A final note: Jargon Wiki

What is required for galeej is best expressed by this highly original wikipedia wiki featured above in a screen shot. The actual site can be visited here.
As the title suggests, it is a wiki of jargon of any kind, with a special focus on hacker lingo, culture and history. As such, without such codification, most hacker lingo is likely to be written of as examples of idiosyncratic use, however, the moment it is codified in such a way, it takes on a whole new meaning, as the special lingo of a particular in group.
In that sense, the way one's lexicon evolves is also affected by such an event. We are likely to disregard words if we consider them idiosyncratic. However, actual codification makes it that much more acceptable and usable, and hence, its entry into our mental lexicon is more easily facilitated.
In that sense, what is jargon? Is it more than just an ingroup register or speech variety, but in fact a site where new words are formed, just as a pidgin is a site where new grammars and unique syntaxes are created? such questions are quite beyond the scope of this blog, but I strongly hold the view that, crudely put, states that jargon: lexis :: pidgin: syntax, and would love to look into this further.

An overall look at galeej, helmetspeak

What I have essentially been trying to do is to prepare a glossary of words that have been used on and off by my friends group and the extended tamil society in National University of Singapore.
Several of these examples might seem unforgivably idiosyncratic and one off, with no hope of a pattern. However, no matter what happens, I always keep finding examples of them popping up in the most random instances.
Moreover, they have a certain logic to them. Words like sig, pakak, helmet are never used in public with other members around. Usualy, they are used only with an audience that can be counted upon to understand.
Also, words like 'entasis' and 'ersatz' pop up only when Arun Bharadwaj is about to blog.
There are hundreds of other words, inspired by tamil movie comedy reels that I have missed out.
One famous word is 'thalaivar' which is basically 'leader' in tamil, and refers to Rajnikanth, a famous superstar actor with a bigger fan following than shah rukh khan
Now no tamilian is going to think of Thalaivar as a strictly english, or strictly tamil word. To him it is just a word symbolising a living presence.
I purposely left these all too famous words out as they are too easy to find instances of.
Above are two images, one of them justifying entasis ersatz entry into this dictionary, another a justification of why thalaivar is too common to be introduced. The second picture is one where a galeej gang member is comparing the much awaiting new post on 'Ersatz' (AB's blog) to a Thalaivar movie release.
The second one is a huge riff on the language used in the infamous 'religious fanaticism' post. As usual, the words have become stuck together. entasis is rarely used without ersatz and ecumenical. There are plenty of other instances where the words from arun bharadwaj's blog have been used to furious comic effect, but I hiope this one example suffices.

Pakak

A word that has been around for several years now but has yet been left undiscussed in this blog is pakak. I was a bit reluctant to use pakak as a discussion point because it is not a word but a kind of ejaculation like 'woah' or 'walau'. In essence, pakak is very much like a boorish cat-call. However, like most galeej words, it becomes more than just a cat call but an adjective to be used for anything that deserves a cat call.
On a side note, one of the reasons why so many of these words are being counted by me as words and not as expressions etc is that so many of them are written. There is something about being printed that makes a collection of letters that much closer to a word in a dictionary than anything else.

Entasis publicity.

above is an example of entasis ersatz being publicized before the latest post....which is expected in a few hours.

Entasis Ersatz

This is probably the most obscure priming possible in any group, which is what makes it so interesting.
The above post is a hilariously obscure rant on religious fanaticism written by one of the members of the galeej gang. So obscure were some of the words used, and so comically basic the grammar in which the post was otherwise written, that the words became famous, so much so that any new post is simply announced by 'its entasis time'
One word that became particularly famous was entasis, and also spawned its own short lived spin off...entasig. Entasis is apparently a convexity built into towers in order to correct for the distortion of sight when people look from the ground.
But Arun Bharadwaj, the writer of this post, used it in an abstract sense in a much quoted line..."When Yugoslavia was dismembered, religious faith was rather an entasis ersatz to the concavity among the population which existed" meaning that religious faith was a rather false or fraudulent thing to fill the void left by the Yugoslavian people's troubles.
Since then, his blog, named Ersatz, has been renamed Entasis Ersatz in the minds of followers.
Again, the number of people who are aware of this runs into hundreds. Arun Bharadwaj's posts are awaited with eager anticipation, people look for the same hilariously exaggerated use of language.
What is remarkable here is that entasis no longer stands for a convexity. It is about AB's blog. In the restricted sense, and in the small set of English words adopted by the Galeej Gang, Entasis stands out as the only one which is remarkable for its obscurity. Its meaning, in Galeej speak, is absurdly simple: it signals anything to do with AB's blog.

