Thanks, But No Thanks
by Lina Trivedi
July 29, 2007
Several years ago, as I embarked upon an endeavor to expand my Gujarati vocabulary, I would often translate overheard sentences in my head from English to Gujarati. It was a great way to identify words that I did not know. Subsequently, I would ask one of my parents, or a friend how to say the word. One day, I realized that I do not know how to say "thank you" in Gujarati. I proceeded to ask one of my close friends and off the top of her head, she could not recall. "Everyone just says it in English," she told me. I went through a couple people until one of my elders introduced me to the word "aabhar." From what I was told, the usage of this word is somewhat archaic and could potentially get you some weird looks from people that you say it to. I used it anyway. And I did get the weird looks. Being in Madison, Wisconsin, I am lucky to be in one of two cities in the United States that offer college level credit courses in Gujarati. It has been my goal to enroll in a year's worth of credits before I leave Madison. The class is offered in a concentrated 6-week period where you go to class everyday for something like five or six hours. It seems like a great opportunity to learn the language. I have been recruiting friends and family to come down to Madison for six weeks and take the class with me. So far I have one friend who is a dedicated participant in this project of mine (no one really wants to come out to Madison to stay for six weeks when the same class is offered in such an exciting city like Philadelphia). My friend and I will often exchange phrases in Gujarati and he once asked me how to say "thank you" in Gujarati. I explained to him the background of the word and he just laughed. "No wonder your people are so rude, you have entirely eliminated the usage of the word from your language!" His prospective is a little skewed from a job he held in college when he had to interact with a lot of Indians who were constantly trying to barter for discounts, or worse, change tags and insist certain items were on sale knowing that they weren't. Through this experience, his prospective of Indian people are that they are rude and never say "thank you" when you give in to their aggressive tactics to save a few dollars. I can't really defend us there, because I was one time among those Indians who put regularly priced items on the clearance rack and insisted that it should be 50% off. So tacky, I know. I kind of snickered back as he was right. I can't deny being rude, and very often using the phrase "thank you" in appropriately. If you borrow my car and crash it, my response might be something like "Thanks a lot, this is just great" and than after a couple minutes, I might ask if you are okay. When my supervisor at work gives me a big project to do when I am already overworked, my response is usually "thank you" and in my head I will be cussing him out. I think that my use of the word is a little skewed because my first language did not really use it. Perhaps many Indian people are like that. I think of words that were eliminated from the English language. Some words are replaced, such as "thou shalt not" ends up being modernized with other words that are more commonly used. But if you look at words that are just not used anymore, one of the many reasons is because the term was derogatory or offensive with the change of times, or that the term is no longer needed. I really can't understand the motive or rationale behind eliminating "thank you." To me, "thank you" seems like it should be an important phrase that is needed in the language. To only use the term in English, is it not also saying that Gujarati's need English in order to survive or be functional? Why did "aabhar" become outdated? Recently at a friend's gathering, I was served some juice and I said "aabhar." I think more of us need to say it in Gujarati and maybe out word will be resurrected through common usage. She did look at me funny and said it's okay, I can say it in English. Thanks, but no thanks.