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Indian English refers to the dialects or varieties of English spoken primarily in India, and also by Indian diaspora elsewhere in the world. Due to British colonialism that saw an English-speaking presence in India for over two hundred years, a distinctly Indian brand of English was born. English is the co-official language of the Union of India, and India has the world's largest English-speaking population.
Variations in the pronunciation of several phonemes are affected by the regional tongues (see Languages of India) across the Indian subcontinent, the greatest distinction being that between South India and Sri Lanka on the one hand, which is closer to the traditional British English, and the north of the subcontinent (including North India and Pakistan) on the other. Several idiomatic forms crossing over from Indian literary and vernacular language also have made their way into the English of the masses. In spite of India's diversity, however, there is indeed a general homogeneity in syntax and vocabulary that can be found among speakers across South Asia. In upper-class families (commonly referred to in India as 'Westernised'), English is typically very close to Received Pronunciation, while still retaining hints of a uniquely Indian flavour.
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Influences: British and American
The form of English that Indians (and other subcontinentals) are taught in schools is essentially British English, especially Scottish English, which influenced Indian dialects with rhoticity and trilled r. For most, it is desirable to emulate the brand of English that is linguistically known as Received Pronunciation or, more commonly, BBC English. However, even during the time of British imperialism (before the creation of a separate Pakistan and Bangladesh), Indian English had established itself as an audibly distinct dialect with its own quirks and specific phrases.
The Indian government, accepts both British English and American English forms of spellings as 'correct' English and makes no distinction. Indian spellings typically follow British conventions, with American English variations considered less desirable.
Following the departure of the British from India in 1947, Indian English took on a divergent evolution and many phrases that the British may consider antiquated are still popular in India. Official letters continue to include phrases like "please do the needful" and "you will be intimated shortly". This difference in style, though, is not as marked a difference as between British and American English. Older British writers who made creative (and comical) use of now obsolete forms of colloquial English, like P.G. Wodehouse, and others who were en vogue fifty years ago, like Thomas Hardy, are still popular in India. It is ironic that although British writers Enid Blyton, P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie are now considered to have held racist views in their time, their books remain immensely popular in India. British writer, journalist and wit Malcolm Muggeridge once joked that the last Englishman would be an Indian.
American English, due to the burgeoning influence of American pop culture on the rest of the world, has begun challenging traditional British English as the premier brand of English spoken in the Indian subcontinent, though this is largely limited to the youth of Metropolitan cities in the last decade or two. But even after 20 years, this has not found its ways into other cities or towns, where English means British English. The proliferation of "MTV culture", especially through pop and hip hop, and the increasing desire of Indians to attend US, as opposed to British, collegiate institutions for higher education, is leading to the spread of more emulation of American English among Indian youth. Also, the economic and political puissance of the US often leads to heated debates as to whether or not British English or American English is the more practical accent for émigré Indians to adopt. It must be stressed, however, that British English retains its hold on the majority of Indians, particularly those of the older generation and the younger generation in non-metro cities and towns.
American English spellings are also widely prevalent in scientific and technical publications while British English spellings are used in other media. American spellings such as fiber, meter, skillful, and program are considered to be acceptable in the science streams. The -ize and the -ise verb forms are both popular.
In a survey ( *), it was found that "the majority of the informants (70%) felt that RP (Received Pronunciation: BBC English; Standard English in Britain) would serve as the best model for Indian English, 10% thought General American English (ed. standard American English) would be better, and 17% preferred the Indian variety of English." Plenty of Indians with Received Pronunciation accent still have rhoticity.
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Indian English literature
Spoken Indian English is often the butt of jokes by "educated" British, American and Indian English-speakers alike as is evidenced by such characters as Peter Sellers's Indian party-goer in the movie The Party (film) and the convenience-store owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in The Simpsons; there is also no dearth of jokes among Indians 'riffing' the pronunciation and idiomatic inconsistencies of Indian English (see External Links at bottom).
