Durga's vehicle, cheetah and English words derived from Hindi

A couple of days ago, over dinner, I got into a debate with a few friends over what was Goddess Durga's chosen mode of transport. Bhavya, who is suitably named after the Goddess, pointed out that the fact that she was referred to as 'sherawali' clearly suggested it was the lion. I had always been under the impression that her vehicle was the tiger. A cursory picture search on Rishabh's cool new Blackberry showed her mounted on a tiger, and the question seemed settled.

But, I brought up the matter with my uncle when I went home and the issue got more complicated. My uncle insisted it was the tiger, my cousin Shipra, also funnily named after the Goddess, felt it was the lion and the servant added his two bits stating the issue was redundant as she came on a different vehicle every year. A search on Google proved even more inconclusive with divergent views supporting the two and even throwing Gajasimha, some ancient Oriya mythical animal with an elephant's head and a lion's body into the fray. Finally, we called my grandmother who affirmed that she had nine vehicles in all, but the simha was her prime mode of transport. The simha primarily means the lion but can be supposed to refer to most of the Indian big cats, including both lions and tigers.

The feline debate for the evening wasn't restricted to Durga's vehicle. After dinner, we headed to Prithvi for a play, where the stage was replete with fake leopard heads, which inspired a semantic discussion on the Hindi name for the leopard.(tendua) Cheetah, as we know is also the Hindi name for cheetah, and it is one of the many words which entered the English language during the period of colonization of India. Other interesting ones include the following.

Avatar comes from the Hindi word avatar, derived from the Sanskrit word avatara(root ava = down, tarati = cross over) meaning a descendant of a deity. The sense in which it was used in the movie means online virtual forms which comes from the 80s video game Habitat, popularized by the Neal Stephenson novel, Snow Crash.

Anaconda was used for the first time to describe a now extinct South Indian python, known in Tamil as Hennakandya. The Tamil snake was nothing like the South American boas and it was by pure accident that the term came to be applied to the snake we know as Anaconda today

Blighty comes from the Hindustani vernacular for Brits during period of colonization. The Hindustani word for foreign country is vilayat, (Arabic in origin) and for foreigner vilayati, the more corrupted form being bilaiti. It gained prominence during the First World War, when the phrase ‘Dear Old Blighty’ was used commonly by homesick British soldiers. It was used even now more commonly by expatriates Englishmen to refer affectionately to the motherland.

Laconic

Laconic is on my favorite words in English language. Much like its meaning, it sounds cold, distant and aloof. It means a very concise, pithy or terse statement. It comes from the Greek word Lakanicos, which meant to act like a lakon or a laconian i.e. a native of Laconia. Laconia is a region in the southern part of the Greece. It surrounded the famous city of Sparta. Laconic, as we know is the verbal equivalent of the word 'Spartan.' The Spartans were renowned for their military prowess, austerity and pithiness of speech. The Spartans were not big on arts and literature, which may have been responsible of their terse and uncomplicated speech. Socrates was of the opinion that the Spartans were actually highly philosophical people but concealed their wisdom through the terseness of their speech for they wanted to be known for their military prowess.

The famous Spartan dry humor is the sense in which we understand the word 'laconic' now. It is interesting to note that it was in clear contrast to the pointed and delicate wit of their arch-rivals, the Athenians which led to the phrase 'Atiic's salt.'

One of the most famous examples of the dry laconic wit comes from the time of invasion of Philip of Macedonia. Having captured most of the Greek cities, he sent a message to Sparta, stating, "If I win this war, I will destroy your lands, slay your people and raze your city." The famous Spartan reply was the one word, "If."

Another story goes that when Leonidas was guarding the narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae with just 7,000 men against Xerxes' Persian army, he was offered that his men would be spared if they gave up their arms. Leonidas replied "Molon labe", which translates to "Come and take them". Today this is the motto of the Greek 1st Army Corps.

Another famous incident before the Battle of Thermopylae was when the Spartan Dienekes was told that the Persians were so huge in number that when they they would attack in unison, their arrows would bolt out the sun. His response was typcally, laconic. "So much the better, we'll fight in the shade." This is the motto of the Greek 20th Armored Division.

My favorite Spartan example of laconicity relates to Polycratidas. He, when sent as a diplomat to the Persians was asked if he had come in a public or private capacity. He replied, "If we succeed, public; if not, private."

The first recorded appearance of the word laconic in English seem to be in the 1580s when James VI write in a letter "excuis me for this my laconike writting I ame in suche haist." Next, Francis Beaumont used the phrase 'laconic brevity' in his work, The Little French Lawyer in 1625.