In Kasaragod Malayalam, the word for 'housewarming' is 'porakudi'. Where pora means house and kudi also means house but probably takes the verbal form 'residing'. I was fascinated by this compound word. The verb form of kudi is hardly used. The other meanings, farmer or house, are more mainstream.
Then I started analyzing its Kannada equivalent, manehokkalu, where mane means house and hokkalu means entrance. I felt something was wrong there. If I go by the Malayalam format, it should be 'maneyokkalu' (mane+okkalu), where okkalu means residing. Then I confirmed from a born Kannada speaker that the word was indeed maneyokkalu.
However, similar to kudi, the popular usage is okkaliga -> farmer. I suppose because of my unfamiliarity with its multiple usages, somewhere in the past, I over-corrected the word to hokkalu from okkalu. It's unclear whether the term hokkalu is itself correct or not. I most likely modified the term 'hokku' meaning enter.
It's interesting that the same idea has been implemented in the compound word in both languages using all different words.
Then I started analyzing its Kannada equivalent, manehokkalu, where mane means house and hokkalu means entrance. I felt something was wrong there. If I go by the Malayalam format, it should be 'maneyokkalu' (mane+okkalu), where okkalu means residing. Then I confirmed from a born Kannada speaker that the word was indeed maneyokkalu.
However, similar to kudi, the popular usage is okkaliga -> farmer. I suppose because of my unfamiliarity with its multiple usages, somewhere in the past, I over-corrected the word to hokkalu from okkalu. It's unclear whether the term hokkalu is itself correct or not. I most likely modified the term 'hokku' meaning enter.
It's interesting that the same idea has been implemented in the compound word in both languages using all different words.
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