{"id":10623,"date":"2011-08-10T08:55:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T12:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=10623"},"modified":"2011-08-10T10:00:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T14:00:41","slug":"english-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/08\/10\/english-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"English in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting post at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/blogs\/johnson\/2011\/08\/indian-english?fsrc=scn\/tw\/te\/bl\/thefamilytreeofmongrellanguage\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Economist<\/em>&#8216;s Johnson blog<\/a> looks at the evolution of &#8220;Hinglish&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Once the British left India, Anglo-Indian died a natural death. In its place came a chutnified Indian English that mixes American and British versions of the language with vernacular words and syntax and direct translations of phrases.<\/p>\n<p>A glimpse of the breadth of influences in contemporary Indian English can be found at the delightfully-named Samosapedia. A cross between Hobson-Jobson and Urban Dictionary, the website modestly describes itself as \u201cthe definitive guide to South Asian lingo\u201d and invites users to \u201ccatalog and celebrate the rich, diverse and ever-evolving landscape of this region\u2019s shared vernacular\u201d. Over 2,500 words and phrases have been added since Samosapedia was launched at the end of June. <\/p>\n<p>Samosapedia is a lot of fun. It is also fascinating. Many phrases it lists are common across India: A &#8220;chaddi buddy&#8221; (lit: underwear friend) is someone you\u2019ve known since childhood; \u201ckabab mein haddi\u201d (lit: a bone in the kebab) is a third wheel with better imagery; an \u201centhu cutlet\u201d (lit: an enthusiastic mincemeat croquette) is an overly earnest soul. But then there are those that come from regions, sub-cultures and even neighbourhoods. \u201cTalking-shalking\u201d highlights the Punjabi fondness for rhyme. \u201cSandra from Bandra\u201d is a stereotype from a predominantly Catholic suburb of Mumbai. \u201cSend it\u201d refers to smoking pot. <\/p>\n<p>The entries at Samosapedia also offer an insight into how Indian culture is changing. \u201cTraditional with modern outlook\u201d, often found in matrimonial ads, encapsulates the evolving nature of arrange marriage\u2014or \u201clove-cum-arranged marriage\u201d\u2014where the prospective bride and groom have far greater say in their partners than earlier generations did. \u201cBehenji-turned-mod\u201d is a condescending term for a traditional woman transitioning from fusty and oily-haired to a more urban, socially acceptable version of herself. It is telling that these undoubtedly modern but widely-used phrases exist in Hinglish, a portmanteau of Hindi and English. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Lots of links in the original post to various entries in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.samosapedia.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Samosapedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting post at The Economist&#8216;s Johnson blog looks at the evolution of &#8220;Hinglish&#8221;: Once the British left India, Anglo-Indian died a natural death. In its place came a chutnified Indian English that mixes American and British versions of the language with vernacular words and syntax and direct translations of phrases. A glimpse of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,23],"tags":[400],"class_list":["post-10623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-india","tag-language"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2Ll","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10624,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10623\/revisions\/10624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}