Getting Acquainted

This lesson introduces repetitive, socially determined items used for interaction with formal acquaintances. A selected set of honorific items is introduced with such other honorific exponents such as the plural forms of pronouns and verbs. All the participants are Hindus. Therefore, one finds the use of echo-greetings, such as namaska:r. Note the following recurring greeting-denoting collocations:

Prabha: Greetings, Sheelaji. How are you?

Sheela: Greetings, I am fine. How are you?

In Kashmiri society, if two persons are engaged in conversation and a third one appears who is known only to one of them, he is not necessarily formally introduced to the other person. He just watches, listens, or smiles uncomfortably. However, this is slowly changing. Therefore, we have introduced the following:

Prabha: I am fine. Do you know each other? She is my friend.

Sheela: Greetings. What is your name?