Script

I’ve started taking a Sanskrit class that the yoga studio; it runs 3 days a week for a month, and the teacher, Laksmeesh, says that 75% of students come out of it able to read the yoga sutras in the original; the other 25%, he said, he can’t do a thing with. I’m not sure which group I’ll fall into, but I’m pleased to add this activity into my course of study here; if I can come out of it even simply better able to pronounce some of the chants we do in Ashtanga, that will be a positive.

I’m also trying to teach myself a little bit of the Kannada language, which is what is spoken here in the province of Karnataka. So far, I’ve committed to memory “Thank-you,” “Please,” “Sorry,” and “My name is David,” although I have no idea really if my pronunciation bears any resemblance to the proper way of saying those words.

Both of these languages use a non-Latin alphabet, whose script is entirely foreign to my experience. It’s strange looking at street signs and having no idea what they say; even in countries I’ve been in where I don’t speak the language—Italy, for instance—I can usually get a general sense of what the words mean; here, though, I can’t even tell the difference between the men’s and ladies’ rooms unless they’ve got English on them (which thankfully, so far, they all have.)

Although my “Simple Kannada by Easy Steps” book

provides a couple lessons in learning the script, the writing seems really opaque to me, even trickier than Sanskrit. Like similar script-based alphabets, the vowels sit on top of the consonants, so it’s especially difficult (for me, anyway) to figure out which letter are which. Makes me feel illiterate, which, I guess, I am.

Of course, I don’t remember learning to read English, but presumably, it took me most of kindergarten through second grade or so to get a handle on it. Perhaps if I stayed here 3 years, then, I could, at least, choose the correct restroom.