{"id":39589,"date":"2018-08-12T06:54:53","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T11:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=39589"},"modified":"2018-08-12T06:54:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T11:54:53","slug":"baphre-baph-my-favorite-nepali-expression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=39589","title":{"rendered":"\"B\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" — my favorite Nepali expression"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Nepal (Bhojpur<\/a>) from 1965-67, I became highly fluent in spoken Nepali.\u00a0 I even dreamed in Nepali.<\/p>\n

My Peace Corps buddies and I learned Nepali in Columbia, Missouri by the total immersion method, which I describe and demonstrate in this post:\u00a0 \"Learn Nepali<\/a>\" (9\/21\/16).<\/p>\n

See also my comments to \"Alien encounters<\/a>\" (9\/15\/16), especially this one<\/a>, #7-8, and the links embedded therein.<\/p>\n

I became enamored of many Nepali words and phrases, but my favorite of all is \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\", which corresponds roughly to \"Wow\", \"OMG\", etc. in English.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I knew how and when to use this expression, and I'm sure that I pronounced it sufficiently well and naturally that no Nepali misunderstood me or even thought that it sounded funny when I spoke it.\u00a0 But I was never quite sure exactly how to write \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\", whether in Devanagari or in Roman letters, nor did I comprehend the underlying semantics of the constituent morphemes.\u00a0 Nonetheless, I loved to say it at the right moments, and Nepalis loved to hear me say it.\u00a0 Saying \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" in the appropriate circumstances not only felt good to myself, but it also instantly created a bond with my Nepali friends and acquaintances.\u00a0 Saying \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" is so satisfying and efficacious that I still to this day spontaneously utter \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" when I'm alone, and it always makes me feel good.\u00a0 I highly recommend it to everyone reading this post who is in need of a little cheering up or release of tension (I'll explain more about that in a moment).<\/p>\n

\"B\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" reminds me somewhat of Cantonese \"wah\", especially as spoken by my old friend Pinky Wu, which I described in these two posts:<\/p>\n

\"New Singaporean and Hong Kong terms in the OED<\/a>\" (5\/12\/16)<\/p>\n

\"The wonder of Cantonese particles<\/a>\" (5\/14\/18)<\/p>\n

Much as I loved, and still love, to exclaim \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" with utmost satisfaction or wonderment, when I started to analyze it as a linguist would, there were lots of things about it that puzzled me.\u00a0 Let me explain why I decided to compose this post at this particular time, since what I have to say in this regard will clarify the context for writing about \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" instead of just saying it.<\/p>\n

My Peace Corps buddies and I recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of our group (Nepal VI).\u00a0 While we were gathered in Bend, Oregon, several of us said \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\" in response to various unusual circumstances that elicited surprise or astonishment.\u00a0 We also from time to time send e-mail messages to the group.\u00a0 I concluded one of them by writing \"bapheti baph!\" to express my astonishment at the marble inlay in a Sikh temple.<\/p>\n

Note that I wrote \"bapheti baph!\" and not \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\", which is the correct, proper romanization for the expression, and thereby hangs a tale.<\/p>\n

In the discussions leading up the writing of this post, one member of the group, Carl Hosticka, wrote \"baph A re baph\" and Brian Cooke said he seemed to remember Nepalis saying \"a-re\" as a colloquial usage.\u00a0 Brian added that it \"Would be interesting to know in finer detail how the expression is constructed: the role\/meaning of 're' in particular.\"\u00a0 I was also wondering about the function of the \"re\".\u00a0 I thought that it might be some sort of prosodic filler between the two halves of a reduplicated exclamation.<\/p>\n

Boyd Mikhailovsky, the only other member of Nepal VI beside myself who became a linguist, made a very telling observation:\u00a0 \"We knew without looking it up! (Except I thought it was 'b\u0101phade'.)\"<\/p>\n

Non-specialists write this expression in many different ways.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n

\"the naked kayaker<\/a>\" (1\/19\/11):\u00a0 baph-re-baph<\/p>\n

\"Nepali – Easy\/memorable\/funny words<\/a>\":\u00a0 baph re baph<\/p>\n

Looking around for more authoritatively linguistic documentation on \"b\u0101phre b\u0101ph!\", I found this in Ruth Laila Schmidt's A Practical Dictionary of Modern Nepali<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u092c\u093e\u092b \u0930\u0947 \u092c\u093e\u092b<\/a> (p. 534<\/a>) b\u0101pha r\u0113 b\u0101pha , pr. baaph<\/b> re baaph<\/b>, INTERJ. exclamation of surprise: baaph<\/b> re baaph<\/b>, ek ghanTaamaa usle kati kaam garecha! my goodness, what a lot of work he's done in…<\/p>\n

From this we know that the \"a\" of \"b\u0101ph\" in both of its occurrences should be long.<\/p>\n

Herb Rice approached the problem from another angle:\u00a0 he sought out informants from Nepalis living in Seattle.\u00a0 Two that he asked both wrote (in Devanagari) b\u0101phre b\u0101ph.<\/p>\n

It's amazing that Herb was in contact with Ruth Laila Schmidt in Nepal when she was doing research for her dictionary there and then again later when she was in Islamabad carrying out fieldwork<\/a> on Urdu and Shina<\/a> (intriguing to me because of its superficial resemblance to the Japanese pronunciation of \"China\")<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even more surprising is that Ruth Laila Schmidt received her Ph.D. from my department (then Oriental Studies) at the University of Pennsylvania.\u00a0 She is professor emerita from the University of Oslo<\/a> and wrote books on Urdu and on Shina!<\/p>\n

