spelt with d́h instead of dha and t́a instead of ta to highlight the inability of the English to pronounce the dental letters. –Trans.

(2) Poppy seed is a constipative food. –Trans.

(3) In the literary language nowadays it has been made into vaḿshavát́i but this is incorrect. The literary form of báḿshbeŕe is not vaḿshavát́i. If the original form had been vaḿshavát́i then language its modern southern Bengali form would have been báḿshbáŕi, not báḿshbeŕe. So since the colloquial name is Báḿshbeŕe then the old name of the place was certainly Vaḿshavát́iká.

(4) I did not use the word vyakti [individual] because this word is incorrect from head to toe. The linguistic scholars may be able to tell us at what auspicious moment the word vyakti came to mean “person”. That is not a task for ordinary people like myself. The word vyakti means “to make manifest”. If the needlework that women do on cloth is called súciivyakti then I have no objections. However, calling a person vyakti raises strong cause for objection.

(5) Comilla – Comilla is surrounded by lowlands. Even the two nearby subdivisions, Bráhmanbeŕiyá and Cándpur, are lowlands. However, the city itself of tank, bank, datta and rasamalai, Comilla, is an elevated area [d́áuṋgá] where the bullock cart is more common than the boat.

(6) “Steamer” is an English word. In Bengali one says jáháj, although jáháj is a Farsi word. The Sanskrit word is arńavapota. The word jáháj is more common in Bengali than arńavapota.

(7) In Bengali the word used for the measurement of the depth of water is báno. The corresponding English word is “fathom”.

(8) In very ancient times boats were used in western Rarh as well. The masts of ships have been discovered while cultivating the extremely fertile region of the Ajay and Mayurakshi rivers. However they are from many ages ago.

(9) In old Bengali, rivers used to be called nai or lai. There is a river running through Birbhum and Dumka districts whose proper name is Váṋshnadii but whose common name in Váṋshlai.

(10) A proverb implying that its origin was one thing but it ended up as something else. –Trans.