Sorry Appreciation
Have you read articles by language researchers on how language influences culture? Or watched a video like this:
I have a couple of examples for you from Tamil.
Sorry — There is no equivalent word in Tamil for this in the sense we use it for apologizing. So we end up using ‘Sorry’ (the English word) in Tamil as well. The closest Tamil word is ‘Mannippu’ (மன்னிப்பு) which actually means ‘Forgiveness’. We (Tamilians) instinctively know that mannippu is not sorry, so we end up using the English word directly. But then, a lot of us also use the phrase “Asking Sorry” (Sorry கேக்கறது) as if it is like “Asking for forgiveness”. To the part of how it influences the thinking/culture — We are reluctant to say Sorry even when we should, as a matter of good behavior. Since we confuse it with forgiveness, the issue at hand seems too trivial for us to be asking for forgiveness so we end up not saying Sorry at all. If someone says Sorry to us, we feel they are overdoing it or simply faking it. What big deal, saying (or asking ;-))Sorry for everything! Like I said at the start, this is about the apology related use of Sorry and not others. When it comes to other uses like ‘felt sorry for him’ (i.e. sympathy), we use other words like varuththam (வருத்தம் which means being sad). The part of saying ‘I am sorry to hear’ in the context of someone passing away is a use-case by itself. There is no such thing in Tamil at all. That is one reason I feel relatively better (not the way you think) when someone from my wife’s extended family passes away (it is easy to say ‘I am sorry to hear’ to them) than someone from my extended family.
Appreciate — This is a similar use-case at the other side. There are times when we ‘thank’ people but there are times when we ‘appreciate’ people. (“I appreciate you reading this post”). The meaning of appreciate here being ‘be grateful for’ (not meanings like ‘recognize’ or ‘increase’ of appreciate). The equivalent Tamil word is Nandri (நன்றி), which is about Thanking. Like sorry-to-forgive, there might be a spectrum here on how much of gratitude you have for someone, in which appreciate and thank-you have their own places. If you just read this post, I may just ‘appreciate’ it. But if you clap/comment/share etc., I may be ‘thankful’. (Not nudging you to do those things — just as an example. Really). How it influences our thinking/culture — We fail to tell anything at all (or resort to communicating through body-language, facial-gestures etc.) when we feel like ‘appreciating’ something and a ‘thank you’ sounds too big for it.
One more typical use of ‘Sorry’ and ‘Appreciate’ in English is to start with them before we use ‘Forgive’ and ‘Thank you’. Like: “I am sorry, please forgive me.”. and “I appreciate your gesture. Thank you”. Now, how do you say that in Tamil? Will you say “Mannippu” and “Nandri” twice?
Agree with me? Have more examples to share? I will ‘appreciate it’. Nothing to share? Ask Sorry, now!!