Herb provided another key piece of evidence when he dug out his trusty old \"Meerendonk\".\u00a0 This is the Basic Gurkhali dictionary (Roman script) by M. Meerendonk (1960), a little green leatherette covered <\/span>vade mecum that we carried with us wherever we went in Nepal.\u00a0 Meerendonk has \"bAph\" (using A for \"long a\") and translates it \"steam\".\u00a0 So, says Herb, \"bAphre-bAph\": an expression of such surprise to suggest the release of high pressure steam?<\/p>\n

In support of this interpretation, Boyd provided the following informative entry from Nep\u0101l\u012b v\u1e5bhat \u015babdako\u015b:<\/p>\n

b\u0101phare interjection [skt. vapra+re] word used to express fear, surprise, astonishment, etc. \"b\u0101phare! there is such a big tiger in the zoo!\" \u2014 b\u0101ph interjection, word used when feeling fear, surprise, astonishment, dismay, etc. \"b\u0101phare b\u0101ph! I was amazed at their spending on their daughter's wedding!\"<\/div>\n

I believe that the dictionary Boyd quotes is this one<\/a>:\u00a0 N\u0113p\u0101l\u012b br\u0325hat \u015babdak\u014d\u015b \u0928\u0947\u092a\u093e\u0932\u0940 \u092c\u0943\u0939\u0924 \u0936\u092c\u094d\u0926\u0915\u094b\u0936 (Nepali great dictionary).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Herb connects Sanskrit vapra with Latin vapor, vaporis, masc. noun: steam, vapor, a warm exhalation, etc.\u00a0 While Sanskrit vapra is normally defined as \"rampart; earthwork\", etc., there may be something to the connection between b\u0101ph[re] and \"vapor\".<\/p>\n

Here I cite R.L Turner's magisterial A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages<\/i> (London:\u00a0 Oxford University Press, 1966), Indexes<\/i> vol. (1969), Phonetic Analysis<\/i> vol. (1971).\u00a0 On p. 516b, #9147, Turner lists b\u0101phre, with the definition \"exclamation of sorrow\", among a group of about half a dozen supposed cognates in other IA languages that mean basically \"wretched\".\u00a0 On pp. 520b-521a, #9223, he lists b\u0101ph among a couple of dozen cognates in other IA languages that mean \"tear, tears; vapor, steam\".\u00a0 Here I feel that I've hit paydirt!<\/p>\n

The final piece of evidence I draw from my own patented, totally personal steam release.\u00a0 When I am under tremendous pressure, I let forth a very forceful hhssssss!!! <\/i>— expelling a powerful stream of air.\u00a0 <\/i>I almost never make this sound in the presence of other people, but occasionally I will forget and produce it when someone else is around, causing me to be terribly embarrassed and them to be greatly amused.\u00a0 \"B\u0101phre b\u0101ph\" is a socially acceptable way to achieve a similar effect — the release of pent-up material energy (in Sinitic that would be ch'i \/ q\u00ec<\/a>; Japanese ki \/ Korean gi \/ Vietnamese khi \u6c23, which basically means \"gas; vapor\" (see \" Words for anger<\/a>\" [11\/18\/16] — sh\u0113ngq\u00ec \u751f\u6c14 [lit. \"generate qi<\/i>\"']).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

For reference only<\/b><\/p>\n

Etymologists generally are unwilling to trace English \"vapor\" back beyond the Latin word, which they say is \"apparently from a Latin root vap-<\/i>, perhaps 'to give off steam or vapor,' of unknown origin.\" (American Heritage Dictionary<\/a>)\u00a0 For the etymology of Latin \"vapor\", Wiktionary<\/a> states:\u00a0 \"Uncertain, but possibly related to Ancient Greek \u03ba\u03b1\u03c0\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2<\/a><\/i> (<\/span>kapn\u00f3s<\/span>, \u201c<\/span>smoke<\/span>\u201d<\/span>)<\/span> and Proto-Indo-European<\/a><\/span> *k\u02b7ep-<\/a><\/i> (<\/span>\u201c<\/span>to smoke, boil, move violently<\/span>\u201d<\/span>)<\/span>, via an older form *quapor<\/a><\/i> that eventually lost its velar.\"\u00a0 Wiktionary further defines Latin \"vapor\" as:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. steam<\/a>, exhalation<\/a>, vapour<\/a>; smoke<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. warm<\/a> exhalation, warmth<\/a>, heat<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. ardour<\/a> of love<\/a>, warmth<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For q\u00ec \u6c23 (\"gas; vapor; steam; air; breath; spirit; vital \/ material energy\"), Wiktionary<\/a> gives the following Old Sinitic reconstructions:<\/p>\n

    =====<\/p>\n

    Baxter-Sagart \/*C.q\u02b0\u0259p-s\/ (\"cloudy vapors\")\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\/*q\u02b0\u0259t-s\/ (\"to present food\")
    \n<\/span><\/p>\n

    Zhengzhang \/*k\u02b0\u026fds\/\u00a0 <\/span>\/*q\u02b0\u026fds\/ \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    [Thanks to Bill Page and Lynn Knauff]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Nepal (Bhojpur) from 1965-67, I became highly fluent in spoken Nepali.\u00a0 I even dreamed in Nepali. My Peace Corps buddies and I learned Nepali in Columbia, Missouri by the total immersion method, which I describe and demonstrate in this post:\u00a0 \"Learn Nepali\" (9\/21\/16). See also my comments to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178,199,51,117,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etymology","category-grammar","category-morphology","category-pronunciation","category-semantics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39589"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39615,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39589\/revisions\/39615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}