However, in spite of banter regarding colloquial English, India has a consistent and long record of pre- and post-Independence thinkers and writers whose writings and speeches are attestations to many Indians' mastery of the language. Among others, Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, C Rajagopalachari, Sri Aurobindo, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, the world-famous novelist R K Narayan, Ruskin Bond, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan come to mind as prominent figures whose English was of the highest quality in any country. More contemporary Indians, such as Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie, are acknowledged masters of English literary style. Indian English writers and English writers of Indian origin — notably Booker Prize winners Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, Pulitzer Prize Winner Jhumpa Lahiri and Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul — have in addition made creative use of more stereotypical Indian English through the mouths of characters in their works.
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"An Indian English Grammar"
Formal British English is preferred to layman's Indian English in educated Indian circles and higher Indian writing. Middle and upper-class Indians, especially those with greater exposure to the West through books, electronic media (such as television or movies) and travel, tend to speak more grammatically-standard English. British English is an official language of central and state governments in India. What is characterised as Indian English is not considered "correct usage" by either government-related institutions (such as offices and schools) or educated Indians who prize 'proper' English. Indian schools still teach grammar from (frequently older) British textbooks like Wren & Martin or J. C. Nesfield (1898): the grammar of higher British English is considered the only correct one. Efforts by the Oxford University Press to publish a dictionary of Indian English were an abject failure since customers in India preferred the 'proper' British dictionary. Spoken and written English in India has not explicitly "forked" away from British English because the labelling of English as a "foreign language" is part of many people's political attitudes: its explicit indigenisation would devalue efforts to discontinue the widespread use of English in India.
The distinct evolution of regional variations in contemporary usage has led to terms such as Hinglish (Hindi + English) and Tanglish (Tamil + English). These terminologies are often referred to in a humorous way, but at times they also have a derogatory connotation, with each region or stratum of society having fun at the expense of others. Hinglish, Tanglish, Benglish (Bengali + English) and other unnamed variations are particularly capitalised and made popular in the field of advertising. Here, the aim of reaching a large cross-section of society is fulfilled by such double-coding. There are thus many borrowed words from Indian languages that do find their way into popular writing, ads and newspapers, not to mention TV spots and shows.
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Phonology of Indian English
In spite of the great stress on "good" English in higher circles, the layman's spoken variety, Indian English, is widespread and well-known for its many eccentricities. For this reason, "grammar of Indian English" must be taken with a grain of salt. Indian accents vary greatly from those leaning more towards a purist British to those leaning more towards a more 'vernacular' (Indian language) -tinted speech (one of the reasons for this is that in Indian schools, almost no attention is given to the "Received Pronunciation", but rather to written English). The most ubiquitous instance of modified sounds is the morphing of alveolar English , , and sounds to more retroflex variants (, , and respectively). South Indians tend to curl the tongue more for and , while Bengalis (from both India and Bangladesh) and Biharis often substitute for (as in 'jero' instead of 'zero'). Subcontinentals, especially those from the Sindh (of both India and Pakistan), have the habit of changing to (as in 'ven' instead of 'when') or vice versa ("I will pay with Weeza" for "...Visa"). Both my also become .
The important features of phonological differences between Indian English and Received Pronunciation (RP) of the London region (and even with most other dialects of Standard English) include:
All consonants are distinctly doubled in General Indian English wherever the spelling suggests so. e.g., drilling .
Inability to pronounce certain (especially word-initial) consonant clusters by people of rural backgrounds. This is usually dealt with by epenthisis. e.g., school .
In RP, word-initial and syllable initial have aspirated and unaspirated allophones, but in native Indian languages (except Tamil), the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated plosives is and phonemic. Generally, Indian English speakers use the unaspirated voiceless plosives , , and although they may deal with the allophones as separate phonemes, which is not as apparent to native speakers.
A common feature of General Indian English is the use of retroflex plosives and instead of the corresponding alveolar plosives of English and . In Indian languages there are two entirely distinct sets of coronal plosives: one dental and the other retroflex. To the Indian ears, the English alveolar plosives sound more retroflex than dental. In devanagari script of Hindi, all alveolar plosives of English are transcribed as their retroflex counterparts. One good reason for this is that unlike most other native Indian languages, Hindi does not have true retroflex plosives (Tiwari, 1955 2001). The so-called retroflexes in Hindi are actually articulated as apical post-alveolar plosives, sometimes even with a tendency to come down to the alveolar region. So a Hindi speaker normally cannot distinguish the difference between their own apical post-alveolar plosives and English's alveolar plosives. However, languages such as Tamil have true retroflex plosives, wherein the articulation is done with the tongue curved upwards and backwards at the roof of the mouth. This also causes (in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) the preceding alveolar to allophonically change to ( → ). Mostly in south India, some speakers allophonically further change the voiced retroflex plosive to voiced retroflex flap, and the nasal to a nasalised retroflex flap.
