How does one?

Go make an electronic story book in app form for a Tamizh story?

Would like to try my hand at making an animated story which my grandmother told us, which was told to her by her grandmother..

That means this story is at least a 100+ years old, probably older

The story is about an "eee" ஈ (housefly) who forgot its name and went asking different people/things if they knew its name.

Any suggestions for software, methods etc. greatly appreciated!

Would like to make this a weekend project of sorts.

While in grad school I helped create many educational self teach programs using a software called "Authorware Pro" on a Macintosh Quadra (yep, that was ages ago.. before internet days) and it was given good reviews by many students who used it.

It was difficult even to find these on google search and some of the pages open only on Internet Explorer and don't open on firefox. Was also sad to see my name not on the credits for some stuff I really put my heart and soul into, but I digress.. It does not matter now.

Things have come a long way since those days, what with Flash and Youtube and of course the internet!

Hopefully you will see an animated story titled:

"Kozhu Kozhu Kanne, en peyar enna?"

கொழு கொழு கன்னே, என் பெயர் என்ன?

(plump plump calf, what is my name?)

and the calf says "Theriyaadhe!" தெரியாதே ! (I don't know!)

and off he goes to the next person with the same answer till he finally gets his name!

Jr. and the little one absolutely love this story when my mom narrates it to them and my nephew thinks I am the greatest story teller in the world for my embellished version of this story!

This old dog is up for some new tricks!

So, please, point me toward the right tools..

.

iPhone Tamil font

When reading articles in Tamil on the iPhone, the font is messed up. The same pages load okay on Firefox and internet explorer.

Considering that the fonts are in UNICODE, it does not make any sense on why this is..

If any of you iPhone Tamil news readers / Bloggers have figured out an answer, kindly let me know.

.

Appa, she is kusu vutting!

Now that translates word for word from Tamlish to:

Daddy, she is farting!

When you have a household that speaks a mixed tongue, where words that are neither here nor there make up more than 30% of the vocabulary, life gets to be interesting.

The English speaking folks can only understand part of the conversation. The grand parents and relatives in India look puzzled in the video chats over the weekend because they are not sure if they heard things right. The only people who understand the kids and the parents in conversations are other kids raised in America or parents raising their kids in America who have the exact same mother tongue.

Yes. A tamlish kid speaks a different dialect than a Kannadlish or Telugish kid.

Much like a North Indian will perceive all south Indian languages to be similar sounding and lump them all as one, a Hindlish parent or kid might lump all these dialects as one.

That said, it is really funny when the parents also start talking like the kids!

Why we do it is beyond me. Maybe we think it will be easier to get through to them? We think it is cute? It makes sense being Tamil speaking people in America and somehow optimizes the total number of words that have to be spoken to convey the meaning in both languages simultaneously?!

We speak sentences like

"Appa, can you come pal thEch me?" = Daddy, can you come teeth brush me?

"Appa, the meen is kutty pOtting!" = Daddy, the fish is baby dropping!

etc.

Nakking (licking), kudiching (drinking), thodaching (wiping dry), etc. are one set of variants where the verb starts of in Tamil but ends up as some kind of gerund with the "ing" ending.

Then there are the variations like "doneaa?" which gets a response "donnu!" where the english word gets the Tamil ending added to it to convey question vs. answer, active or passive voice, or tense!

doneaa = are you done ?
Donnu = yes I am!

This is how a tamizh concept gets ported over to Tamlish

There is one more variant.

"Daddy, can you kadichy saap my tummy?" which kind of translates to :
"Daddy, can you bite eat my tummy?" which is their way of saying
"Daddy, can you blow raspberries on my tummy?"

Note that Kadichy is close to Kadichu (or bitten), but saap is shortened for Saaptu (eaten). Now when two action words are chained back to back, the second one gets chopped. An English concept now gets carried over to Tamlish!

Sometimes, we are misunderstood, but mostly we get the best of both worlds!

.

Inspiration

During the recent Navarathri golu visits, we were treated to "Muddu Gare Yashoda". Both Jr. and the little one were so impressed by the A. akka's singing that they came home and asked me to teach them the song.

Having no clue as to the telugu lyrics or the tune, but remembering only the first line, found the clip on youtube, sung by Priya Sisters. They sing it sooooo beautifully. (note how the percussionists just stop at the right time to let them sing the last few words in each paragraph!.. just brilliant)

After watching this twice a day for almost two weeks now, they are singing it.

Note, that their Talams are impromptu and made up. While Jr. has been going to music classes for almost three months (she is learning dhattu varisai now) and has some idea of scales, sruthi and taalam, the little one is just trying to imitate the video and what she sees her sister do in class or at home.

The little one is also a lot more bold and is not afraid to look into the camera and sing. She is definitely going to get music lessons next year. (Jr. is also not very co-operative these days when it comes to doing anything in front of the camera. She deliberately makes faces while singing!)

A big thanks to A. Akka for singing this during Golu. Not every kid sings when their parents ask them to and with that kind of sincerity. When Jr. and the little one grow older, it would be a blessing if they oblige our requests like that!

On the lighter side, the kids were asking me for the meaning of the song. Found the meaning from the web and taught them bits and pieces. Here is a conversation during the earlier lesson..

Jr. : who is Yashoda?

Me : Krishna's mom. He had two moms. One who gave birth to him and one who raised him?

LO : I have only one mom. How can someone have two moms?

Me : You see "Dinosaur Train" right? In that Buddy the T. Rex is raised by a Pteranodon mommy right? Same thing. Krishna was given to Yashoda to be taken care of, but Devaki was the one who delivered him!

LO : But why does Devaki want to kill Krishna?

Me : !!!!! Where did you get that story? Devaki loves Krishna..

LO and Jr. : Because it says "Devaki suttudu.. Devaki suttudu" and suttudu means shoot someone with a gun and kill them!

Me : (ROTFL) The song is in Telugu, not Tamizh. It is suthudu and not suttudu. Suthudu means "son of". They are singing "Krishna, son of Devaki"!

Now the kids are getting used to Telugu words..

.

A for Apple, B for boy, C for...

The little one came back from school. As usual she had a couple of sheets of her workbook exercises in her bag.

One of them had four pictures on each page and a row of three alphabets next to the pictures. She had to circle the starting alphabet for what was in the picture.

She had circled the 'c' for carrot etc. etc. and there was one mistake..

There was a picture of a bunch of potatos and she circled 'a' instead of the small 'p'.

Me : Why did you circle 'a' for this one?
LO : I circled 'a' for AALOO silly! but they said it was wrong.

the way she said "it was wrong", shaking her head from side to side was just amazing! Have seen kids who refuse to call a Tomato a "thakkali" at home, because it is not what their school teachers call it.

The little one is different.

A for aaloooo!

What can I say...

.