On the Oscars night last Sunday, when Naatu Naatu and The Elephant Whisperers made history by claiming the Britannia metal statuettes in their respective categories, it was a reiteration of India’s soft power on a global stage. Since then, the world has not stopped dancing to the catchy number from RRR. It looks like the mood is going to linger for some time. What does 'naatu' mean? With the kind of unalloyed fun it has generated, no one is asking. Composer M M Keeravani, however, offers some help. In an interview to Reuters, he said naatu means ethnicity, ethnic, adding “it’s my experience.my own way of expression…these are my words”. In another interview to The New York Times, he said the “word says something of our own, our own culture”. So, the literal meaning of naatu is not dance, as many would tend to think. Rather it defines the characteristic of the dance, the song accompanying it rooted in Indian aesthetics. With the kind of popularity it has achieved, it should not be a surprise if it becomes another Indian loan word for the English dictionary. The English language is already heavily indebted to Indian languages for its variety and verve. A long trading association for centuries, and at least 200 years of colonial rule, has left a large deposit of Indian-origin words in English. These have come from languages which owe their origin to Sanskrit, like Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, among others, and Dravidian languages like Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. Many of these Indian words are themselves of foreign origin, borrowed from Persian, Arabic and Portuguese. For many Indian speakers of English language, a journey to the roots of some commonly used words will be a revelation. We have already seen in this space the etymology of words like pariah and juggernaut, which have come through social and religious customs that the Englishman could make little sense of. Words like pundit, mogul, thug, bungalow, bangle, curry, kedgeree, shampoo, bangle, bandana, catamaran, cheroot, cashmere, dekko, dungaree, dinghy are just a handful of nearly a thousand Indian words that you could be using in your day-to-day writing and speech without being aware about it. The derivations are not always accurate. In many cases, Indian words were misconstrued to mean what they do in English. But that is how the Englishman understood India and its complex cultural diversity. In fact, way back in 1876, two Englishmen, Henry Yule and A C Burnell, compiled and published Hobson-Jobson: A compilation of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases. Its reissues have been described as the definitive glossary of British India; the Anglo-Indian dictionary; and a spice-box of etymological curiosities and colourful expressions. The last is particularly apt. This compilation has had an enduring appeal among authors for its unique collections of words and expressions. Among the entries are such interesting word formations as naukar-chaukar, meaning a posse of men attending to a high official, or servants. It shows the Englishman’s fancy for employing reduplication as a method of coining onomatopoeic expressions, like hugger-mugger, hurdy-gurdy, tip-top, higgledy-piggledy, hocus-pocus, tit-for-tat, topsy-turvy, etc. Salman Rushdie was definitely inspired by Hobson-Jobson when he used phrases like writing-shiting and pudding-shudding in Midnight's Children. Hobson-Jobson itself is an Anglo-Indian modification of Arabic yā Ḥasan! yā Ḥusayn!, which is an expression of mourning during Muharram for Hasan and Husain, grandsons of Muhammad who were killed in the struggle between Sunnis and Shias. The expression has come to mean the assimilation of the sounds of a word or words foreign to a language into the sounds of a word or words coined or already existent in the language. Naatu Naatu definitely fits the bill to find a place in the pantheon of desi words that shake a leg with aplomb with their Queen’s English counterparts. Remember how one of the protagonists in the film responded to an Englishman’s jibe: "not Salsa, not Flamenco, my brother. Do you know naatu?". Wordly Wise is a weekly column by Amitabh Ranjan published every Saturday in the Explained section. Please tweet your feedback to @ieexplained
