Terms for Grandma

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Renee from Plano, Texas.

Hi, Renee. Welcome.

Hello there.

Hi, I’m originally from Persia, where there’s some intermingling of French terms in the Persian language, especially in the medical field.

But the word that I’m interested in knowing about is a familial term, manu, which is what we call my paternal grandmother. I have never heard anyone else’s grandmother call this and always wondered where it came from.

One day I happened to be watching a movie called Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, and I heard them call an elderly lady Nanu, so I thought this might be a French term after all.

Are you sure it was Roman Holiday?

I think it was, but I could be mistaken.

There’s a movie called The Fair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.

Oh, yeah.

It’s a great film.

And in this film, I believe his grandmother’s name is Janu. It’s a name, though. It’s not like a familial title. It’s J-A-N-O-U. And I actually have known a woman named Janu in New York. And so maybe that’s what you heard. It sounds a lot like Nanu.

But to get to your point, though, there are throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean countries, some of the many nicknames that you can have for grandmothers, and there are a ton of nicknames, a ton of like the formal names and then the nickname ones, are related to Nanu. They sound like Nani, Nene, Nana, Noni.

So Greece, Armenia, Italy.

Yeah, Italy.

Even in Ireland and the English-speaking countries, you will often have grandmother called Nana or Nana. I had a Nana or a Nanny or that sort of thing.

Oh, of course.

Yeah.

Of course.

Wonderful.

Well, that is so good to know. And thank you for telling me because whatever movie it was, I just saw a little snippet of it, and I thought, that’s a lovely, charming movie. It was many, many years ago.

It is a charming movie. I recommend you get Affair to Remember and watch it. It’s really charming. It holds up very well, and they’re a lovely couple together, is really nice to look at and good actors to boot.

Wonderful.

Well, I really love your show as English is my second language. And when we arrived in the U.S., my parents always stressed how important it was to really learn a language completely because they themselves had tremendous love for language and literature.

So I have always enjoyed learning new words and figuring out how there are similarities across various languages and hope to have passed this down to my own son. So thank you so much for all that you guys do.

Renee, it sounds wonderful. Can I ask a favor of you? Can you say goodbye in Farsi for us?

Of course, of course. Chod off as Dostana Aziz.

Oh, same, same.

That’s beautiful.

Thank you very much.

Hale Mamnoon.

Oh, you’re welcome. You’re so sweet. Thank you so much.

You know, language, you know, we see the commonality of the world of humanity through language and how we are so much alike, whatever language we speak, you know, the human heart is the same. So that’s what’s so important.

I agree. I love that.

Oh, my gosh. The human heart is the same. Beautifully expressed. Beautifully expressed.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

But this is it. Did she not nail it?

She nailed it completely.

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