Were you aware India overtook China as Canada’s greatest source of immigration? Did you have any idea there’s nearly 4 million Canadian residents who consider Punjabi their native language? Me neither, but that’s what I get for relying on Don Cherry for all my knowledge of other cultures. With the above stats in mind, the CBC introduced Punjabi commentary for Saturday’s Leafs/Canucks tilt, with the info below provided by the Star’s Kevin McGran :
The CBC, picking up on an experiment from last season’s Stanley Cup, brought Parminder Singh of Toronto (above) “ who has done some Raptors games in Punjabi “ and Calgary’s Harnarayan Singh to the pressbox to call the game online and on some select channels.
“The community response has been fantastic,” said Parminder Singh.
“A lot of the community has been watching the game, but they mute it because they don’t understand what the commentators are saying.”
Some of the terms are easily translatable from field hockey, so “stick” is “soti.”
And English terms are easily interspersed because of soccer.
“He shoots, he scores” becomes “Mahriaa shot, keeta goal.”
“Puck” was a bit of a challenge, but the pair settled on “tikki,” based on a puck-shaped potato appetizer.
But they struggled looking for a Punjabi term for icing.
“Ice in Punjabi is `barf,'” said Parminder Singh. “What are we supposed to say: `He barfed the puck?’
“So we stuck with the English term,” said Harnarayan Singh.
Yeah, could you please say, “He barfed the puck?” I’m having kind of a bummer day, and the idea of anyone saying that picked me up a bit. Thanks, Mr. Singh.