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BILANS, TRILANS, HIENS, CHENS AND More.  

Here is another set of words. I have named them “BILANS”. These are words where the exact sound of the word means an entirely different thing in another language. As you will see, the number of these sets is huge as you can pick any two languages and play with the words. The set below has been made using English and Hindi as the two languages. I call these words “HIENS”.(From Hindi and English).So you now see that a Hien is one type of a Bilan. Now, one can make many such combinations. One can get even more creative and have Trilans (three languages) and really go for it with a Quadlan. The tricky bit, of course, is not to cheat. The sound has to be absolutely exactly the same. As an example, I toyed with the Hien (MYSTERY = Tailor) but the sound is not quite there. Even closer is (MUTTER = Pea) but one has to mutter the word and it is also not really perfect. Anyway, here are a few true HIENS. I am sure you can come up with more. I have also tried to give the word a new definition based on the two meanings in the two languages for some fun and some assistance to my Tamilian friends who may have forgotten their Hindi. Enjoy:

HIENS (Words where the sound means different things in English and Hindi) :

    1. BUS = Completed transport?.
    2. COME = Less Arrivals?
    3. ROGUE = A Scoundrel of a disease.
    4. CHAR = Four Burns.
    5. MULL = Hmmmm… mixed thoughts?
    6. GULL = Melted bird.
    7. NULL = Empty Tap?
    8. PULL = Draw Bridge?
    9. RUNG = Colorful Step
    10. THUS = Hence, this HIEN is placed here.
    11. FOOL = Just a silly Flower.
    12. POLL = Secret Ballot (This one is my personal favorite)
    13. HUM = Team Yodeling.
    14. GOATEE = Game for the bearded
    15. PULLING = Attracted to the male gender?
    16. SUNG = a Duet?
    17. HULL = The Naval Solution?
    18. CHORE = The weekend thief of time.
    19. MORE = another bird?

    Now that you see where this can lead, one can create ENTAS. An ENTA is, of course, a BILAN in English and Tamil. A good example is (KNEE = You).

    Create havoc with HITAS (Hindi and Tamil). Good examples are PAAL (To “ rear” in Hindi and “ Milk” in Tamil) and YAAR (“Who’s my buddy?” to make the clue a bit cryptic).

    One can even learn Chinese with this technique and here are some CHENS ( A BILAN in English and Chinese). WOE = I, EYE = Love and KNEE = You. So, how do you say I love you in Chinese?. Easy! WOE EYE KNEE.

    Having got “ THUS” far, I started looking for TRILANS (Three languages) And here is a ENHITA (English, Hindi, Tamil) in the word PAR:
    PAR = Average in English
    PAR = “ To cross” in Hindi.
    PAR = “ To see in Tamil”

    Finally, saturated with all these sounds, I could not think straight anymore but somehow managed to eke out a single QUADLAN (Four Languages) and created a SPENHIFR (Spanish, English, Hindi and French) in the word SEE or SEA meaning “ Yes” In Spanish, “ as” In Hindi and “ if” in French. Phew!!

    Finally, even though it is a bit of cheating and the sound is not quite there, I could not resist without finishing off with an ENPU (English and Punjabi). It is in bold in the following sentence:

    I have wanted to write this for a long time and hooray, finally, CAR ditta.

    Sundaram “ Sundy” Srinivasan.


    Copyright ©2003 Sundaram Srinivasan

     

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