Vocabulary, Idiom and Word Usage
Vocabulary, idiom and word usage questions check whether you can infer meaning from context, recognise Santali word-formation, and choose the right word for a blank. Santali vocabulary is built by compounding, suffixation, reduplication and borrowing, so morphology is your best clue.
Core concepts
- Reduplication: repeating a stem often marks intensity, repetition or continuity (an English equivalent is 'slowly-slowly' for 'very gradually'). Do not translate the repeated part twice.
- Onomatopoeia: sound-imitation words are common in narrative and song; they carry tone as well as sound.
- Compounds: two nouns may form a new concept; identify the head.
- Loanwords: Santali has long borrowed from Bengali, Odia, Hindi and English, often with sound adaptation. Recognise the source but answer with the Santali meaning in context.
- Idiom: a fixed phrase whose meaning is not the sum of its parts. Learn idioms in a sentence, not as a list.
- Kinship and honorifics: Santali kinship terms are precise; using the wrong one changes the relationship in the sentence.
Worked example
Illustrative sentence: 'He walked late-late to the market.' Question: What does the reduplicated form mean? Answer: 'very late' or 'gradually, over a long time' - the reduplication intensifies or extends the meaning; it does not mean he walked twice. The context ('to the market', past tense) decides between intensity and gradualness.
Traps
Giving a dictionary meaning that does not fit the sentence; translating an idiom literally; treating a reduplicated form as two separate words; assuming a borrowed word keeps its Bengali sense; ignoring honorifics; choosing a synonym with the wrong register.