Amusing Language Names

[Creyeditor]

Has anyone mentioned Bats yet?

[Pabappa]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_language . spoken near https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_language .

[Vijay]

I think these count— Bembe, Mesme, Khalkha— as the middle consonant would have to be represented with a virama (vowel-canceling diacritic).

I think this depends on whether conjuncts are considered single graphemes or not. My intuition is to say that they are, but I'm not sure what the consensus in the Indic-script-using world is.

Personally, I'm tempted to say this depends on the specific Indic script in question, although that's probably for completely silly reasons, tbh.

(re Malayalam)

But for that matter, it's only a palindrome in languages that use the Roman alphabet anyway.

Which leads to the question— which languages have names that would be palindromic in an Indic script? That is, which are palindromic at the syllable level?

Despite CV-only patterns being very common in language names, this turns out to be quite rare.

Boringly, there are two-syllable reduplications: Fefe, Bebe, Gogo, Mimi, Sisi, Roro...

I think these count— Bembe, Mesme, Khalkha— as the middle consonant would have to be represented with a virama (vowel-canceling diacritic).

I was about to give up when I found one nice three-syllable name: Saposa. But I may have missed some!

Khalkha would definitely work at least in Malayalam. Saposa would probably work, too, as long as you consider പ്പോ one character instead of 2-4.

Well, if one can write 'Bembe' as ബെൔബെ , that might give you a Malayalam palindrome.

That would be pronounced [beˈmɯbe]. [ˈbembe] would be ബെംബെ or perhaps even ബെമ്പെ.

The only time I have ever seen native speakers of any Indic language give an example of a palindrome in an Indic language (possibly but not necessarily their native language) is in the context of the story of Tenali Ramakrishna: He worshiped Kali until she appeared before him, then, to her surprise, laughed instead of being scared. He explained that this was because she had several heads but only two hands, so what would she do if she caught a cold? She also laughed and dubbed him Vikaṭakavi 'witty poet', which is a syllabic palindrome (which in turn is presumably why she chose this particular title).

Personally, I think it's easier to see the palindrome in Kannada (ವಿಕಟಕವಿ) or Telugu (వికటకవి) than in Malayalam (വികടകവി), in which I originally read this version of the story. I read the story originally in English, but it didn't have the title in it, from what I recall.

Not all Indic scripts are weird like Devanagari.

What’s weird about Devanāgarī?

Half forms

What is weird about that? These are common in Indic scripts...

and making their use or non-use a matter of spelling.

This is a matter of spelling? I thought that was just phonology.

Most Brahmic scripts subordinate the subsequent consonants of the cluster, with the exception of a couple of light-weight letters that float to the top and allow the next consonant to take the base position.

Maybe this is just a distinction without a difference to me. What difference does it make whether the half-forms are placed below the consonant or to its left or right? They are still half-forms.

Similarly, most Brahmic scripts are open to the idea of multiple vowels in an akshara

?