Skip to main content

The Land of the Lion

 The following few posts are (likely) going to be titbits about things I've learned and experienced through my recent trip to Singapore. Well, not really 'recent'; it was a few months ago. I just haven't had the time to edit these. Maybe we can call these The Singapore Diaries. Or Tales from the Land of the Lion. 

Ever since reading Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence, I've been trying to make sense of the connection between languages. Our taxi driver told us that Singapore was originally Singapura in Malay. 'Singa' meant 'lion', and 'pura' meant 'city'. That got me thinking, because the suffix '-pur' is commonly used in the names of different locations in Bangladesh. 'Singa' was pretty close to 'sinha', which is close to 'shingho', the Bengali word for lion. 

Singapore.

Sinhapor.

Shingopur.

I guess it's not that big of a discovery, and turns out, I could've just searched it up. But I still thought it was fun to try to figure it out. 

I find linguistics, or the study of languages, so interesting. It's so cool how many of the south and south-east Asian languages are based on Sanskrit, which is why they have so much in common. 

Languages are so pretty I want to cry. I think I'll write more about this (and why Babel altered my brain chemistry). Let's see. 

This post is not my best but I hope there will be better ones in the future. Thank you for sticking around.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Man's Land

I've hated school my entire life. Great start, I know. I spent a huge chunk of my first few years of primary school crying, which irritated my teachers to no small extent. I hated being stuck at some unknown place surrounded by people I didn't know. When my teachers threatened to kick me out of the class, I only cried harder.  I eventually stopped crying, because it didn't help. But I'd come back from home, bring out the calendar, and cross out days. I kept counting down to the next weekend, the next holiday, the next big vacation. But these breaks were never enough. Sooner or later, they'd end, and I'd be forced to return to the cursed institution.  Every year, my report cards would feature comments from teachers regarding "keeping up the school spirit". I actually got a certificate for this once, too. When I went back home and showed it to my grandmother, she laughed, because everyone knew I had no school sprit worth celebrating.  I still don't l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hello again

 Hello.  Some of you may know me from my old blogpost, Books! And Sometimes Other Fun Stuff . I opened that blog during the middle of the pandemic, way back in June 2020. Over the years, I've met people and had a safe space on the internet where I could ramble about my interests.  But I guess over time, I kind of outgrew that account. I didn't feel like writing anything. Sure, I had board exams. That took up a lot of time. It's not like I did much writing anyway. But I think if I really wanted to, I still would've written something.  So I decided to create a new one, a place where I could share spilled ink scribbles- random thoughts and anecdotes of no real importance, written just because I can. So here we are.  I hope you enjoy it here. 
3 comments
Read more