To, For, and In (English, Tamil, and Hindi)

There is this news today where a Hindi-speaking person spoke in Tamil. See this (Could be behind a paywall, though, but here is the blurb you need)

I welcome you to, in, and for my house.

Forget the news itself. What matters to us (in this post) is the language. The speaker (Hindi-speaking person) is the host. And people from elsewhere have gone to his place (Kashi) as guests, and he is welcoming them.

If he had spoken in Hindi, he would have said, “Kashi me aapka swagat hai” (काशी में आपका स्वागत है). If he were a native Tamil speaker, he would have said, “Ungalai Kasikku varaverkkirom” (உங்களை காசிக்கு வரவேற்கிறோம்). Finally, if he had spoken this in English (and correctly), he would have said, “Welcome to Kasi”.

Maybe this is the answer to this post.

So, what is the point? The preposition used, people, the preposition used! The Hindi sentence literally translates to, “We welcome you IN Kasi”. And the Tamil sentence literally translates to, “We welcome you FOR Kasi”¹. While English would be, “We welcome you TO Kasi”.

When this person spoke in Tamil, he ended up doing the literal translation of the Hindi to Tamil, saying “Ungalai KasiYIL varaverkkirom” or (உங்களை காசியில் வரவேற்கிறோம்).

Translators of the world, please understand such nuances. That is the point of the post. Okay, bye. TTYL.

1. To note: There is no separate preposition in Tamil (and Kannada too, I guess) to indicate FOR and TO.