India presents its diversity in many a variety. No, I have no intention to list out these varieties, as there are books galore to do this, and more importantly, I am not competent to do this. Yet, one such diversity, I presume, has not been publicised well - the diverse transformations of Queen's English. Across the country - a linguistic melting pot - we see many variants of our very dear Indlish (Indian English). The mosaic is as varied as we see across the globe. We have, for instance, Gujlish, Punjlish, Benglish, Tamlish, Mallish et al. Despite this diversity, there is general homogeneity in syntax and vocabulary among the varieties of Indian English.
As English establishes itself as the all pervading language of India and invades the regional languages, it has undergone a rapid transformation. Yet the mother-tongue influence is almost impossible to overcome, giving a strange twist to the existing dialects of Indlish. And of course, we cannot overlook the fact that Indlish is a very different kind of English, which makes sense only to us, the Indians, and may be quite confusing to a native speaker.
In keeping with the hot and humid climate of our country, we tend to strip English sentences to the bare minimum. Ignoring reflexive verbs and objects, we make the language precise and to the point, never mind that the point is not always clear. How often have we not heard about school teachers sending an erring pupil (who has been 'rotating' in the corridors) to stand outside the classroom and making an example of "that outstanding boy"?
As an aside, I reproduce verbatim, a complaint letter, written purportedly in 1909 by an irate passenger, which is displayed in the National Railway Museum, New Delhi. The passenger, Okhil Ch Sen, missed the train when he went to relieve himself.
"Rape the snakes," orders the chic young Gujarati miss with a winning smile. Her request does not raise even an eyebrow in the cafeteria. "They're hot," comes the warning as the shopkeeper wraps the snacks in paper napkins. This is Gujlish for you. Gujaratis seem to be particularly fond of 'western' food, which could be anything from the peeza to the all-time favourites senwich and aamlate. Gujlish lends a distinct flavour to English spoken throughout north India.
While in this irreverent mood, let me link you to a rib tickling English essay written by an IAS aspirant from Bihar. Let me caution you, fasten yourself to the chair before reading it. Click here to read the essay.
In Bengal there are enough well-wishers to shave the language. And whenever they are pissful, Bengalis like to shit outside in the cool bridge watching the traffic on the Howrah breeze. This is, according to a veteran linguist and scholar, because of the absence of the s sound in the language, which becomes sh.
The linguist also points out a similar problem in Kannada, where the initial h is absent like in French. So, we find people oiling and combing their air vigorously. While in Tamil, most often, the pronunciations are based on the actual spellings; the silent d will invariably be pronounced, for instance briddj for bridge.
Notwithstanding variations in pronunciations, which have always been a problem with international languages like English, the same grammar holds all these dialects together. Furthermore, Indian bilingualism plays a big role in spoken English. People tend to switch between English and their mother tongue. Besides, Tamlish finds no need for a full interrogative sentence when a simple aa sound would do. So, just in case if you want to ask Are you ready?, do it the right way with Ready-aa?
The term Sir (Saar in Andhra Pradesh and across South India) is a respectful address and not the OBE type of knighthood prefix. When a Vizagite (resident of Visakhapatnam) writes egg-jam don't jam your brains to learn the recipe of the jam, for he is not applying jam made of egg to anything but is appearing for an exam.
Intonation is another problem. Tamils generally emphasise the second syllable in most words, and if a Tamilian asks you to cure all else try to redeem yourself as he is asking you to cure all ills. The Tamilians have difficulty in pronuncing the initial i. Besides, if he wanted to say else as in somebody else he would have said somebody yells anyway, since they have problem pronuncing the initial e also. In the Hindi-belt they 'istudy' sosal to learn the social conditions. Here, one can find this notable inability to pronounce certain (especially word-initial) consonant clusters. This is usually dealt with by epenthesis of a consonant e.g., school is pronounced iskool. (Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English).
Move down to the south-west and get the true Malayali English, full of the retroflex 'r' and various other tongue-twisting exercises. And the final mb, usually subdued, is pronounced with a thud, making a bomb really sound like a bombb! But what if there is a wrong inflection here or there, what is important is noledj which, as every Malayali knows, is acquired in a koledj. And instead of the aa question of Tamlish, Mallish uses no as in It is raining, no?
Use of the English words uncle and aunty as suffixes when addressing people such as distant relatives, neighbours, acquaintances, even total strangers (like shopkeepers) who are significantly older than oneself is a pan-Indian phenomenon. In fact, in Indian culture, children or teenagers addressing their friends' parents as Mr X or Mrs Y is rare and may even be considered unacceptable or offensive (in the sense of referring to an elder person by name). A substitution of Sir/Ma'am, while common for addressing teachers/professors or any person in an official position, would be considered too formal to address parents of friends or any other unrelated (but known) elder persons. On the contrary, if the person is related, he/she will usually be addressed with the name of the relation in the vernacular Indian language, even while conversing in English. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English)
The languages we have evolved, having sent English through our various regional grinders are thriving. Bernard Shaw may have believed that England and America are two countries separated by the same language, but for us, India is the same country united by the different dialects of Indian English. What do you say? You are accepting no?
(With excerpts from an article published in Indian Express in September, 1993)
As English establishes itself as the all pervading language of India and invades the regional languages, it has undergone a rapid transformation. Yet the mother-tongue influence is almost impossible to overcome, giving a strange twist to the existing dialects of Indlish. And of course, we cannot overlook the fact that Indlish is a very different kind of English, which makes sense only to us, the Indians, and may be quite confusing to a native speaker.
