Tenson bhayo

Is tenson the new समस्या?

Yesterday evening, over a cup and a half of orthodox green tea at Patan, my friend Yugant and I were talking about language shifts and what that means for the language-speaking community.

The question at hand was - "does the introduction of words such as tenson limit the capacity of the Nepali language?"

This is quite a difficult question to answer but a perfect one to muse on.

First, we have to analyze what the word tenson means and what word is it substituting. Yugant pointed out that whenever we say tension, we often lengthen the स sound. That’s because we are not using tension as the noun it is (in English, at least) but as a mix of adjective and noun. How?

What is the function of an adjective? One of its function is to describe or give quality to the noun that it is referring to. Tenson does not really mean समस्या but rather whenever we stretch the स sound, the meaning approaches closer to धेरै समस्या or निकै समस्या. धेरै and निकै function as adjective as they are quality-describing words. This means that we have managed to substitute two words with two grammatical functions into one. That is, fellow reader, linguistic innovation.

Therefore, I posit that new words like टेन्सन do not actually limit linguistic expression but open up possibility for new linguistic possibilities.

We had thought of another word सिफारिस which is often used in bureaucratic scenarios. The word came to the Nepali language from Urdu, perhaps during the rise of the Mughal empire in the Indian subcontinent. We do not have debates about whether words like सिफारिस limit linguistic expression because we are so removed form the etymological background of the word.

Meaning, hundred years down the line, Nepali speakers might not even think about टेन्सन as an English word but a Nepali one. Language keeps on changing, as it always has. Be it Nepali or English.

Americans in Silicon Valley now have their own spiritual gurus, their economic pundits, and do yoga five times a week. If guru, pundit, and yoga can be English words, why can’t टेन्सन be a Nepali word?