How come some decent words in one language are obscene in another neighboring language or close language?
Yes that the meaning of same words differ between different contemporary languages. However, your example of “vellam” is a very interesting case. You can see this word used by Thiruvalluvar when he writes “vellatthanaiya malar neetam – maantharkku ullat thanaiya uyarvu” (as the water-level determines the length of a lotus stalk, so does the greatness of a person is dependent on the depth of his mind). As you can clearly see, the word “vellam” means water and nothing else. Flood is “vellapperukku”. “Neer” is any liquid. “Thanneer” is a cold liquid (thanmai + neer). But as years passed by Thanneer became the word for water and vellaperukku became shortened to vellam. If I can quote another interesting and amusing example would be the word for eating in Malayalam (kazhithal) means the extreme opposite in Tamil. Such close languages, yet some shocking differences. Edit: Thanks Veer. About Korean: I was once surprised when my Korean friend’s son called him Appa. It happens that Koreans call