Unighted Light Holders

Above is a screenshot of a facebook group created by the galeej gang. The name of the group is 'Unighted Light Holders'. To a person not primed to galeej meanings, it might not make any sense at all. One wonders why united is spelt wrong, why one has to be united while holding the light.
In this instance, the unighted is purely idiosyncratic, though rapidly becoming part of the galeej repertoire, where any misspelling quickly becomes the accepted spelling, as it reminds people of the original gaffe and hence is another cause for amusement.
But the phrase 'Light Holders' is by no means idiosyncratic. It is a direct translation of a Tamil phrase that became common here as an indicator for someone who watches while another man 'corrects a figure' so to speak. So essentially, we are all holding the light when James Bond goes about his business.
This facebook group is a particularly famous instance of it. Later, when we participated in a talent competition, we named our group unighted light holders.

Another instance of self consciousness amongst the galeej...

The above is a screenshot from another pic from the same album.....this is in fact a favourite pastime in facebook...pick out any real life place with the word helmet somewhere (like helmet stand, or helmet area) and then take a pic, and tag all the friends...(if you observe below the photo, u will find the tags...and just to make it even more obvious, I have taken a screenshot with on tag showing up.

There are several more like this one up there....and I could coast on several entries just listing the instances where the community is conscious and even slightly vain about its linguistic innovations.

This is something that needs to be examined further, because it does not much make sense to take pride in something with no political, historical or social relevance. In fact, few of the galeej gang even take this self assumed 'helmet' status too seriously. However, it is and endless source of amusement, of analysis. Not a week goes by without all of us arguing about who is the greater helmet, few months go by without at least on photo like the one above. The last time I went along with them to the West Coast Recreation Centre, we hosted a game of 'Team Fortress'. Guess what the password was. 'sig'

Next week...I shall talk about more words, and by the end of the semester, come up with a glossary that lists as many NUS galeej usages as possible.

more of sig....

This is something that I have noticed only in the speakers of galeej: they seem rather self conscious about their peculiar quiver of words.
this sort of makes sense, because sig is astonishingly famous. Nobody knows why. In fact I decided on this focus for the blog because a first year student from india said he knew all the 'variations on sig'...which sort of astonished me. I thought sig was used by a closed circle of friends....mainly, my friends.
I was mistaken.
Which brings me to the photograph above, which is actually a pic of the NUSSU feedback board...which has a somewhat politically charged statement using sig. This photo was taken by one of my friends....and can be seen on his facebook photoalbum.

http://www.facebook.com/anoj.viswanathan#!/photo.php?pid=9767615&op=2&o=global&view=global&subj=617795658&id=718655430&fbid=333731725430

A senior's blog that uses sig.

The blog can be visited here. http://www.caveadsum.wordpress.com/

The post from which this screenshot is taken can be visited here.

http://caveadsum.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/the-helmet-culprit

Karthik Srinivasan, also known as Isky, is a senior who graduated a year ago.

From another blog, an early write-up on Sig.

This is an extract from a blog maintained by another fourth-year student who wishes to remain anonymous. It was written nearly two years ago, when sig was first making the rounds.

Recent occurence of Sig.

One of the more remarkable qualities of sig is that it can be used in conjunction with other words with no consequences to grammaticality. Lol sig, Life sig, Extreme sig, in all these examples, the word preceding sig modifies it, so much so that there have also been extreme examples like 'Sig sig' (the preceding word need not be capitalised).

If anyone has trouble understanding the post, lol sig means you are laughing at a sig situation.

One such instance is given in this screenshot, taken from reactions to a buzz on March 7th by Nishanth Sudarshanam, a third year galeej boy. Gurucharan is also of the same year. As such they have been in close touch with the gang guilty of creating and popularising sig.

