Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 16

= August 16 =

Is the Hindi use of "Hum" (we) to mean "Main" (I) more common for males than for females?
As is probably well known Hindi speakers often use "Hum" (हम, literally "we") to just mean "Main" (मैं, the proper word for "I"). But I have the feeling that usage is much more common with (or even restricted to?) men. At least looking at many movie titles, song titles, song lyrics, etc. I could find numerous examples of this usage for men but not a single one for a woman. So is my conclusion correct or have I just not looked hard enough yet? Contact Basemetal   here  12:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)


 * See Royal we. μηδείς (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That article has a reference, but it's not cited so you can find or look at it. Here are a couple you can read yourself Basemetal: this paper suggests use of the plural is a marker of an eastern dialect, of poetic/filmic speech, and a way to show humility (so no particular gendered aspect), while this by the same author also gets more technical about plural/singular agreement with masculine vs. feminine pronouns. Taknaran (talk) 11:47, 17 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've immediately downloaded these two papers. Not too technical in fact and a useful antidote to my Bollywood induced Hindi. But learning Hindi in the classroom has its pitfalls too. They'll never catch me using "tum" to address the neighbor's dog! Contact  Basemetal   here  12:41, 18 August 2016 (UTC)


 * For my curiosity, is it /hum/ or, as you show in devanagari, /hʌm/? —Tamfang (talk) 05:07, 17 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The latter. Explanation: Indians commonly use a fairly silly (and incoherent) transliteration scheme. They seem to worry more about what the spelling would sound like when read by an ignorant English speaker than about having a self-consistent, logical and useful transliteration scheme. So they don't write "ham" (as they should) because they worry that it would sound like the leg of a pig but "hum". The problem is that they often end up using "u" for both the short 'a' and the short 'u': for example for "me and you" they write "hum tum" (in nagri: हम तुम, as in the song titles "Hum Tum Yug Yug Se", "Milan" 1967 or "Hum Tum Ek Kamre Band Ho" , "Bobby" 1973). But they do use 'a' for that sound "sometimes", for example in the second title they write "kamra" ("room") and not "kumra" and they usually write "hamara" ("our") not "humara". But now 'a' is used for both long and short 'a'. It's a complete mess. One favorite of mine: Hindi has an open 'o': औ. Since it comes from the Sanskrit diphthong 'au' that's the normal scientific transliteration of that nagri letter. And in most cases Indians do commonly use 'au' for that letter. But then why does the theatrical poster of the movie "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" 1994 use 'ou' (in "koun" कौन "who?") instead of 'au' for that sound, which, beside being non-standard, would suggest to an English speaker the vowel of "down" rather than the vowel of "dawn"? I'm still waiting to have that one explained. And another one I've just remembered: the romanization of the title of the 1976 movie कभी कभी namely "Kabhi Kabhie". Where does that silly romanization come from? Why does the same word कभी get two different spellings at a distance of a blank space? Since when is 'ie' an intuitive representation in English of the Hindi long 'i'? Or 'i' for that matter? Isn't the most intuitive spelling actually 'ee'? Filmfare should institute an award for the most idiotic and outlandish romanization of a Hindi film title every year. The studios have really expended a lot of creativity in that area. Anyway, because of all that I always add the nagri to make things unambiguous. I don't use the scientific transliteration scheme when the question is potentially targeted at Indians at the RefDesk also (though there don't seem to be very many of them) because they are in general totally ignorant of them. I figured anyone who would know the answer to my question would be able to read the nagri. Contact  Basemetal   here  10:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Slightly off topic, Basemetal, but could you explain your usage of the term "nagri"? I've seen "devanagari" and "nagari", but not that particular variant. I browsed the article Devanagari and found this discussion which touches on some pronunciation features of Hindi. Does this explain it? Are you using a Hindi-faithful transliteration of "nagari"? Thanks. 129.234.195.173 (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes exactly. You'll find both. In fact an Indian author quoted in the very paragraph you've just mentioned uses "devnagri" next to "devanagari". Sometimes it depends on the context. If you're discussing writing systems in general and your audience may not even be aware of that feature of North Indian pronunciation it feels more natural to use "devanagari". But since I was talking specifically Hindi and Hindi words it felt more natural to use the actual pronunciation just like I did when I mentioned all those other Hindi words and phrases. Contact Basemetal   here  22:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)