Thungo Mogo Juku Juku Opai ;)

I recently read an article in The Hindu saying that India tops the list of countries with maximum number of endangered dialects. This caught my eye for the simple reason that my mother tongue is Saurashtra and I wondered if it was included in that list. Thankfully, after googling I was happy to find out that my language had not been pushed to that state yet.

In the six years I spent in Chennai I had people constantly asking me what language I spoke. It came as no surprise when they gave me a blank reaction when I replied saying it was Saurashtra. Not many people are aware of the existence of such a language given the fact that the only place where there is significant population of Saurashtrians is Madurai.

Like the word 'Sangrail' can be split in two ways to give two different meanings (the meanings can be found in the Da Vinci Code), so can the word be Saurashtra be split in two ways. Split as "Sou"(meaning 100) and "rashtra"(meaning region) it can be understood as the "province of 100 regions". But split as "Saura" ( meaning Sun) and "shtra"(prefix word) it may mean "Worshippers of Sun".

Geographically Saurashtra refers to that part of Gujarat which is a peninsula. The highlighted portion in the picture gives the more accurate description of the region.

It is believed that the Saurashtra speaking people originated from this part of India. This explains the close resemblance the language has with Marathi and Konkani, both Indo-Aryan languages of Western India.

As the region lies on the Arabian Sea, most of the Saurashtrians followed waeving as their occupation. This remains true even now for most Sourashtrians still depend on weaving for their livelyhood.

There is no actual historical evidence as to how or when these people - my ancestors - migrated to the Southern part of India. But it is generally accepted that the Saurashtrian people were forced to leave their homeland due to continuous invasion of their land which led to much suffering and loss. Hence they migrated in large groups to Southern India bringing with them their maginificent skill in weaving. Since then many Saurashtrians have entered other fields and excelled in that(T.M. Soundararajan is a good example).

For a long time I had believed that Saurashtra was only a dialect for I had never seen any writing in that language. But I was proved wrong during a recent visit to a temple in Madurai where I found slokas written in the actual Saurashtra script. Yet sadly the language is not taught in any schools and the script would have been lost but for the magnanimous effort of few Saurashtrians.

Here are a few helpful quotes in Saurashtra that are worth learning...

*Avo - 'Come'

*Thungo mogo juku juku opai - 'I like you very very much' :D

*Thora nav kayo? - 'What is your name?'

*Thora number kayo? - 'What is your number'

*Bharad jayengan ya? - 'Wanna go out?'

*Jaara pisa - Podaa loose

*Tho atho kai paje? - 'What do you want'?

*Thoro kaam seeli jaa - 'Mind your own buisness'

For more translations pls comment and I ll translate em ;)