- That was very beautiful- - Wow, amazing.
- And I understood maybe a hair of it.
- I understood zero percent of that.
(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Swasti.
- Hi, I'm Jenny.
- And today we're going to be identifying Indian languages.
- This might be really embarrassing,
but we'll see. (laughs)
- I don't know that I'm gonna do that well
just cause there's so many languages
- There's a lot - THere's twenty-two, I think,
official languages.
- So I'm Indian and Filipino and I grew up speaking English.
My mom speaks Ilonggo and Tagalog, and my dad speaks Hindi,
but mostly Gujarati.
- That's four languages!
- I know, I know and I didn't get to learn any of them.
Just basic words.
- My parents are from Andhra Pradesh,
and they taught me Hindi and English growing up.
All right, I guess let's bring person number one in.
- Yeah, let's give it a try.
- I don't wanna offend anyone.
- All right, so we're gonna blindfold ourselves
to heighten our senses.
- I'm so anxious already. - (laughs)
(whimsical music)
- Hi, (speaking in Telugu) - Hello.
- Ooh.
(Sumana laughs)
That's very pretty.
- Thanks! (giggles)
- Can you say more things?
- Mhmm!
(speaking in Telugu)
- It sounds really nice!
And I really wish I could understand more of it.
(Sumana laughs)
Also she has a great voice, so. (laughs)
- So soothing honestly.
- Yeah very soothing voice.
It's definitely not Gujarati,
and I don't think it's Hindi,
so that narrows down not very much.
- So I have friends who speak Kannada,
and I don't wanna say it sounds similar
if this is not similar at all.
(speaking in Telugu)
- I didn't understand any of that goddammit!
- Uh, Bengali?
- I'll also go with Bengali.
- [Producer] What makes you think that?
- Absolutely nothing.
(Sumana laughs)
- She said-- - She said states.
- Yeah, she said states so.
And that doesn't really help.
- Hey. (laughs) - [Swasti and Jenny] Hey.
- So the language I was speaking was Telugu.
(buzzer sounds) - Dammit I was,
that's what I thought maybe, ugh.
- Crap.
- Yep. (all laugh)
- I have friends from South India
- Oh, okay.
- And they do speak Kannada,
and it does sound kinda similar.
Is there any sort of like overlapping similarity?
- So, the four languages in South India
that are primarily spoken
Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam
and they are all in like four states around there.
I lived in India for a couple of years
and when you go to school there
they like force you to learn
three languages pretty like fluently.
But right now I would say I am
only like confident in English and Telugu.
So one way to say goodbye in Telugu is vellostha,
which means like I'll see you again later.
- [Swasti And Jenny] Vellostha.
Or vellostham which means we'll come back,
like we'll see you again later.
- [Swasti And Jenny] Vellostham.
(all laugh)
- Vellostha.
(upbeat music)
- Hi, (speaking Hindi)
(Swasti speaking Hindi)
(Neha speaking Hindi)
- This is Hindi.
- Yep, Swasti is responding.
(Swasti and Jenny laugh)
And she said she could speak Hindi so. (laughs)
I'm gonna go with that.
- Hello. - Hi, yay!
(all laugh)
Exciting, you got it!
(bell dings) - We got it, we got one.
- Oh perfect.
Perfect, we love to see it.
A lot of our family still lives back in India
so we don't have a ton of family who lives in the US.
And so we feel FOMO with all our other
family members always hang out.
So I always go back to see
like my cousins and my grandparents
and it's super fun and so I think my Hindi
is definitely like improved 'cause
growing up I just went a ton.
- You were saying like the bigger words,
you know 'cause I speak conversationally
but you have like obviously a much more
rooted sense of it than I do.
- Aw thanks you know it was my mom
we're in my uber this morning where I was like
mom how do I say like national government,
how do I say like 44 and she was like
okay now calm down like you're gonna be fine.
So I don't actually speak like this great
so shout-out to my mom.
- How do you say nice to meet you in Hindi?
- Aapse milke khushee hui.
- Op-car mil-whey kush-eway?
- Close enough!
(Jenny laughs)
Bye it was so nice to meet you!
- [Swasti and Jenny] Bye!
- So nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too!
(soothing music)
- Hi!
- [Swasti and Jenny] Hello.
- How are you guys?
- [Swasti and Jenny] Good thanks.
- I'm good. (speaking in Bengali)
- That was very beautiful. - Wow.
- And I understood maybe a hair of it.
- I understood zero percent of that.
- (speaking in Bengali)
- You know what's weird I understand some of it.
- Oh yeah?
- There's a bit of it,
I feel like I'm,
- What are you understanding?
- I'm understanding pasha is language,
someone was eight your little brother,
chota bhai that overlaps a little with Hindi,
Urdu is something I think of,
but this doesn't sound to me like Urdu.
But I could be wrong cause like what do I know.
- They all sound very similar.
- Yeah I know that's!
- They're like dialects.
- But also you said that the place where it's spoken
has an overlap with the name itself of the language.
Is what the, so that's why I'm like
maybe this is Ben,
maybe this is Bengali!
- Um, yeah let's go with that.
(Swasti and Jenny laugh)
- Hi! - Hello.
- Hello!
- This is definitely Bengali so you got it.
(bell dings) - Yay!
- I did not realize there was like
an overlap with Hindi.
- Oh my gosh it's very very similar.
I grew up speaking both because they're so close.
I couldn't say I grew up in Bangladesh
because that would've given it away.
(Jenny laughs)
Yeah and then it's spoken in West Bengal
which I also could not say,
because that would've given it away.
- Do you know whether they both
maybe came from Sanskrit or something?
- Yes, they're I think most of those in Indian
languages are derived from Sanskrit.
That's why they sound so familiar.
- Sanskrit is an ancient language,
and a lot of languages were pulled from it,
basically it was the base language that
was spoken many many many years ago.
And like there's some people who still speak it
but not so much anymore it's been parsed out
through different languages.
- It's supposed to be like one of the most
beautiful languages and I would,
if I could like figure out how to read it
or learn anything about it I would.
Like one word can mean like a whole
paragraph of meaning which is so incredible.
- So most people will just say goodbye
but if you want to do it the traditional way
people will say salaam,
it means God, peace be upon you
or like God be with you
in Arabic because a lot of
people in Bangladesh are Muslim.
And so that's what we say,
we say salaam.
All right, it was great meeting you!
- Nice meeting you!
- [all Together] Salaam!
- Bye!
- That was a dope experience.
- Really cool very challenging. (laughs)
- Usually I would have been like
oh maybe this is Kannada,
maybe this is Tamil,
maybe this is Telugu,
and I didn't do I only did one of those guesses.
And then I freaked out.
- All right we got two out of three though
so that's not too bad.
- No it's not shabby.
(Jenny laughs) It's not shabby.
I learned that Bengali and Hindi have an overlap.
- I thought it was really interesting
that there's a lot of Arabic intertwined
in that language too so I didn't know that.
- It was like borderline ASMR
because they all spoke so eloquently
and so it was so calming.
- A lot of people don't really know that
there are so many different languages in India so,
it is really fascinating to me to be able
to hear some of the ones that I've actually never heard so.
- I can't necessarily tell them all apart,
but they all sound great.
(smooth swing music)