RP English is a stress-timed language, and word stress is an important feature of Received Pronunciation. Indian-English speakers regularly put the stress accents at the wrong syllables, or accentuate all the syllables of a long English word, since stress is not considered an essential part of pronunciation by them (Indian native languages are actually syllable-timed languages like Latin and French). Also, Indian English speakers speak English with a pitch-accent, which makes Indian-English sound like a sing-song voice to non-Indian English speakers. Indians also have problems with other supra-segmental features of English.
Sometimes, Indian speakers interchange and , especially when plurals are being formed. It suffices to note that in Hindi (but not Urdu) and Sanskrit, is not a phoneme (as also any other voiced sibilant). So may even be pronounced as by people of rural backgrounds. Again, in dialects like Bhojpuri, all instances of are spoken like , a phenomenon which is also apparent in their English. Exactly the opposite is seen for many Bengalis.
In case of the postalveolar affricates , the native languages like Hindi have corresponding affrictaes articulated from the palatal region, rather than postalveolar, and they have more of a stop component than fricative; this is reflected in their English.
While retaining in the final position, Indian speakers usually add a after it. Hence → (ringing).
Syllabic , and are usually replaced by the VC clusters , and (as in button ), or if a high vowel precedes, by (as in little ). Syllable nuclei in words with the spelling er (a schwa in RP and a r-colored schwa in GA) are also replaced VC clusters. e.g., meter, → .
General Indian English has long monophthongs and instead of R.P. glided diphthongs and ; this variation is quite valid in General American English.
Many Indian English speakers do not make a clear distinction between and nor between and . (cot-caught merger).
The RP vowels , and are all realized as in Indian English.
In RP, occurs only before a vowel. But much of General Indian English uses some sort of in almost all positions in words as dictated by the spellings. Indian speakers do not typically use the retroflex approximant for r, which is common for American English speakers.
Indian speakers convert gh digraphs to aspirated voiced velar plosive . eg., ghost . But rough, dough, etc. are pronounced as in RP.
Many Indian speakers always pronounce the as , irrespective of the fact whether the definite article comes before a vowel or a consonant, or whether it is stressed or not. Similarly, they pronounce a as (always) and never as .
In total, such discrepancies exist in General Indian English because, first, Indians tend to look up to their own phonologies for the nearest approximations of English phonemes, and second, because they by and large tend to follow English spelling. By comparison to English, all Indian scripts are highly phonemic alpha-syllabic scripts, and English (in Roman script).
Reference: Varshney, R.L., "An Introductory Textbook of Linguistics and Phonetics", 15th Ed. (2005), Student Store, Bareilly.
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Grammar tweaks
For those aware of the grammar of Indian tongues like Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, and Tamil, the logic behind quirks of Indian English is quite transparent and readily explicable. However, observation by the perspicacious, in spite of ignorance of Indian languages, will reveal much that is characterised in 'rules' and 'tendencies.' John Lawler of the University of Michigan observes the following anomalies in the grammar of Indian English:
The progressive tense in stative verbs: I am understanding it. She is knowing the answer.; an influence of traditional Hindi grammar, it is more common in northern states.
Variations in noun number and determiners: He performed many charities. She loves to pull your legs.
Prepositions: pay attention on, discuss about, convey him my greetings. Most prepositions of English are direct mental translations of the approximate postpositions of Hindi, but the Hindi- speakers fail to note that there isn't always a one-to-one correspondence.
Tag questions: The use of "isn't it?" and "no?" as general question tags, as in You're going, isn't it? instead of You're going, aren't you?, and He's here, no? ('na' often replaces 'no': another influence of Hindi, this time colloquial, common all across the North, West, and East--the South replaces it with the 'ah' sound, as in Ready, ah?, an influence of colloquial Tamil and Kannada.)
Word order: Who you have come for? They're late always. My all friends are waiting.
