Skip to main content

Dialect of Indian English

I enjoy hearing new words, and old words in new contexts -- India has one of the largest populations in the world of English speakers, so naturally they have developed some unique characteristics.
When we lived in India, my favorite new word was "preponed"  -- the opposite of postponed. 
And our family's favorite saying was "it is just coming", typically expressed by a vendor who wants to keep his customer happy, regardless of the actual whereabouts of the package.

Here in Qatar we hear more as well:
Yesterday on the telephone I was making an appointment to have the car checked, and reported the current mileage as one-one-four-thousand.  He responded "one lakh fourteen thousand, yes?".
I didn't miss a beat.  "Yes: one lakh four thousand" .   (yes, technically, "lakh" is Hindi for the hundred-thousand unit; but it is viewed as universal in India)
 
And today I receive this tweet from a colleague in my church choir:

AVOID SLEEPING IN CHURCH!!
I Was sleeping in the church when my byseater woke me up.
Immediately I Heard the priest saying ".....Please stand up".
I Stood up without knowing the reason and people were clapping!!
Priest: "Thank you Jesus!
Any other person who will give us another one lakh for renovation of the Hall?"....I Fainted

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World

Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World by James Carroll My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fascinating comprehensive worldview, with Jesuitical logic in a broad sweep that links religion in a circular way to violence and the solution to violence. The author shows a great command of history and religion, with extensive endnotes to support or expand upon most of his claims; however, some sweeping indictments will certainly be resisted by the more fundamentalist People Of The Book (that is, the Abrahamic religions). A core symbolic thread is Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac on Mt.Moriah, the supposed site later called Jerusalem -- the author deftly cites that scene throughout the many centuries since the original event, demonstrating the human tendency to misinterpret that near-sacrifice in order to rationalize our own tendency to violence and scapegoating. I started the book in audio form, but found it unlistenable -- the author's c...

Review: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders My rating: 4 of 5 stars Must-read for any teacher of writing, and certainly for any would-be writer; also for any aficionado of Russian literature. This book is a distillation of the author's creative-writing class; reading it feels much like attending his class -- all that's missing is the back-and-forth of a seminar. View all my reviews

Review: The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir

The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir by Sherry Turkle My rating: 5 of 5 stars I cannot stop talking about this book, and not just because the author is a favorite of mine, with her earlier books about the effect of technology on education and our psyches. She describes encounters with so many other famous writers and technologists -- she was Present at the Creation of our computer-saturated internet world. Note that the title is purposely plural: several personal points are interwoven into the chapters, sometimes repeating details that a "normal" book would elide. But she is a talented writer and psychologist: the very writing style is intended to affect the reader and illustrate psychological points. I did cringe at the repeated references to the Freudian incident with her stepfather (fear not, dear reader -- no outright abuse here, just psychological trauma unearthed by years of analysis, along with all-too-typical infidelity and familial...