Personal Observation

I hope the previous posts have convinced readers that a globally understood galeej english exists...with words that can be understood anywhere in the world so long as there is a 'galeej boy' around to understand it.
Hence we come to the micro level situation: that is, the state of galeej english in NUS. I am a member of this community and actually wrote two projects on it, teh first one arguing that my friends spoke a jargon, the second one tracing some grammaticalisation patterns in Galeej english.

In that I found several words that were unique to galeej english here (like Helmet) etc. But there is one word that is so versatile, and ubiquitous, that I had to serve it for the post intermission mark ( :) )
That word is........... sig.
I suggest this exercise to anyone who is actually following this blog with an interest in Galeej english. Go approach an Indian student who looks obviously south indian (dark, shy looking and with a slightly lost look) and just say 'sig'. Its a great icebreaker.
Sig is used by almost every south indian in NUS. Note that it is never used by singaporeans, nor by singaporean indians, but it is almost emblematic of the south indian community in NUS.
Sig is basically anything so random and absurd that it is a no-brainer. Suppose you found someone with an absurd haircut, and you didn't quite expect it. You'll say: sig.
How was it born?
There is actually an origin myth to this super word. (I shall establish why it is a super-word in posts that follow, containing observations where it has been used from screenshots of google buzz, facebook and even the occasional blog)
One day, a few south indian boys were playing poker. One of them, Aku Ganaesh, had a bad hand, and bad english to boot. He looked up and asked of his friends, 'Machan how do you pronounce S-I-G-H?' They, not wanting to miss out on the obvious fun, asked him 'How do you think it is pronounced?' and he said 'Sig'
Thusly was Sig born.
It is used, essentially, for any situation so absurd, such a no-brainer, that it is reminiscent of this slightly hallucinatory moment. Can you imagine a university student from India, who passed the qualifying english test, and who also had to write two advanced english papers in India, think that S-I-G-H was pronounced 'sig?'
Do not assume that all Indians have a similar, nominal command of the language. They do not. However, sig has become a classy example of nativisation, in fact, a hilarious and almost too-good-to-be-true example. Often the simplificatory explanations of language variation posit that words change because they are 'mis-heard', sometimes even pronunciatory difficulties change the word's pronunciation. Sig is like an absurd example of the same. In fact, it is a very sig example of the same. :)
The following 3 posts will track real life occurences of the same.

A blogger attempts to cast Shakespeare into Tamil English

This is one of the funniest tanglish related posts in the blogosphere. Unfortunately few non-tamil people can actually understand the humour involved. The post can be read here
http://krishashok.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/shakespeare-in-louww/
One of the things to be observed is that the madras bashai, or the tamil english is heavily tamil influenced, with barely a few english words. See if you can make out the english words in these speech balloons.

Another encyclopedia entry regarding Tanglish

This is an encyclopedia entry for Tanglish, source can be clicked on

Encyclopedia > Tanglish

Madras bashai (also known as Madras Tamil and informally as Tanglish) is a language spoken in the city of Chennai, India. It is a loose polyglot blend of Tamil and English, with some loan words from Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. The term literally means "Madras language" in Tamil.

Many linguists classify it as a dialect of Tamil, but some debate exists over whether this is a valid classification. Specifically, Madras bashai tends to use English words for nouns and non-trivial verbs, and Tamil for prepositions and conjunctions. Its grammar however is not easily categorized into one or the other. It does not qualify as pidgin English (or Engrish) since it does not use English grammar rules or prepositions, nor is it a result of an unsuccessful attempt to speak correct English.

