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strange words

N

nad

New Member
This is my second post here and may be what I am about to write has no meaning. But I am just curious to know....
We live close to a mall. My son since he began talking (he is just over 2 yrs now) calls the roof of this mall “githik”. He is steadfast on calling it that, and is consistent about it. The roof of this mall is actually designed to illustrate snow peaked mountains. So it essentially consists of white domes and peaks.
He also calls a butterfly “pahnia”. No matter how much we tell him it’s a butterfly, he doesn’t want to change it. He even substitutes this word in for butterfly in songs. I have written them down as they sound to me when he says them. I was wondering whether these words come from a past life experience, whether anyone knows that these words are from another language and have real meaning. Or may be this is just something kids generally do? It’s just that he has been so consistent with it that I think it must have real meaning somewhere.
Would appreciate it if anyone could help. Thank you!
 
nad said:
...calls the roof of this mall “githik”. He is steadfast on calling it that, and is consistent about it. The roof of this mall is actually designed to illustrate snow peaked mountains. So it essentially consists of white domes and peaks.
He also calls a butterfly “pahnia”.
Click to expand...
Hi Nad! Welcome to the Forum!


Pronunciation is a difficult issue with a toddler, but the closest of any language to what you describe might be French:


enneigés = snow-capped


papillon = butterfly
 
Nad...welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your experience. Like your son, my daughter, when an infant, would call medicine "rareach". Also like your son, she would correct us each time we would mention medicine and firmly correct us. If she was going to take it we would have to correctly identify it!
 
My Mom has the wedding license of me as my Great Grandma, there are pictures of both bride and groom. My name then was Izora. Thankfully my name is more modern now, LOL.
 
"Pahnia" and "Pania" are first names. I think Pania is a mythical figure from New Zealand, IIRC. I can't place "githik", but if it helps, at about that age I called the spinning vents on rooftops "wa-wu". Though I know they're called vents, everytime I see one I still think "wa-wu".
 
I think that the words may be from his spoken language from his most recent past life, as these often are spoken by a child, yet adults so often relegate these utterances as "jibberish" When I was only 3 years old, I also made such utterances, and my mother recorded in my baby book some of them. One word that I said, which is not English, was gumk. When I wanted milk, I would point to the glass and shout, gumk! I recently researched this and discovered that in the German language, the word for drink is getrank. There is a phonetic similarity between gumk and getrank. I think that this connection to language and past life will fade as the child becomes older, however.
 
A good resource for anyone who has the time is the google translate site.


Although there are roughly 6,500 languages, and Google only displays translations for 65 of them, it is often possible to find common roots that give clues to determine whether any utterance belongs to one of several major language groups. Although "Pahnia" is a name most often found in Pakistan and India, we still don't have a meaning that would equate in any way with a butterfly or even insect, except to French, which is the only translation which even remotely comes near to the sound "pahnia". And while guessing at "githic" as meaning either mountain, mountain peak, snow, or snow-capped; I found it interesting that the only remotely similar sound is "enneigés", which means snow-capped and is also French.


Although I do believe that we too often assign baby talk to the realm of "jibberish", I also speculate that much of what we hear from the mouths of our children is just that. After all it is well-known among child development specialists that infants and toddlers are struggling to imitate sounds while often wrongly associating physical things to those sounds as they frantically point to anything that catches their interest, while horribly mincing what they are trying to say.


It is wonderful that we keep our enlightened ears ready to catch a hint of past-life memory from our children. But we should remain critical of such evaluation so as not to run off credulously thinking that we have found proof of something that doesn't exist; for doing so could steer our children into unfounded expectations.
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions.


Yes, exactly Nightrain. I don't want to read too much into this. He just had been too consistent and stubborn about them, I just thought there might be something more to it than just "jibberish". According to my parents, I myself had recited complicated Buddhist stanzas in my sleep when I was about 4.


Interestingly, I found online that in Cebuano "gitik" means tickle and there's a Mount Tickle in Queensland, Australia. I unfortunately couldn't find a picture of it online. And there are Cebuano speakers in Australia because it's a Austronesian language. And interestingly, Pahnia is a very common name in Australia (although I couldn't find a meaning associated with it). It was interesting to see that there's a link to New Zealand there as well. Again, long shot...it all just may mean nothing!
 