Yes and no agreeing to the form of a question, not just its content -- A: You didn't come on the bus? B: Yes, I didn't."
Use of the indefinite article a before words starting with vowels (usually a slip of the tongue).
In addition to Lawler's observations, other unique patterns are also standard and will frequently be encountered in Indian English:
Use of would instead of will as in "I would be going to New York this weekend".
Use of the words but or only as intensifiers such as in: "I was just joking but." or "It was she only who cooked this rice." (Influenced by Hindi syntax)
Anglicisation of Indian words especially in Chennai by adding "ify" to a local Tamil word.
Use of yaar, machaa, abey, arey in an English conversation, mainly by people of native Hindi-speaking origin; 'da', 'machaa' is more frequently used in the South.
Use of the word ki (Hindi and Marathi) to mean, loosely, that, such as in "What I mean is ki we should adopt this plan instead." (Seen mainly in the North and West of the country.)
Idiomatic English for quantification in use of preposition "of", as in "There is so much of happiness in being honest."
Use of the plural ladies for a single lady or a woman of respect, as in "There was a ladies at the phone."
Use of "open" and "close" instead of switch/turn on/off, as in "Open the air conditioner" instead of "Turn on the air conditioner", and "Open your shirt" for "Take off your shirt." This construction is also found in Quebec English.
Use of "hope" where there is no implication of desire but merely expectation: "We don't want rain today but I hope it will rain."
Use of "off it" and "on it" instead of "switch it off" and "switch it on."
Use of "current went" and "current came" for "The power went out" and "The power came back"
Swapping around the meanings of "slow" and "soft" as in "I shall speak slower for you" (actually means I will speak softly) or "make the fan softer" (actually means make the fan go slower/ reduce its speed)
Creation of nonsensical, rhyming double-words to denote generality of idea or act, a 'totality' of the word's denotation, as in "No more ice-cream-fice-cream for you!", "Let's go have some chai-vai (tea, "tea and stuff")." or "There's a lot of this fighting-witing going on in the neighbourhood." (Prevalent mainly in Hindi- and Punjabi-speaking states.) Of course, this usage is not unknown in other English-speaking countries, e.g., Fran Drescher's autobiography "Cancer Schmancer".
Use of "baazi"/"baaji" or "-giri" for the same purpose, as in "business-baazi" or "cheating-giri." (Also prevalent mainly in Hindi-speaking states.)
Use of word "wallah" to denote occupation or 'doing of/involvement in doing' something, as in "The taxi-wallah overcharged me.", "The grocery-wallah sells fresh fruit." or "He's a real music-wallah: his CD collection is huge."
Use of the word maane (Bengali) , "Yani" (Urdu) and matlab (Hindi/Urdu) to mean, loosely, "meaning" ("What I mean is..."), as in "The problem with your idea, maane, what I feel is missing, is ki it does not address the problem of overstaffing." or "Your explanation, matlab, your feeble attempt at one, was sorely lacking in cohesiveness."
Overuse of the words "Generally"/"Actually"/"Obviously"/"Basically" in the beginning of a sentence.e.g "Actually I am not feeling well."
Use of the word "since" instead of "for" in conjunction with periods of time, as in "I have been working since four years" instead of "I have been working for four years" or "I have been working since four years ago". This usage is more common among speakers of North Indian languages such as Hindi where the words for both "since" and "for" are the same.
Confusion, especially among North Indians, between the use of till and as long as, as in "Till you haven't finished your homework, you will not get dinner." This is again directly traceable to Hindi grammar.
Use of the word "gift" as a verb You are gifting me a new cell phone?
Use of "I can able to cook" instead of "I can cook" - a widespread grammatical error in India.
Omission of the definite article: e.g. "Let's go to city" instead of "Let's go to the city"
Usage of "out of hundred" instead of per cent: "He got hundred out of hundred" instead of "He got a hundred" or "He got a one hundred per cent".
Pronunciation of "h" and "z" as "hech" and "ized" respectively.
Use of the Latin word "cum", meaning "with", as in "Welcome to the gymnasium cum swimming pool building." This was common in the past in British English.
