This American spent 20 years learning Tamil

Brian Linebaugh during the shoot of his documentary
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Brian Linebaugh pauses to think. He has just been tasked to do one of the most arduous jobs ever: sing.

After a few seconds, he breaks into an impromptu rendition of ‘Nenje Un Aasai’, a Rajinikanth song he used to hum many years ago. Rather sheepishly, he says, “Sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”

Sing he might not, but speak he can. He rattles off a Thirukural with flair. He has read a bit of Subramania Bharatiyar and even recites the popular song, ‘Sentamizh Nadu’.

Brian Linebaugh is an American data engineer based in California in the US. But that is not all; he has also nursed a fascination for the Tamil language for two decades and has put all that down, along with visuals, in the form of a documentary titled ‘Beyond Words’.

Drawn towards the language

Brian’s fascination with Tamil began when he heard the language being spoken among Indian children in his school in California. “There was something about it that drew me, “ he recalls. While other American children in his class would go for guitar or soccer classes, Brian would attempt to speak basic Tamil words. “I bought a few books on learning Tamil, and even learnt to say words like ‘manjal’ (yellow), ‘sivappu’ (read) and ‘gnayiru’ (Sunday) but I really wanted to speak it fluently. For that, I needed immersion. I realised I needed to interact with people in social situations.”

So, when he was 19, Brian took the most radical decision of his life. He packed his bags, travelled alone a thousand miles and landed in Madurai in Tamil Nadu. “I was just blown away by everything there,” he recalls, “The sights, the sounds and…the language.”

In Madurai, Brian found a retired Tamil professor to teach him the basics of Tamil. Staying in his house and following the traditional guru-sishya method, Brian’s mornings would be devoted to theoretical classes, right from the alphabet to sentence construction. “But the real magic happened in the afternoons,” he says, with a glint in his eye, “I’d try to mingle with the people.” On some days, he would try to bargain for bananas at a street corner, while on other evenings, he would enquire with the drivers in the nearby auto stand about the fare to get to the Madurai Meenakshi Temple. “Repeating the language and observe how they reacted was critical to get to some level of competency,” he says.

After a few months, Brian headed back to the US to do a Masters degree in Tamil under renowned professor George Hart at University of California, Berkley. “It’s a huge undertaking to learn both the written and spoken language. For a native speaker, it might not be a big deal as they are similar, but for a foreigner, it is almost like learning two different languages.”

Brian Linebaugh
| Photo Credit:
Thamodharan B

Different aspects

All this has helped Brian a great deal while filming his recent documentary, one that had him talking to over 200 people across four countries (India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore) where Tamil is spoken. “My initial thinking with the documentary was to highlight the different spoken Tamil dialects. When we saw the footage, we realised we had more than language…the purpose of the film became a celebration of Tamil culture and arts, with participants speaking in the local dialect.”

Beyond Words – Stories from Tamil Landscapes, by Brian and his wife Janaki Seetharaman,had a world premiere at the recent Jaipur International Film Festival and is eyeing a streaming deal. It is in Tamil, with English subtitles. “What we bring to life are the regional arts, from therukoothu (street theatre) to tholpavakoothu (shadow puppetry). We should watch and encourage these art forms,” says Brian, who is also a fan of Tamil cinema, having followed the works of Bharathiraaja and Bhagyaraj.