Elizabeth Keyton, better known as Eli Kutty, a name her best friend gave her as a joke, an English teacher from the US, has been taking Instagram by storm, one Malayalam lesson at a time. The latest one being not only in the language, but also in love.
“I’ve tried to pick up local languages from most places I’ve lived in, whether it was Korean, Japanese or eventually, Malayalam. It’s my way of building bridges, which is also the crux of the latest Instagram series called ‘Nyangale pole’, meaning just like us,” she says.
Few-found love
Eli has a community of 38.2k people on Instagram. But where and why did she want to learn this specific South Indian language? Well, it’s partly because Eli married a Malayali. “Plus, when I was touring Kerala last summer, I wanted to be able to interact freely with people and understand the diversity from the northernmost part of the state to the southern tip, which would only be possible if I knew the language,” she says.
{{/usCountry}}Eli has a community of 38.2k people on Instagram. But where and why did she want to learn this specific South Indian language? Well, it’s partly because Eli married a Malayali. “Plus, when I was touring Kerala last summer, I wanted to be able to interact freely with people and understand the diversity from the northernmost part of the state to the southern tip, which would only be possible if I knew the language,” she says.
{{/usCountry}}Language lessons
Malayalam is often considered one of the toughest Indian languages to not only speak, but read and write. “So is Mandarin but people do learn it anyway,” shrugs Eli. “I started with online lessons and slowly began self-study.” After a lot of research and some help from a linguist, today, Eli Kutty’s Instagram is a huge learning resource for Malayalam. “I reverse engineered it while learning. My comprehension is still low but it’s fun to learn on the Internet with so many people contributing to it,” she says. “My intention is to portray Kerala as it is by focusing on the diaspora. My platform is to elevate the experts and the language.”
What does the future hold? “I hope to work on some publications so more people have access to the resources. My YouTube is monetised but that is not a great deal of money, which is fine because I have a full time job,” she says.
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From HT Brunch, November 1, 2020
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