Punjabi

[Ranjeet01]

5 hours ago, sikhni777 said:

There are enough lonely old people that youngsters can chat to in the guradwara. This can solve 2 problems. Loneliness and pass on the language. It can also help develop social skills. 

Guradwara should try to promote this mix somehow. This will ensure our younger generation will be able to handle the guradwara in the future too. 

That is going to be difficult because the youngsters will find them or perceive them to be unapproachable. 

Also, Gurdwarae have become day care centres for the elderly and they normally group together and chat in their own social circles. 

[Big_Tera]

2 hours ago, Ranjeet01 said:

That is going to be difficult because the youngsters will find them or perceive them to be unapproachable. 

Also, Gurdwarae have become day care centres for the elderly and they normally group together and chat in their own social circles. 

That is a very pessimistic attitude. It is worth trying to engage different age groups to a get dialogue going and social cohesion. Rather then think all oldies are the same. 

[Ranjeet01]

2 minutes ago, Big_Tera said:

That is a very pessimistic attitude. It is worth trying to engage different age groups to a get dialogue going and social cohesion. Rather then think all oldies are the same. 

It is a realistic attitude. You can give the approach a go but it will be futile.

There are some ground realities that one must understand, it is only then a realistic solution can be found.

[Ranjeet01]

17 hours ago, proactive said:

I think the bigger danger to Punjabi abroad is the fact that even those who are trying to promote Punjabi see nothing wrong in using English words while they are speaking Punjabi even though there are Punjabi words available. For example, my biggest gripe is when you have presenters on Punjabi TV channels like Akaal Channel saying something like 'Saray Waarld (world) vich Akaal channel ….. I don't know why they cannot use words like Sansar or Jag.. that's a case where there are two perfectly appropriate Punjabi words that they can use. I can understand when they need to use English words because there are no equivalent Punjabi words available such as when using technical or scientific terms. But for everyday words they should be making a conscious effort to use Punjabi words. 

We need to take some inspiration from the Jews who took a dead academic language Hebrew and converted it in a few decades into a living spoken language Modern Hebrew. 

Hebrew was re-introduced as living spoken language, largely because of the creation of Israel and there being an influx of Jews coming into Israel from all over the world. Therefore a common language was required to unify the country.

Hebrew was definitely in use in a religious sense in the Jewish diaspora and it made perfect sense to re-introduce it.

However, integrating the various Jewish populations has provided a challenge as they can be very different from the Ashkenazi (German/East European)/ Sephardic (North Africa/Spain), Mizrahi (Middle East), Yemeni and Ethiopian communities.

 

[Ranjeet01]

4 hours ago, puzzled said:

Punjabi changes every generation tho    our grandparents used words which we dont use anymore   like  jal for water, umber for clouds,  kineeya for rain,  my nani used to call school madrassa which I guess was from the islamic influence.     In the old days they used to call a hole  mori we now say gali.  To look downwards or beneth they used to say poonje dekh

We say zero in india they say ziffer 

We say chitta in india they say safaid 

I think it also depends on the region of punjab    where from doaba and iv read that doabi punjabi has some nearby pahari influence  and that's why it sounds a little rougher.

I dont like sound of punjabi that they speak in cities and places like delhi! No offence!  

 

 

A lot of languages are like that.

For example, the French speaking part of Canada called Quebec speak an old regional French dialect that was spoken in a part of France several hundred years ago.

If you ask a modern French person from France, they will tell you that they cannot understand the Quebec language and when they hear some of the words, they call it "quaint"

You hear the same thing with the Afrikaans language in South Africa with the modern Dutch language.

Even English in the US use old words that have not been used in England for a couple hundred years.

If there was a Punjabi colony that was separate from the subcontinent, you will find the same thing happening.

[Big_Tera]

19 minutes ago, Ranjeet01 said:

It is a realistic attitude. You can give the approach a go but it will be futile.

There are some ground realities that one must understand, it is only then a realistic solution can be found.

Have you tried it?

[Ranjeet01]

4 minutes ago, Big_Tera said:

Have you tried it?

Not personally, but I know of people who have tried.

Apathy is a problem.

I personally have no desire or wish to hang out with old timers except my own grandparents.

I guess you can hang out with the bizurgs in the langar hall and listen in on all the gossip.

It will much safer than hanging out with the bibian who will be on your case as to why you are still not married yet.

[Not2Cool2Argue]

On 11/25/2019 at 6:31 AM, sikhni777 said:

There are enough lonely old people that youngsters can chat to in the guradwara. This can solve 2 problems. Loneliness and pass on the language. It can also help develop social skills. 

Guradwara should try to promote this mix somehow. This will ensure our younger generation will be able to handle the guradwara in the future too. 

That's a great idea! We can invite bazurghs to come tell about their childhood for 15 mins in older kids punjabi class.

Or have students go interview the bazurghs about their life in india.

Or have kids ask grandparents to complete a family tree. 

Or have a sewa where kids volunteer to go talk to any elder person they see that's alone.

[sikhni777]

On 12/1/2019 at 6:17 PM, Not2Cool2Argue said:

That's a great idea! We can invite bazurghs to come tell about their childhood for 15 mins in older kids punjabi class.

Or have students go interview the bazurghs about their life in india.

Or have kids ask grandparents to complete a family tree. 

Or have a sewa where kids volunteer to go talk to any elder person they see that's alone.

Nice to see someone get the idea. We better get started on doing this so that when we are old we have a system set up. Else we will end up lonely and neglected. 

A lot of history, life styles, recipes and memories are going to be list if we don't get talking to the elderly. 

[puzzled]

Some old people can be really snappy and rude, like some of the old people at my gurdwara. The old ladies in the langar kitchen are the worst. when you walk into the langar hall kitchen they stare at you as if you just crossed a marked/sprayed territory that you shouldn't have crossed. 

I understand that their own houses have probably been taken over by their daughter in laws and that they dont have the mukhtiaree that they once probably had but that dont mean they behave as if they own the langar hall. 

Some of these little old ladies are spiteful and vicious