Nepali Glossary, Hebrew Edition

Until I came to Nepal, the only languages I could even pretend to speak were English and Hebrew. Previous posts in this series primarily deal with Nepali as it relates to English. This post deals with Nepali as it relates to Hebrew.

I’ll begin with a few quick examples of mnemonics I could have only thought of because I know some Hebrew:

juk (Hebrew) – cockroach (roughly)
juka (Nepali) – leech

Unclear which species better encapsulates the essence of the shoresh ‘juk‘

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Kina (Nepali) – why
Kina (Hebrew) – jealousy
Why are you jealous?
It’s dumb but it works.

Bina (Nepali) – without
Bina (Hebrew) – understanding
You can read these mnemonics without understanding
Alternatively, without Rav Bina

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Hebrew helps me remember certain Nepali words without even bothering to find a mnemonic

Soap (English)
Sabon (Hebrew)
Sabun (Nepali)

Carrot (English)
Gezer (Hebrew)
Gajar (Nepali)

Buy (English)
K.N.E. (Hebrew)
Kine (Nepali)

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If a Nepali asks how you are doing, you can reply in one of many ways. Three of the most common are ‘tik cha‘, – OK – ‘sanchai cha‘ – healthy – and ‘ramro cha‘ – good. But if you are an especially hip and with it Nepali you can respond ‘babal cha‘ – awesome. If you are an especially hip and with it speaker of Hebrew in Nepal, you can take it a few steps further:

Mesibabal – awesome party
Babalagan – awesome mess
Sababal – awesome awesomeness
Babalaram – TBT’s farm manager in Sundrawoti

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In our early Nepali lessons, we asked Gopal if there are any English or Hebrew words we should steer away from in the presence of Nepalis. There is one, he told us.

Musika (Hebrew) – music
Musika (Nepali) – cunnilingus

There are a few other instances where it is important to be careful with your Nepali

Chekyo – hiding
Chikyo – having sex

And of course, cholne, the word our Nepali textbook said means ‘move’ but Gopal told us actually means לעונן

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English, Nepali, Hebrew:

Why, kina, lama/madua
Where, kaahaa/kohi, aifo
When, kehile, matai
Who, ko, mi
What, ke, ma
Which, kun, aize
How, kursary/kasto, aich

As you can see, Nepali question words start with K, English questions words almost all start with Wh, and Hebrew question words start with no discernible pattern whatsoever

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English – fish
Hebrew – dog
Nepali – matza

There’s just something about fish. Incidentally, if you say ‘fish’ with a Nepali pronunciation, it sounds like ‘piss’. So one of our big accomplishments in Sundrawoti was building a piss pond