Content dev at Maga Design and Poppir. Editor for SHEzaadi. Veteran shameless brown girl. Lover of salt ‘n vinegar anything, and a controversial remark.

Mar 1, 2016

Do the Taj Mahal Foxtrot: A lesson in Indian English II

This post continues from this one previous.

Welcome to part two our grandest grand excursion through the Indian English, I am too much thanking you, yes! I am hoping that you are remembering about what we are discussing..

Kashmirs Most Extraordinary Entertaining Rendezvous

YAP — LET’S GO TO PREMIERS RESTAURANT

Hey-Fellers-Tony is At the Mike

With All the Five Bops

Fellers enjoy the 36 Varieties of Icecreams

DRINK DRINKS IN OUR STARLIT GOLDEN BAR

- a flypost in V.S. Naipaul’s An Area of Darkness. Oh, the urgency of caps lock!

In part one I talked about the sounds of Indian English, its phonological differences and the aural interference of the Hindi L1. The Indian tongue, in all, is successively curled, flattened, and walled against the sides of the mouth, cheek, and teeth, whereas the English mouth is more lip reliant. This post will zoom further out to the rhythm, cadence, and language system of Indian English that make it sound so foreign and exoticized. Being not so much misordered, alveolar, and under aspirated as repeating referents, pronouns, and so misplacing stresses throughout, feeds frustration where it’s meant to just be enjoyed, like a teeth clenching episode of The Bachelor.

The tale of Indian English, like its many pidgin forms and patois, is one of empire, resistance, and nationhood. It was imported vintage and elite, a pre-independence retrograde vernacular with such turns of phrase as: top class, first number, chum, hanky-panky, Johnny, and tensions. This is also true of most post-colonial Englishes like the English of the West Indies. It’s important to realize this before identifying problems in emphasis because they bring a distinctive listing to its cadence. If you pulled a bedsheet taut over four posts and dropped a quarter in its centre, that would be the impact of English in India.

Emphasizing is a special art in every language. It’s creative and metaphorical like mandarin, dramatic and elaborate like French, and then there is Hindi, which prefers repetition, with open hands raised high, a bobbling head, and eyebrows raised even higher. Here are the commonest problems when doing so in Indian English:

Redundant comparatives and superlatives, stressing the emphatic particles rather than the adjective: This is most easiest way to go, We had the most best enjoyable time, He is more clever than me.
Focus adverbs, unstressed. Stresses shift to the focus noun: I went there just one time only, They are talking even the nighttime also.
Extended possessive forms, with metered stress: He is the father of the younger cousin of him, It is on top of the shelf of the closet of the left side room.
Repeated adverbs and adjectives: Please can you cut for me into little, little pieces, Slowly, slowly you are learning, He talks so fast, fast I cannot understand.
Intensifying adverbs: I like this song too much (for very much).

Here are some more common grammatical mistranslations of Hindi along with their explanations.

Most Perso-Arabic languages refer back to the focus noun with pronouns, which sounds horribly hillbilly to English speakers.

Repeated referents: I will take it the book, She has them her lessons in the afternoon, You take it back your home, My brother he also studies medicine.
Missing pronouns + auxiliaries: You want? You take. She likes or no likes? She likes I also give.

The verb to have doesn’t exist in Hindi. The main auxiliary verb is usually to be, not to do or to have: I have it = it is with me. I don’t like it = for me there is no liking of it.

Question inversion: From where you are? You how much paid?

If I could abolish anything from the English language, it would be, without contest, prepositions. Grown adults have cried into my lap over these tiny little particles of pain and suffering. I would take to the streets, gather signatures, and write legislature to do away with these hell bringers. The selection of prepositions in Hindi is far choosier, and they fall into postposition. The problem this poses isn’t usually apparent until a direct object is added, as in phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs with an object: He didn’t wake up me, I will just take off it, I suggest it to you.

That’s the end of this second installation of Do the Taj Mahal Foxtrot! In concluding this three part series I’ll look at the pièce de résistance (and not to mention the most fun part) of Indian English: Hinglish. We’ll talk fundos, items, love marriages, status families, big name shops, and so, so much more. Till next time my bum chum butties!