Adda - Madhyamgram - Kolkata 20170527133538

An adda () is a term in Bengali referring to when several individuals 'Hangout'. This originally took place between members of the same socio-economic strata, but the process has become more heterogeneous in modern times. ''Adda'' was incorporated into the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

in 2004. This word is both a standalone noun and a noun in a noun-

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

compound, in Bengali. The nominalization of the word has two senses — one being the Hindi sense, and the other being the place of ritual meeting and/or conversation of a group of people (i.e., a symposium). The

form means informal conversation among a group of people, often for hours on end, and usually accompanied by food."Adda" on Newschool.edu

Other languages

Hindi

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, adda is a

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

, with the nominal form of the word meaning the location or nest of a group or community. The etymology can be traced to the original meaning of the word, which means the "perching spot or perch for birds".

Popular culture

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, filmmakers Surjo Deb and Ranjan Palit made a documentary on the subject. The film, '' Adda: Calcutta, Kolkata'', has been screened at several festivals around the globe and won the Golden Palm Award at the Mexico International Film Festival 2012.

References

{{Reflist Culture of Bengal Bengali words and phrases