The Longest Word in Hindi/Tamil/Malayalam/Bengali/Oriya etc.

[mala]

The longest word in English is not antidisestablishmentmontaryism nor is it supercalifragulisticexpialidocious, but rather it is pneumonultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

The longest word in Hindi is _____________ ?
The longest word in Tamil is ______________?
The longest word in Bengali is_____________?

etc.

If you know the answer, post it here! Define it as well.

[paok]

Can't help with those.
The question reminded me of something else though.
Longest word in the world is the name of a location in Wales.
Maybe someone who's been there can help and post it.
 Out of curiosity how it compares to Hindi and other subcontinent languages,it would be fun to know the length

[Dil Deewana]

I don't know about Wales nor the longest word in Hindi (Swami Avalokiteshwara sounds fairly long) but I would bet you that your Wales town is not as long as the full name of Bangkok:

Krungthepmahanakorn Amornrattanakosin Mahintrayuthaya Mahadilokpob Noparat Rajataniburirom Udomrajanivej Mahasatharn Amornpimarn Awatarnsatis Sakatadtiya Wisanukamprasit

I think this is officially the city with the longest name in the world, and in Thai there are no word boundaries in written language. Also, as you can see, this name is really of indian orgigin:

Krungthep maha (great) nakorn (really written nagor, from nagar, city) and I'm sure one can find many more Sanskrit roots. The Thai alphabet aligns with Devanagary, you know ...

[paok]

I'm pretty confident that the name of the town in Wales is in the Guiness Book of Records.
I had seen it years ago and was a few lines long

[maxqnz]

I'm pretty confident that the name of the town in Wales is in the Guiness Book of Records.
I had seen it years ago and was a few lines long

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the Welsh one, but it's not as log as the name of hill 80 km from me:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu

[Dil Deewana]

So, Krungthepmahanakorn... is still the longest. 

[maxqnz]

So, Krungthepmahanakorn... is still the longest. 

Well yes, and no. It's probably also worth noting that most listings of Krungthep do break it up, not spelling it as one word.

[panjabigator]

thought I'd revive this thread...anyone know the answer? I can look in my dictionary next time Im bored!

[panjabigator]

offhand I assume it is some sanskritism....

[Dil Deewana]

offhand I assume it is some sanskritism....

what is some sanskritism? Krungthepmahanakorn... certainly is. Maha Nagar.

[panjabigator]

offhand I assume it is some sanskritism....

what is some sanskritism? Krungthepmahanakorn... certainly is. Maha Nagar.

I meant, the longest word in hindi and other indic languages is probably the some sanskrit loan word (tatsam I think).

that thai city's name is pretty long!  And I can see the indic influence on it.  I wonder if they can understand hindi any...

[blondgirl]

They definitely don't understand Hindi

[blondgirl]

They definitely don't understand Hindi.  That's like asking if English speakers understand German or Spanish (without any knowledge of the language).  Actually, its even more different from that.

I can tell you that Khmer (Cambodian) language is derived from one native to India, but it has long since changed.  That is the only (mainland) SE Asian country to have been influenced by India.  But still, they can't understand Hindi either.

[Dil Deewana]

They definitely don't understand Hindi.  That's like asking if English speakers understand German or Spanish (without any knowledge of the language).  Actually, its even more different from that.

I can tell you that Khmer (Cambodian) language is derived from one native to India, but it has long since changed.  That is the only (mainland) SE Asian country to have been influenced by India.  But still, they can't understand Hindi either.

Actually the language isn't at all "derived" from an Indic language. At least Thai isn't and I would be surprized if Khmer was. What is derived is the writing system and with that comes a huge load of load words. This is happening with any more primitive culture that is getting a big cultural infusion from outside. It happened with Korea from China, and then with Japan from China&Korea, and it happened with the whole of Southeast Asia from India, probably with the spread of Buddhism around the time of Asoka or after. But that is also pretty close to the time when India has learned writing. Panini's day's can't be dated exactly but it is between the 7th and the 4th century BC. There is indication that the Brahmi script, which is the mother of it all, has relationship with semitic script, perhaps phoenician through Persia.

Anyhow, the presence of loanwords doesn't make Thai an Indic language as the presence of Chinese loanwords doesn't make Japanese  related to Chinese. The original language contributes the whole grammatical framework and even the phonetic inventory. That way, the Japanese didn't really adopt the tonal nature of Chinese and neither did Indic manage to obliterate the tonality from Thai. Also, the indic writing doesn't seem to fit the Thai language very well at all. It's extremely difficult to understand the relationship between letters and sounds and tones in Thai. Original Thai words are short, few syllables, fewer inflection, but tonal distinction; Indic writing is better for polysyllabic, and rich inflected grammar, like Japanese. But Japanese in turn adopted the Chinese writing which did not fit their language very well. Given that Thai is related with Lao and that is related somewhat with some southern Chinese dialects, you'd think that Thais should have adopted Chinese writing with lot more ease and Japanese instead should have adopted Indic writing with much more ease. But that's not what happend. Strange coincidences of history

On the other hand, I have a book here where the author builds a theory around phonenologic control and shows how we can think that even the tonality in Thai is derived from Indic. He says that the aspiration of consonants interacts with the vocal cord tension and that this explains the tonal structure. That would mean that the relationship with Thai and Indic would be much deeper rooted, which I am still a little doubtful of.