In South India, phrases such as "that and all", or "this and all" are used roughly to convey the meaning "all of that (stuff)" or "regarding that". e.g: A: "Can I pay you back later? I don't have my wallet." B: "That and all I don't know. I need the money now."
Use of "the same" instead of "it", as in "I heard that you have written a document on .... Could you send me the same?" (this again used to be standard British English but now appears old-fashioned).
Use of "kindly" instead of "please" - although grammatically correct in British English, in spoken English it appears formal or pompous.
Use of "right?", a translation of Hindi kya, at the end of a sentence. Kya is also encountered in Indian English
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Idioms and Popular Phrases
These might look strange to a person for whom English is the first language. They should realise that many of their expressions similarly look strange to those for whom English is not their first language. Many of these idioms and popular phrases are heavily influenced by the way Indians express these ideas in their languages.
"Your good name please?": "What is your name?", carryover from Hindi expression "Shubh-naam", literally meaning "auspicious name". This is similar to the way Japanese refer to the other person's name with an honorific "O-" prefix, as in "O-namae" instead of the simple "namae" when referring to their own name. It is also an indication that the questioner wants to know the person's formal or legal name, as opposed to his or her nickname, which are commonly used among friends and family.
"That is besides the point"
"Out of station" to mean "out of town".
"Join duty" to mean "reporting to work for the first time". "Rejoin duty" is to come back to work after a vacation.
"Deadly", "hi-fi", "sexy" are used in idiomatic ways as adjectives. Deadly means intense, "hi-fi" stylish or beyond the perception of the average person and "sexy" excellent or extremely cool. Examples are "That movie was deadly, yaar; what an action scene!", "Your shoes are hi-fi. Where'd you get them?" and "That's a sexy car, man!"
"Hello, What do you want?": used by some when answering a phone call, not perceived as impolite by most Indians
"Tell me": used when answering the phone, meaning "How can I help you?"
"send it across" instead of "send it over", as in "send the bill across to me" instead of "send the bill over to me".
"order for food" instead of "order food", as in "Let's order for sandwiches".
"What a nonsense/silly you are!" or "Don't be doing such nonsense anymore.": occasional - idiomatic use of nonsense/silly as nouns (although this is not uncommon in British English).
"pindrop silence" literally means that such a silence should be maintained that even a pindrop can be heard.
"back" replacing "ago" when talking about elapsed time, as in "I met him five years back" rather than "I met him five years ago." (Though this too is not uncommon in British English)
"freak out" is meant to have fun, as in "let's go to the party and freak out."
"pass out" is meant to graduate, as in "I passed out of the university in 1995."
"go for a toss" is meant to go haywire or to flop, as in "my plans went for a toss when it started raining heavily."
"funny" is meant to replace not only "odd"/"strange" but "rude"/"precocious"/"impolite" as well. "That man was acting really funny with me, so I gave him a piece of my mind"
"on the anvil" is used often in the Indian press to mean something is about to appear or happen. For example, a headline might read "New roads on the anvil".
"tight slap" to mean "hard slap".
"Unless and untill".. This is called as Indianism by many native speakers. This is uncommon in British English as these two words are not used at the same time.
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Titles (of respect; formal)
Referring to elders, strangers or anyone meriting respect as "'jee'"/"'ji'" (suffix) as in "Please call a taxi for Gupta-ji".
Use of prefixes "Shree"/"Shri" (Mr) or "Shreemati"/"Shrimati" (Ms/Mrs): Shri Ravi Shankar or Shreemati Das Gupta.
As with Shree/Shreemati, use of suffixes "Saahib/Sāhab" (Mr) and "Begum" (Mrs)(Urdu) as in "Welcome to India, Smith-saahib." or "Begum Sahib would like some tea."
Use of "Mr" and "Mrs" as common nouns. For example, "Jyoti's Mr stopped by yesterday" or "My Mrs is not feeling well".
Use of "Mr" with first name. For example, Ashok Kumar might be addressed as "Mr Ashok" instead of "Mr Kumar".
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. E.g., "Hello, Vimala aunty!" In fact, in Indian culture, children or teenagers addressing their friend's parents as Mr Patel or Mrs Patel (etc.) is considered offensive—a substitution of Sir/ Ma'am is also not suitable except for teachers. On the contrary, if a person is really one's uncle or aunt, he/she will usually not be addressed as "uncle"/"aunty", but with the name of the relation in the vernacular Indian language, even while conversing in English. For example, if a woman is one's mother's sister, she would not be addressed (by a Hindi speaker) as "aunty" but as Masi (Hindi: मासी).
