Category Archives: Linguistics

Children’s Laughter

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Like the blissful songs of morning birds,

Like the joyful voices of singing cherubs,

Like the silvery droplets of the wooded cataracts,

And like the tinkling of silver bells,

Children’s laughter reached my ears and soul

And I welcomed it as parched earth during drought

Soaked in the first drizzle of the Monsoon rains,

Refreshing and rejuvenating,

My ailing heart with its plethora of aches,

Torn memories and fruitless dreams .

I woke to the plays of my grandchildren

And shook of my lethargy and doldrums

To face living another day.

*After listening to Aliyah’s laughter

Malayālam

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From the Dravidian stock emerged the versatile and prolific language of Malayālam, one of the two official state languages of Kerala, English being the other one.  The language is a happy blend of  the simplicity of Tamil and the dignity of Sanskrit and, in a flexible and receptive style similar to that of English, enriched itself with a vocabulary culled from numerous languages.  Spoken by thirty-five million people, it is ranked eighth according to the number of speakers and is one of the twenty-two official languages of  modern India.

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The Perfect Prayer

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“Our Father” is a prayer that transcends time and answers all the exigencies of our existence.  The structure of the prayer is perfect.  The first part is an expression of a desire to partake in the Glory of God, which is seen as the ultimate end of existence.  The second consists of  a plea for divine help in obtaining what is needed for sustenance and the removal of all obstacles such as sin, temptation, and temporal evils from the  path directed to reach the sublime goal of beatitude. This perfect prayer is not filled with demands and requests. In the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Eucharist, immediately after the Consecration and before the breaking up of the Species, the celebrant invokes Our Lord’s Prayer.  All across the globe, palms are held up in supplication and the most memorable of all prayers ascends in heartfelt renditions in a multitude of languages.

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