Copied from
http://shobanarayan.com/2012/11/29/words/
“Don’t stand around masa-masa (dithering),” an uncle will yell at his daughter. “Come mada-mada (fast-fast) and do some work.”
“Why are you noy-noy annoying me?” the girl will retort.
“My daughter is wasting her life,” the girl’s mother will tell a bystander. Tamilians are not known for their diplomacy. “She is fat and all she does is talk loda-loda loudly to people.”
“Don’t worry. You conduct her marriage jaam-jaam (triumphantly), and all your problems will be solved,” the bystander will reply.
“Oh, don’t talk about my daughter’s marriage. My heart is racing pada-pada already,” the mother will say.
“Why do you worry? Go drink some chuda-chuda (hot-hot) coffee and everything will be all right,” the bystander will reply.
“Besh-besh (well, well). Easy for you to say.”
Indians will rarely say “tiny” in the singular. In the film Monsoon Wedding, there is a dialogue that compares a woman’s body part to mangoes and the speaker uses the term “choti-choti aam” (tiny-tiny mangoes). Similarly, a popular Tamil song begins with the phrase, “Chinna Chinna Asai”, meaning, tiny- tiny desires.
So why do we Indians use reduplication? “Reduplication is used both in inflection to convey grammatical function such as plurality, intensification etc. and in lexical derivation to create new words.”
http://shobanarayan.com/2012/11/29/words/
“Don’t stand around masa-masa (dithering),” an uncle will yell at his daughter. “Come mada-mada (fast-fast) and do some work.”
“Why are you noy-noy annoying me?” the girl will retort.
“My daughter is wasting her life,” the girl’s mother will tell a bystander. Tamilians are not known for their diplomacy. “She is fat and all she does is talk loda-loda loudly to people.”
“Don’t worry. You conduct her marriage jaam-jaam (triumphantly), and all your problems will be solved,” the bystander will reply.
“Oh, don’t talk about my daughter’s marriage. My heart is racing pada-pada already,” the mother will say.
“Why do you worry? Go drink some chuda-chuda (hot-hot) coffee and everything will be all right,” the bystander will reply.
“Besh-besh (well, well). Easy for you to say.”
Indians will rarely say “tiny” in the singular. In the film Monsoon Wedding, there is a dialogue that compares a woman’s body part to mangoes and the speaker uses the term “choti-choti aam” (tiny-tiny mangoes). Similarly, a popular Tamil song begins with the phrase, “Chinna Chinna Asai”, meaning, tiny- tiny desires.
So why do we Indians use reduplication? “Reduplication is used both in inflection to convey grammatical function such as plurality, intensification etc. and in lexical derivation to create new words.”
