u/Upbeat_Thing_6559

My question is about subject clitics. Recently I learned that in French words like "Je" , "tu" and "il" are subject clitics, they cannot stand on their own, unlike en English, where I, You etc are proper standalone words. How did these pronouns evolve to be clitics? Where they ever independent words at some point in history and start to become more and more dependent on surrounding words? Are there other similar systems to french other than its romance cousins?

Thinking about the similarities between Stoicism and the the Bhagavad-Gita raises an interesting question. Both traditions place enormous emphasis on duty, self-mastery, emotional discipline, and accepting what lies beyond one's control. Stoicism, in particular, seems remarkably sophisticated as a practical philosophy of human flourishing and resilience. In some respects, it almost appears to be an independently developed Western counterpart to the Gita's ethical teachings, albeit without the same metaphysical framework. Are these parallels mostly superficial, or do they suggest that both traditions converged on some deeper truths about human nature? Curious to hear perspectives from those who've studied either tradition seriously.

Both are similar in terms of their story within a story format and the focus on Fate and destiny. I have read neither of their originals, but the version of 1001 nights I read was more complex in the story structure and you could get easily lost in the narrative structure, fashioned like a maze. Same has been said about Mahabharata, as it has been modified through years and different people got their hands on it.

As we know Malayalam natively does not have any nasal vowels unlike languages like Hindi and Bengali. By this I mean vowels that have a nasal quality like "han" (yes) in Hindi where the consonant n is not articulated but absorbed into the vowel.

Does this happen in spoken Malayalam? I think I might unconsciously say വരാം without fully enunciating the final "m" sound, so it sounds like വരാ with m changing the vowel to a nasal vowel. This is something that happens systematically in spoken Tamil.

Do any varieties of Malayalam consistently do this?

One thing that struck me in the Mahabharata was the disrobing of Panchali (Draupadi). The scene isn't just about one woman's humiliation; it's about an entire court watching, rationalizing, or remaining silent whilst violence is normalized. That's what makes it a useful anchor when discussing rape culture—not because it's literally about rape (maybe rape is insinuated) , but because it exposes the social conditions that enable gendered violence: entitlement over a woman's body, public humiliation as punishment, victim-blaming ("was she fairly won?"), and the failure of powerful bystanders to intervene. What other examples like this in Mahabharata? Maybe Sati, but this is a different topic about female suppression)

This is just an observation, which could be wrong. Malayalam seems to be lacking in fast songs, compared to Tamil gana and Bollywood music, which can be very rhythmic and fast compared to Malayalam songs, which are often more melodic with slower paced delivery. Is it because Malayalam has longer words and less flexible structures or is it more rooted in the evolution of music industry itself, which maybe more conservative in Kerala? Thanks