just when i thought

I just discovered that Blogger lets me transliterate in Hindi! I think it's one of the only languages available at the moment. At first I couldn't fathom why they chose Hindi as one of their first. But then I remembered a couple of things. Hindi evolved from an ancient Indian language named Sanskrit (the Indian equivalent of Latin). Sanskrit is the language known to be most compatible with computers. Ta Da! That & Hindi is the second most language spoken language in the world about 333 million. Even the Arabs in Dubai speak Hindi, due to the large presence of Indian expats.

Anyway, just when I thought Google could not get any better! Of course, at first I was really excited about the transliteration feature. I thought I could put my dormant Hindi language skills to some good use & sharpen my brain in the process. But it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I have to type what I intend to get across phonetically in English. Blogger then magically transliterates words into Hindi. There's a few obstacles in my path. Because Hindi is a third language for me & even though one that I am fluent in, my style of writing would not be the same as it was in English. Besides, other than some family & friends who know the language, who'd read it anyway? And what the heck would I write about?

In other interesting news, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne has released her latest single, Girlfriend, in eight languages (Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese). While she does not speak a second language she spent hours studying the various languages to get her song right. She stopped the buck at Hindi. Apparently, the language & the rhythm didn't match & that after Portuguese, Hindi is the hardest language to learn. Some Indians are not happy. They feel they've been shafted yet again. Ha Ha Seriously? I can't help but laugh. You know Bollywood (the Indian film industry) will rip that entire song, as it's been known to do to many other popular Western tunes. Hang in there my fellow Indians, you'll not only get the entire song, but probably soon.

So just to try out the transliteration feature & show you what it looks like:

मुजे अबी ही मालूम पडी की मै हिन्दी की बाशा मे यहा लिख सकती हुं।

It's definitely challenging. For those of you who would like to read more, check out my new addition. It's all in layman terms, nothing fancy or flowery & probably with a ton of errors. I hope to get better with each passing post.