Use of Respected Sir while starting a formal letter instead of Dear Sir.
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Anomalous usage
"Revert" used to mean "reply to." ("Why have you not reverted my letter?" meaning "Why have you not replied to my letter?")
"Communicate" used to mean "travel." ("Communication between Calcutta and Dhanbad is not good." meaning "The transportation options from Calcutta to Dhanbad are not good.")
The word "marriage" used to mean "wedding." ("I am attending my cousin's marriage next month.")
The word "holiday" used to mean any day on which a person is not at work, including official holidays, vacations, sick leave, weekends, etc. ("Sunday is my holiday.")
Treatment of the phrase "I don't think so" as a unit, as in "I don't think so I can do that" instead of "I don't think I can do that."
The word "gheraoh" (meaning forcefully restraining a person by surrounding him but not touching him) used as a verb as in "The minister was gheraoed by the public today."
The word "meat" is used to mean the flesh of any mammal, fish, bird, shellfish, etc. Fish, seafood, and poultry are not treated as categories separate from "meat," especially when the question of vegetarianism is at issue.
The word "mutton" is used to mean goat meat instead of sheep meat (and sometimes in a broader, euphemistic sense to mean any red meat, i.e., not poultry or fish).
The word "hero" is used to mean a male protagonist in a story, especially in a motion picture. The protagonist need not have any specifically heroic characteristics. More significantly, "hero" is used to mean a movie actor who is often cast in the role of the protagonist. Thus, "Look at Vik; he looks like a hero," meaning "he is as handsome as a movie star."
The word "dialogue" means "a line of dialogue" in a movie. ("That was a great dialogue!" means "That was a great line!") "Dialogues" is used to mean "screenplay." In motion picture credits, the person who might in other countries be credited as the screenwriter in India is often credited with the term "dialogues."
The verb "repair" in southern India is used as a noun for a broken object as in, "The TV became repair." The same word is used for saying when the broken object is fixed: "The TV is repaired and now it is working properly."
The word "stay" used for "live" or reside at": "Where are you staying?" meaning not "Where are you temporarily lodging" but "Where is your residence?" (though this is normal in Standard Scottish English)
The word "damn" used as an intensifier, especially a negative one, far more frequently and with far more emphatic effect, than in international English
The word "healthy" to refer to fat people, in North India in general and in Bihar in particular as in "His build is on the healthy side" to refer to a positively overweight person. It is used because most people who are thin often suffer from many diseases. People presume that if a person is in a financial position to get fat he musn't suffer from diseases i.e. he must be healthy
The expression "my dear", used as an adjective to refer a likeable person. as in "He is a my dear person." Very common in Bihar.
The word "dear" used as a term address of pleasant (male) companionability equivalent to "mate" in Australian English and presumably used as yaar would be in Hindi/Urdu.
The word "dress" is used to refer to clothes for men, women, and children alike: "She bought a new dress for her son."
The word "cloth" usually refers only to any clothes or fabrics that are not wearable, like "waste cloth": "Use that cloth for cleaning."
"Cloth" and "clothe" are used interchangeably. 'Clothe' is sometimes regarded as the singular form of 'clothes'.
"Shirtings and suitings" used for the process of making such garments
"saloon" instead of salon, as in "I will visit the hair saloon."
"Bath" and "bathe" are also used interchangeably.
Greetings like "Happy Birthday" are used even to say that "Today is my happy birthday"
The use of "also" in place of "too" or "as well"; as in "I also need a blanket" instead of "I too need a blanket" or "He was late also" instead of "He was late as well"
Intensifying adjectives by doubling them. This is a common feature of most Indian languages. For example: "She has curly-curly hair"; "You are showing your hairy-hairy legs; "We went to different-different places in the city in search of a good hotel; "You will get used to the humidity slowly-slowly". An extreme example is the use of the phrase "simp-simply" by Kannada speakers to mean "without any reason", obviously mirroring the Kannada "sum-sumne".
