Tamil-English Banter

Anyone reading the old chat logs will notice that English is only part of the conversation. The friends mix in Tamil words and slang, among them “dai”, “seri”, “varen”, “polam”, “paravala”, “de”, “chumma” and “aama”.

It is there as early as September 2021, when IRIS drops an “adai” ¹ and later “varen” ² into the chat. In the server console log of late 2023 it is still alive, with prop complaining about “plopping everything chumma out in the open” ³.

The most reliable item of vocabulary is “mass”, the all-purpose approval word, which abi used again and again in the logs ⁴. If something on the server was impressive, it was mass.