The Island of Serendipity

 On Saturday it is my practice to attempt to rise early enough to hear the livestream of the Polish version of the Rosary at Lourdes. As opposed to the other daily languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian), they only do Polish once a week, early on Saturday.  Each one takes a half hour exactly and they go right after the other, except after French, when there a break until Spanish, as the French one is broadcast on television and features additional commentary and voice recordings of people calling in their prayers thanking the Holy Mother.

A couple years back I memorized the Polish version of the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary, learning them painfully syllable by syllable until it rolls off the tongue. Among other things, listening has embedded the sound and rhythm of. Polish into my brain so I pick out more and more of it over time.

This morning I got up earlier than usual and was out on the patio bringing up the livestream and remendered that before the Polish stream, they have been doing a stream from the Indian subcontinent, a language I do not recognize. The priest also speaks English. I know this because he is often the priest who leads the English version at 6 AM my time. He alternates with an African priest. Both have thick accents indicating their respective origins. 

When I saw the 5 AM version, it bothered me that I could not identify the language being spoken. Was it Hindi, or some other language of India, either Indo-European or Dravidian? This morning I listened particularly closely, trying to identify a reliable grouping of coherent syllables. One step at a time. The first words of the prayer came too fast for now, but there was a build up to the end of the phrase that sounded like "pengula lassi". I could hear it distinctly each time through.

Seeing what I could do with that, I went to ChatGPT and told them the situation. I gave them details on the broadcast and the apparent ethnicity of the priest. I asked AI to help me. It told me there are several chapelains at Lourdres who are from Sri Lanka. The language was probably either Tamil (a Dravidian language) or Singhala (an Indo-European language), or perhaps Hindi.

Then I gave ChatGPT that I thought it heard the priest say "pengula lassi" at the end of the first phrase. It said that was great information, and that said that meant it was likely Tamil. But the version ChatGPT offered me of the Hail Mary in Tamil didn't match up with that syllables well (transliterated of course---I can't decipher the Tamil alphabet). I was not satisfied.

Then I resorted to a plain old fashioned Google search to look up the Tamil text of the Hail Mary. Perhaps ChatGPT had a different version? I found this page. Bingo. Tamil text, transliterated, is given as:

Arul niraintha Mariyaa vazhga
Karther ummdena pengalukkul
Asirvathikka pettaval Neeray.
Ummudaya thiruvayattin kaniyakiya
Yesuvum asirvathikka pettavaray.
Archishista Marie Sarvaswaranudaya Mathavay
Pavigalaiya erukkira engalukkaka
eppoluthum engal marana nerathilum vendikollum.

The "arul niraintha" was going by too fast for me to to hear, but once I saw it printed, I knew that's what he was saying. The second line ended with "pengalukkul" which was almost exactly how I'd written down "pengula". But what about "pengula lassi"? Ah, it's on the next line. One think one learns is that one cann ot use the line breaks as pauses, but sometimes entire lines flow together. The beginning of one word sounds like it has been tacked onto the end of a previous word. Very common.

I suppose I will have to memorize this and learn it, as I have done for core Rosary prayers in...let's review...English, Latin, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish. At one time I attempted to learn the prayers in Vietnamese, as they do a Vietnamese Rosary at Lourdes on special occassions, probably when there are a country pilgrims from that country. One can watch the recorded broadcasts. It's good to have multiple ones because even native speakers pronounce things differently.  In any case I didn't succeed because I don't speak a word of Vietnamese, and so I was going on pure syllabic pronunciation as I heard it chanted. Yes, Vietnamese chants it, because it's a tone language. If I made an effort, I could get it. 

So I have yet to be able to do a non-Indo-European language. Tamil might be the best place to start. It's not tonal. Also it's cool to learn a language spoken on the island of Ceylon, which is what it was labeled on maps when I was a kid. I have learned that comes from Ceilão, the name the Portuguese gave the island when they arrived in 1505. Persians and the Arabs had called it Sarandeeb, which the same root as our word serendipity, and which itself comes from Sanskrit. Sri Lanka is the name of the island in Sinhala, the which is the most widely spoken language. The name in Tamil is இலங்கை, which can be transliterared as Ilankai. 

ChatGPT offered to make this chart for me, to follow the broadcast:

Tamil Transliteration	Phonetic (by ear)	English Meaning
Arul niraintha Mariyaa vazhga	Ah-rool nir-ain-tha Ma-ri-yaa vaazh-ga	Hail Mary, full of grace
Karther ummdena pengalukkul Asirvathikka pettaval Neeray	Kar-thar um-mu-dey-na pengaloo-lassi-rva-thikka pet-ta-val Neer-ay	The Lord is with you; blessed are you among women
Ummudaya thiruvayattin kaniyakiya Yesuvum asirvathikka pettavaray	Um-mu-daya thiru-vai-yat-tin kani-yaa-ki-ya Ye-su-vum aasi-rva-thikka pet-ta-va-ray	And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus
Archishista Marie Sarvaswaranudaya Mathavay	Arch-i-shis-ta Ma-ri-yay Sar-vas-va-ra-nu-daya Ma-tha-vay	Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pavigalaiya erukkira engalukkaka	Paavi-gal-aya yeru-kira en-ga-luk-kaaga	Pray for us sinners
eppoluthum engal marana nerathilum vendikollum	Eppo-lu-thum en-gal mara-na nera-thi-lum ven-di-kol-lum	Now and at the hour of our death
Amen	Aah-men	Amen