• Beku - Imbecile. Pronounced like English "bake u".
• Figuru - Attractive woman. From English "figure", as in "She's got a good figure".
• Gaali - Sealed, as in "His fate is sealed". From Tamil, originally meaning "empty".
• Joadreppai - Cobbler. Etymology unknown, but possibly from Hindi joota (shoe) and English "repair".
• Jollu - To ogle attractive women. From Tamil for "saliva", implying salivation.
• Joot - Get started. Pronounced exactly like the English "jute". Etymology unknown.
• KD - Petty crook. From English "known defaulter", older Chennai police terminology.
• Kaiyendhi Bhavan - Roadside food vendor, equivalent to a hotdog stand in the US. From Tamil for "hand-to-mouth restaurant". Not necessarily pejorative. Compare "Muniyandi Vilas".
• Kalakaradhu - To impress with one's performance. From Tamil, literally "to mix", "to stir".
• Kasmaalam - Synonymous with "idiot", possibly from Sanskrit kash malam (black hair)
• Leevu - Holiday. From English "leave".
• Lollu - Anything unpleasant. From Tamil for the sound made by a dog (analogous to "bow wow" in English). Probably a neologism from a Satyaraj movie.
• Lollu party - Unpleasant person, especially one's boss at work.
• Machi - Synonymous with "dude". Cannot be used with strangers. Etymology unknown.
• Mama velai - Pimping, both literally and figuratively. From Tamil for "uncle job".
• Military hotel - Restaurant that serves non-vegetarian food.
• Mineema - Female equivalent of "Muniyandi".
• Muniyandi - Economically backward male, implying a degree of unsophistication and uncouthness.
• Muniyandi Vilas - Low grade restaurant. Pejorative. Compare "Kaiyendhi Bhavan".
• Naina - A negative version of "dude", used to imply criticism. Can also be used with strangers. Probably a corrupted version of Telugu Nana (father).
• OB adikaradhu - To waste time. OB is pronounced as the individual letters O and B. Etymology unknown.
• Outte - Same as "Gaali". From English "out", used in the context of cricket or other sports.
• Paal mararadhu - To switch camps, to betray a confidence. From Tamil, "to change milk".
• Phosphata - Same as "Sulphata".
• Poramboku - Orphaned, abandoned. Used as an abuse for bad driving.
• Rowdy - Ruffian. Means the same in English, but used much more commonly in India.
• Rowdy-sheet - The rap sheet of a rowdy known to the police.
• Rowdy-sheeter - A rowdy who has a rowdy-sheet.
• Saavugraaki - Same as "Naina", but stronger sentiment. Uncertain origin.
• Sight adikaradhu - Same as "Jollu". From English sight and Tamil adikaradhu, "to beat".
• Sulphata - Cheap liquor that may contain methanol. Asking someone if they've had sulphata implies that they are severely uncoordinated.
• Voodu - House. From Tamil "veedu", meaning house.
• Vootle solltiya? - From Tamil, literally "Have you told [people] at home?". Connotes "Did you take leave of your loved ones when you left home?". Indicates really bad driving on the other person's part, and implies that he may not make it home alive.

These words and phrases may of course be strung together. For instance:

"Naina! Vootle solltiya? Saavugraaki!". By calling the other person "naina" and asking him whether he has taken leave of his loved ones, the speaker indicates that his interlocutor is driving in a very unsafe manner. The speaker uses "saavugraaki" to emphasize the point, and thus asserts his superior driving skills in the situation.

A large part of Madras bashai is devoted to cursing other drivers on the road.

Grammar

The following examples illustrates the difference between Madras bashai, English and Tamil:

English	Tamil	Madras bashai
Go fast! (Verb Adverb)	Vegamaa po! (Adverb Verb)	Speeda po! (EnglishNoun TamilVerb)
Go straight! (Verb Adverb)	Nera po! (Adverb Verb)	Seedhava po! (HindiAdverb TamilVerb)

Questions with yes/no answers are framed by saying the statement whose truth is to be verified (using the participle if necessary) and then saying "aa" at the end with a rising inflexion like a question. If the statement already ends in an "aa" or other interfering vowel sound, then the questioning "aa" can be made "vaa" in the interest of euphonics.

English	Madras bashai
Are you ready?	Ready-aa?
Did you sleep? ("Have you slept?")	Slept-aa?
Is it OK?	OK-vaa?

Some people tend to carry the "-aa" even into full English conversations from force of habit.

Another observation on south indian english.

I quote from another blog, where there is a lot of discussion about several dialect words.

Cycle Gap: Tamil for trying to get things done without anyone noticing it. (Wikipedia page on Madras Tamil)

'Cycle gap' provides a metaphor in South Indian English for an indigenous brand of opportunism. Where others may give up, a certain type of individual will discover a narrow window of opportunity and try to squeeze through. If he succeeds, chances are he'll also try to pull in all his friends, brothers, parents, uncles and what-have-you after him, and a mad scramble will result, till someone notices and slams the window shut. Hence, the local Chennai idiom, 'to try and squeeze an auto-rickshaw through a cycle gap'.