Hello Nad, and welcome to the forum! :thumbsup:


Though I can't really be of much help with figuring the languages here, I just wanted to say I find your story fascinating. Keep up writing down everything he says - and keep us updated on anything new!
 
Cont....


Thank-you 'nad' for starting a thread on 'strange words!'


Personally, I remember two "novel" words I used as a young child in describing the following:


* Prums: Waterlogged skin after spending hours in a swimming pool!


* Ginkers: The round towel-holders in our bathrooms. (Ginker sounds like a "made-up" German word -- I strongly feel that I was visiting/working in Germany in the 1950s in my past-life; which I remember mentioning as a deja-vu like feeling to my mother. My mom spent one-year in Germany as a teacher in the late 1950s)


I'm uncertain if my "choice of words" as a young child is related to a past-life. Any additional "novel words" I might recall at a later time may be of interest to possible PLs.


Marc
 
strange words


Hi nad, hope you dont mind me hijacking a little, was looking up the words your little one said.


I was looking where Cebuano was spoken and found it was in the Philipines well, interestingly there is a very old famous butterfly museum there in Cebu. The original founder used to collect butterflies and loved them with a passion.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumalon_Museum,_Butterfly_Sanctuary_and_Art_Gallery


After looking at many butterfly pics he made and generally trying to connect Pahnia to Butterfly, i found the term "Par" is used in many Persian type languages to refer to fluttering, flying, or butterfly"ish" terms. So i then looked for Pania and found this link. Which is even more intersting.


http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/butmoth/search/GenusDetails.dsml?NUMBER=21920.0&FAMILY=LIMACODIDAE&sort=Genus&beginIndex=303&listPageURL=GenusList3.dsml%3FFAMILY%3DLIMACODIDAE%26sort%3DGenus%26beginIndex%3D300&searchPageURL=FamilyList.dsml%3FFAMILY%3DLIMACODIDAE%26sort%3DGenus%26beginIndex%3D300


Hope it helps or raises some more searches for you


Jo
 
Strange words


nad: not trying to direct this anywhere and dont want to create a false trail, but i also found that "Gitti" and/or "Gittik" in Turkish, means we went or we travelled.


Jo
 
nad said:
Interestingly, I found online that in Cebuano "gitik" means tickle and there's a Mount Tickle in Queensland, Australia. I unfortunately couldn't find a picture of it online. And there are Cebuano speakers in Australia because it's a Austronesian language. And interestingly, Pahnia is a very common name in Australia (although I couldn't find a meaning associated with it). It was interesting to see that there's a link to New Zealand there as well. Again, long shot...it all just may mean nothing!
Click to expand...
I don't think Cebuano is related to any native Australian languages and it would only be spoken here by people who have immigrated from the Philippines.


I've never heard of the name Pahnia here, it's definitely not common.
 
Thanks everyone for the great detective work! So very interesting indeed...! Sorry, been a while since I've last visited.


There is one more word that I forgot to add to the list...he calls all labels on cloths or bottles, etc and bills "hathapark". He has used this word since he barely started talking and again, doesn't want to change it. And again, I am really writing it the way I hear it.


And about "gittik", we have noticed lately that he calls any tall structure that is white and cone shaped (like in the pic) by this word.


Anyways, thanks for the info. Really appreciate it.
 
o fascinating! Thanks for sharing.


I found following information regarding Parnia under list of butterflies at:


http://lepidopteraresearchfoundation.org/pdf/pdf32/32-170.pdf


leucospila parnia Fruhs. – o.


o Present initially; not recorded after Evans (1932) and Ferrar (1951);


currently believed extinct


I also found that Parnia means silk in Persian. So Parnia (or pahnia) certainly makes sense for a butterfly.


githik is still a mystery. In persian giti (pronounced as githi, I am sure) means "world" or "universe".


hathapark - In Persian, "parcha" means a message writen on a small piece of paper or fabric - basically label. "dast" ("d" pronounced as "the") means hand. In Urdu, that has come from Persian, "dast" or hand is also called "haath". So dastaparcha or hathparcha may mean a label. But "park" - not sure!


We should keep searching.


AKP.
 
It may mean nothing but I have discovered that " gittik" in Modern Turkish translates to "we went" in Modern English. Google Translate detected "gittik" as being Turkish. I know its not quite the same word as "githik"... but I wonder.
 
I also found out just now that Giti Koh is a mountain range in Balochistan, Pakistan which borders Iran. This is all such a coincidence...
 
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