Russian language dispenses with “to be” in the present
tense.
Thus, “Moscow – capital of Russia”, rather than
“Moscow is the capital of Russia”. Strangely, in Bengali too, one
says and writes “Dhaka capital of Bangladesh”, rather than
“Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh”.
Every French noun must be preceded by an article, either masculine (le) or feminine (la). All well and good, until you find that a
necktie carries the feminine article and a small handkerchief the
masculine.
It is not surprising that foreigners learn to speak English with
relative ease, while French seems defiant. Consider the fact that
most English verbs hardly conjugate in the present tense, except
for adding the ‘s’ at the end. For example, the verb ‘to make’
changes form for the third person singular only, becoming
‘makes’. The equivalent French verb ‘faire’ conjugates, depending
on the person, into fais, fait, faisons, faites and font!
It is somewhat the same in Russian. And while proper names
remain unchanged in French, Russian takes liberties with names
too, both animate and inanimate. So, depending on the case, the
name Musharraf (masculine) will become Musharrafa,
Musharrafu, Musharrafe and Musharrafom. Likewise, Aisha
(feminine) turns into Aishi, Aishe, Aishu, Aishe and Aishoi!
Abusive or swear words with sexist, racist, ethnic or sectarian
connotations are the curse of every language. Some languages
are better (or should I say worse) at it than others. I dare say
that if there was a world championship for the most potent (mark
my word) swear words, our very own Punjabi will be a very strong
contender for the first prize. I suppose Punjabi will not just win
first prize for the abuse delivered, but also in the manner of its
delivery.
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