Saturday, April 5, 2008

My Home Person

Here there are different ways to show respect to people.  One is by not calling them by name.  

I asked my language teacher about what to call Joe when I am with a local female friend.  I asked if it is best to refer to him as "my husband" as opposed to "Joe".  (I know for Joe in most situations as he talks to local men he will not say my name in their presence but only refer to me as "my wife".).  The teacher said that saying "my husband" is good.  He did tell us that another option that village people use is to not even use "my husband", but "mera ghar wala".  The translation being "my home person".   Joe and I both had a chuckle that we can officially call each other "my homie".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

haha. is there a translation for "homie" in Urdu?

Ellen Mary D said...

Can you add on "Home Boy" and "Home Girl"? This would be a nice way to combine both languages and cultures, bridg-ifying the gaps in communication?

Tomas Dias said...

My brush painting teacher Gong Shoo was just telling the class that in China it would be unthinkable for her students to call her Shoo as we do. She is only addressed in chinese as "teacher". She also gave me a nice carpet which may become my new sofa per your previous post.