Use of "colour" to imply "colourful"; often doubled in usage as in the previous item. "Those are colour-colour flowers".
Use of "reduce" to mean "lose weight." "Have you reduced?"
Use of "this side" and "that side" instead of "here" and "there." "Bring it this side." "We went that side."
Use of "engagement" to mean not just an agreement between two people to marry, but a formal, public ceremony (often accompanied by a party) where the engagement is formalized. Indians will not speak of a couple as being "engaged," until after the engagement ceremony has been performed. Similar to the use of term "marriage," a person may say "I am going to attend my cousin's engagement next month." Afterwards, the betrothed is referred to as one's "would-be" wife or husband. In this case, "would be" is used to mean "will be" in contrast with the standard and American and British connotation of "wants to be (but will not be)."
The word "marry" used to mean "arrange or organize a wedding for," as in "I will be marrying my daughter next month" (meaning: "I will be hosting/organizing my daughter's wedding next month."
"Where are you going?"
"Tell me where you are going"
In Indian English, however, a speaker will tend to choose one or the other word order pattern and apply it universally, thus:
"Where are you going?" and "Tell me where are you going.", or
"Where you are going?" and "Tell me where you are going."
It is very common to notice Indian speakers adding "no" as a suffix at the end of a sentence to emphasize a particular point.:For example, "I told you no?!" in Indian English means "Didn't I tell you?".
The use of phrases such as "today morning" or "today evening" instead of "this morning" or "this evening."
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Words unique to or originating in Indian English
Main articles: List of English words of Hindi origin, List of English words of Tamil origin, List of English words of Sanskrit origin, List of English words of Urdu origin, and List of English words of Malayalam origin
Indians frequently inject words from Indian languages, such as Bengali, Kannada,Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Urdu into English. While the currency of such words usually remains restricted to Indians and other Indian subcontinentals, there are many which have been regularly entered into the Oxford English Dictionary as their popularity extended into worldwide mainstream English. Some of the more common examples are "", "", "", "pyjamas"; others were introduced via the transmission of Indian culture, examples of which are "mantra", "karma", "avatar", "pundit" and "guru". The lead character in the pop sitcom "Dharma and Greg" has an Indian name "Dharma".
Words unique to (i.e. not generally well-known outside South Asia) and/or popular in India include those in the following by no means exhaustive list:
arbit (a slang term and short for arbitrary. Can be used to mean "vague", "random" or "bad". e.g.: "What an arbit ending that movie had!" Used primarily by college students in Delhi and Mumbai. It is pronouced either as "arbitt" or "arbid", usuall with equal stress on both syllables)
batchmate or batch-mate (Not classmate, but of a schoolmate of the same grade)
cousin-brother (male first cousin) & cousin-sister (female first cousin); used conversely is one's own brother/sister (of one's parent, as opposed to uncle or aunt; English brother/sister): most Indians live in extended families and many do not differentiate even nominally between cousins and direct siblings.
crore (ten million) and lakh (one hundred thousand)
Dicky/dickey the boot of a car
short for fundamental. Used almost exclusively by college students in large cities, esp. Delhi and Mumbai.
foot overbridge (bridge meant for pedestrians)
French beard to mean a moustache and goatee that wrap around the mouth.
godman somewhat pejorative word for a person who claims to be divine or who claims to have supernatural powers
gully to mean a narrow lane or alley (from the Hindi word "gali" meaning the same).
Himalayan blunder (grave mistake)
nose-screw or nose-ring (woman's nose ornament)
pass-out to graduate from college
to prepone (to advance, literally the opposite of 'postpone')
scheduled tribe (a socially/economically marginalised Indian tribe, given special privileges by the government)
time pass or timepass to mean something that is good enough for killing time. For example, "The movie was not great, but timepass".
updation (used in out-sourcing to mean to update something, as in "I've completed the updation".)
uptil used for "up till" or "up until".
upto (a shortening of "up to")
would-be (fiancé/fiancée)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English 'Double-confirm' for re-confirm or just confirm.
'Pressurize" instead of pressure: His boss pressured ('pressurized') him into doing it.
In 'tension' for being concerned or 'nervous'
The book Hobson-Jobson by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, first published in 1886, gives a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words.
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