I’m coming!!!

‘Today I go,’ I said, almost in a whisper. ‘Today I leave.’

‘No goodbye,’ replied the Khazi, putting his arms around my waist and hugging me tightly. ‘Kalasha, no word, goodbye. You coming man again.’

- Jonny Bealby, For A Pagan Song

It isn’t just the Kalasha people it seems, but a whole lot of other people as well who supposedly don’t have a word for ‘goodbye’ in their vocabulary. A lot of us Indians too fall into that category. And at first glance, it seems to be more the peoples in the Deccan and south. Of course, hit me if I’m wrong.

I remembered a rather polite rickshaw wallah (a rare breed) from a few days ago, who was very chatty all the way and after dropping me home and having been paid, asked me in Hindi ‘आऊँ क्या?’ /aːũː kjaˑ/, literally meaning ‘Should I come?’ Though it’s rather non-standard usage in Hindi, it seemed to be a direct translation of the Marathi ‘येऊ का’ /jeːuˑ kaˑ/, ‘Should I come’. Quite obviously, since in Marathi culture, it’s impolite to tell someone that you’re going or leaving, which would imply that you’ve been dissatisfied with their company or that they’ve upset you in some way.

In other words, you have to specify that you are going to come back (eventually, but you’re coming back). So when you leave, you say that ‘you’re coming’!

Similar examples are found in Kannada and Tamil, which are somewhat familiar languages to me.

In Kannada, to the person who’s leaving, one says ‘ಬನ್ನಿ’ /bənni/ - ‘come’ and the person who’s leaving says to the person who’s staying ‘ಬರ್ತಿನಿ’ /bərt̪ini/ ‘I will come’. No sign of a ‘goodbye’ anywhere.

Similarly in Tamil -
Person who’s leaving - வரேன் /ʋərɛ̃ː/
Person who’s staying - வாங்க /ʋaːŋɡɔ/ or வாரங்க /ʋaːrəŋɡɔ/

Note that all these terms are considered to be used in a slightly formal/polite atmosphere. Your bum chum (at least in India) wouldn’t give a rat’s ass whether you said ’bye to him or not. If anything, you’d probably say something like ‘/cəl/’ (lit. ‘move’ or ‘run’, but in this context more like ‘OK then’) and leave.

I can think of similar such words in Gujarati (આવજો /aːʋ(ə)ɟoˑ/ ‘come’) and Telugu (వస్తాను /ʋəst̪aːnu/ ‘I will come’). But to me the whole phenomenon still seems a southern Indian one. Can’t think of, say, Hindi ‘आइए’ /aːi(j)e/ ‘come’ being a natural ‘goodbye’ word in that language. What about Bengali? And what about Sinhala or Tibetan? Any inputs?

Do note that all the aforementioned languages technically do have words for ‘goodbye’, such as the Sanskrit-derived /n̪əməst̪eˑ/, /n̪əməskaːr/ and their variants, or the Persian-derived /xʊd̪aˑ ɦaːfɪz/. However, I’d say that their usage on a day-to-day level in the southern Indian languages is relatively less than in northern Indian ones. For example, someone from UP would use /n̪əməst̪eˑ/ much more freely as a parting than someone from say, Andhra. Or for that matter, a Pakistani Punjabi would say /xʊd̪aˑ ɦaːfɪz/ much more naturally than a Bengali would.

Post a comment if you think otherwise.