The following examples illustrate the figurative sense of the term:
See, we are a cycle gap country. If judgements and policies are not watertight and leave a crack in the door for exceptional cases. We will attempt to drive a 18 wheeler through that gap. (Reality Check India)

My cousin was here last week, looking to sneak through the proverbial “cycle-gap” in the hallowed doors of TCS, CTS, Wipro, Satyam and Infosys which would make her the financially pampered, mentally tortured, socially showcased, BIG 5 IT professional. (ExpertDabbler)

The interesting thing about cycle gap is that it is now widely used in films, and in the everyday conversations we hear. These examples from blogs are not very useful.....they show its use in English constructions, in which they are used as idiomatic expressions with the marker 'proverbial'. But when used in Tamil constructions, it becomes a metaphor.
'Cycle gap la poondhu panam vangitaya?'
Did you sneak through the cycle gap to get your money back?

'galeej' words in a wider context - blogs by tamil speaking indians

Let me introduce the concept of galeej here before making my two observations for the week.
The first is a blog that has an informal discussion of galeej terms. Given above is a screenshot of the discussion featured.

Introduction and some preliminary observations.

Greetings to anyone who is reading this blog. It's a part of my assessment for a module on lexicography and lexicology, and will catalog some of my observations on the dialect/jargon spoken by my close friends at the National University of Singapore, where I am doing a course in English Language.
I have been late in setting up the blog, and there must be two observations per week, hence, I shall write one blog post summarising both my observations.
Wanted to start of the blog with something that has been an obsession of sorts for me for quite a long time: the jargon/dialect spoken by my Indian Tamil friends at NUS.
They are mostly engineering students from Chennai and other Tamil Nadu towns. Their language is rich with tamil words and more importantly, tamil slang words. Tamil slang is itself replete with several english words that suffer meaning shifts to mean things hardly intended originally. The Indian tamils at NUS have not been behind in adding new words to this cauldron of Tamil, English and even the odd Hindi word. Here are some, and some instances of their usage. This slang, often known as Madras Tamil, or Thanglish (Tamil + English) is largely spoken by Chennai youths. These are the two things I have observed, one is universal to all Madras Tamil speakers, another is specific to NUS students.
1) Figure: an attractive girl. This is from the heartland, almost every tamilian in NUS, even the Singaporean Tamils will tell you what this means. In fact, its about time to give you this valuable link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madras_Tamil
figure is used quite frequently in Tamil films to refer to the woman the hero has fallen in love with. The word figure, referring to an attractive girl probably evolved from the fact that attractive women usually have good figures..
2) Helmet: This is one word that is entirely restricted to NUS Tamil Indians. A 'helmet' in NUS Indian Tamil parlance, is someone who might as well be wearing a helmet for all the attention he gets from 'figures', and all the attention he gives them. Helmet has barely spread beyond the confines of the Tamil gang in NUS. Here is an instance of its use in facebook. http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=rushi+padhuman&init=quick#/photo.php?pid=709993&id=227701264
This was a snarky response to the twee smiley collections that fb users were tagging with names of friends, like so.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1356711&op=1&o=global&view=global&subj=718125373&id=512269319
Since most of the smiley tagging was being done by girls, it was only natural to respond with the helmet assortment.
The concept of priming, is significant here. Both words have acquired meanings in slang that are not available in standard English. As such for speakers of madras tamil, they recall things other than what they refer to. If one were to conduct a priming experiment with one group of confirmed Madras Tamil speakers and non madras tamil speakers, and have the word helmet precede the word figure, the madras tamil speakers would pick up the word with far greater frequency.
I am yet to tease out the far reaching implications of this idea, but one thing that does come to mind: if jargon words are special cases of priming, that is, where often very small groups are primed for certain word pairs, wouldn't it be useful as a test for collocation in general? We cannot easily trace the origin of collocations, but perhaps we can see how collocations slowly begin to form over a period of time by examining a group of jargon users?
Going further, can we say that just as pidgins are useful for the study of language's whose grammar is in the making, perhaps jargon is lexicon in the making?
Would appreciate your comments on this.