In keeping with the hot and humid climate of our country, we tend to strip English sentences to the bare minimum. Ignoring reflexive verbs and objects, we make the language precise and to the point, never mind that the point is not always clear. How often have we not heard about school teachers sending an erring pupil (who has been 'rotating' in the corridors) to stand outside the classroom and making an example of "that outstanding boy"?
As an aside, I reproduce verbatim, a complaint letter, written purportedly in 1909 by an irate passenger, which is displayed in the National Railway Museum, New Delhi. The passenger, Okhil Ch Sen, missed the train when he went to relieve himself.
"I am arrive by passenger train at Ahmedpore station, and my belly is too much full of jack fruit. I am therefore went to privy, Just as I doing the nuisance, that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with lotah in one hand and dhotie in the next hand. I am fall over and expose my shockings to man, females, woman on platform. I am get leaved at Ahmedpore station.The letter supposedly helped to spur the installation of toilets on the Indian trains, although some argue that it's an urban legend.
"This is too much bad, if passenger go to make dung, that dam guard no wait train 5 minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine on that guard for public sake, otherwise I am making big report to papers." (Source: http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-misc.html#jack)
"Rape the snakes," orders the chic young Gujarati miss with a winning smile. Her request does not raise even an eyebrow in the cafeteria. "They're hot," comes the warning as the shopkeeper wraps the snacks in paper napkins. This is Gujlish for you. Gujaratis seem to be particularly fond of 'western' food, which could be anything from the peeza to the all-time favourites senwich and aamlate. Gujlish lends a distinct flavour to English spoken throughout north India.
While in this irreverent mood, let me link you to a rib tickling English essay written by an IAS aspirant from Bihar. Let me caution you, fasten yourself to the chair before reading it. Click here to read the essay.
In Bengal there are enough well-wishers to shave the language. And whenever they are pissful, Bengalis like to shit outside in the cool bridge watching the traffic on the Howrah breeze. This is, according to a veteran linguist and scholar, because of the absence of the s sound in the language, which becomes sh.
The linguist also points out a similar problem in Kannada, where the initial h is absent like in French. So, we find people oiling and combing their air vigorously. While in Tamil, most often, the pronunciations are based on the actual spellings; the silent d will invariably be pronounced, for instance briddj for bridge.
Notwithstanding variations in pronunciations, which have always been a problem with international languages like English, the same grammar holds all these dialects together. Furthermore, Indian bilingualism plays a big role in spoken English. People tend to switch between English and their mother tongue. Besides, Tamlish finds no need for a full interrogative sentence when a simple aa sound would do. So, just in case if you want to ask Are you ready?, do it the right way with Ready-aa?
The term Sir (Saar in Andhra Pradesh and across South India) is a respectful address and not the OBE type of knighthood prefix. When a Vizagite (resident of Visakhapatnam) writes egg-jam don't jam your brains to learn the recipe of the jam, for he is not applying jam made of egg to anything but is appearing for an exam.
Intonation is another problem. Tamils generally emphasise the second syllable in most words, and if a Tamilian asks you to cure all else try to redeem yourself as he is asking you to cure all ills. The Tamilians have difficulty in pronuncing the initial i. Besides, if he wanted to say else as in somebody else he would have said somebody yells anyway, since they have problem pronuncing the initial e also. In the Hindi-belt they 'istudy' sosal to learn the social conditions. Here, one can find this notable inability to pronounce certain (especially word-initial) consonant clusters. This is usually dealt with by epenthesis of a consonant e.g., school is pronounced iskool. (Ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English).
Move down to the south-west and get the true Malayali English, full of the retroflex 'r' and various other tongue-twisting exercises. And the final mb, usually subdued, is pronounced with a thud, making a bomb really sound like a bombb! But what if there is a wrong inflection here or there, what is important is noledj which, as every Malayali knows, is acquired in a koledj. And instead of the aa question of Tamlish, Mallish uses no as in It is raining, no?
Use of the English words uncle and aunty as suffixes when addressing people such as distant relatives, neighbours, acquaintances, even total strangers (like shopkeepers) who are significantly older than oneself is a pan-Indian phenomenon. In fact, in Indian culture, children or teenagers addressing their friends' parents as Mr X or Mrs Y is rare and may even be considered unacceptable or offensive (in the sense of referring to an elder person by name). A substitution of Sir/Ma'am, while common for addressing teachers/professors or any person in an official position, would be considered too formal to address parents of friends or any other unrelated (but known) elder persons. On the contrary, if the person is related, he/she will usually be addressed with the name of the relation in the vernacular Indian language, even while conversing in English. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English)
The languages we have evolved, having sent English through our various regional grinders are thriving. Bernard Shaw may have believed that England and America are two countries separated by the same language, but for us, India is the same country united by the different dialects of Indian English. What do you say? You are accepting no?
(With excerpts from an article published in Indian Express in September, 1993)
Lovely article.
ReplyDeleteWhen we speak Indlish, we truly believe what ever we are speaking is always correct. The fact that we are not native speakers of English language and also that we try to TRUE TRANSLATE from our regional languages makes this Indlish language. This reflects in our sentence structure, we search for words when we speak, esp in situations where we cannot translate from our regional languages we use body language gestures.
One of the funny statements I've come across was 'Please close the doors of the windows'.
The worst part is that people who speak different languages mock at each other on the way they speak English (ofcourse with a premise that whatever they are speaking is correct)
All said and done, the country which has different dialects of Indian English is united in it's own ways. :)
Cheers
Raghu
Rib tickling article! I enjoyed it thoroughly :)writing more no? Ok_aa?
ReplyDeletemalathi