Languagle #78: Odia
ଅନ୍ଧାରେ ହାତୀ ଛୁଆଁ
Andhare hati chhuan
"Feeling for the elephant in the dark."
What it means
Judging something you can only partly perceive. Feel an elephant in the dark and you might think it is a rope, a wall or a tree trunk, depending on which part you touch. Said of people who draw confident conclusions from a small part of the picture. It is the Odia form of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.
How to say it
AN-dhaa-reh HAA-tee CHHU-aan
Dh and chh are a d and a ch with a breath of air after them. The aan at the end is nasal.
Word by word
- ଅନ୍ଧାରେ AN-dhaa-reh: in the dark (ଅନ୍ଧାର, darkness)
- ହାତୀ HAA-tee: elephant
- ଛୁଆଁ CHHU-aan: touching, feeling
Where it was found
In Odia a proverb is a dhaga (ଢଗ). This one is from a Talkpal article on popular Odia proverbs.
How to recognise Odia
Odia letters each wear a rounded cap, like a little umbrella, instead of the straight line along the top that Devanagari and Bengali use. That curved top makes Odia text look bubbly and round. Telugu and Kannada are round too, but have a small tick on top rather than a full cap.
About the Odia language
Odia, formerly spelled Oriya, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 35 million people, mostly in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. In 2014 the Indian government named it a classical language, a status given to languages with a long, independent literary history. Its script descends from ancient Brahmi and is easy to recognise by the rounded, umbrella-like curve that sits on top of most letters.