Hinglish?

Feb 26

I’ve got to admit, it’s still often difficult to understand spoken English here. It’s the mixed problem of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Here’s a taste…

Prononucation:

Bee-jahn/Bee-shahn = Vision
Peelt = Field
Yat-tuw-ohm = Earthworm (As in, “Oh, you are a Biology major; did you do dissection of a yattuwohm?” “Sorry, a what?” We resorted to spelling.)

There are also the basics:
‘p’ and ‘f’ are interchangeable, mixed together, or often reversed
same with ‘b’ and ‘v’ (like in Spanish)
‘i’ and ‘y’ are always ‘ee’ (my name is Aleesah Teetoose)
‘d’, ‘dh’, ‘t’ and ‘th’ all sound exactly the same to me but are apparently entirely distinct. Bloody critical period for aural/verbal language acquisition!
And the golden rule: when pronouncing any English word with more than three syllables, jam all the final syllables together into a fast, ill-stressed, incomprehensible mutter. Then look astounded when Westerners don’t understand. (Superntrndrrtrrnt - Theye’re talking about the Superintendent, of course.)

Vocab

Indians love flowery language. I don’t have any great examples at hand but will try to remember to write some down when I hear or see them. All I can say is you’re more likely to be understood if you say ‘multifarious’ than ‘many’, ‘of great length/duration’ than ‘long’, and ‘in the direction of that location’ than ‘there’.

Adjectives are also interesting. One girl looked at me happily and said I was ‘simple.’ I asked for clarification and she agreed that yes, she also meant I was ‘easy'. Great, I’m stupid AND slutty. Later I found out she meant honest and down-to-earth. I’ve also been called punctual (HA, imagine) and sincere, but used as common and broad adjectives like we would say responsible and nice.

Some fillers I find funny and strangely used are ‘little bit’ and ‘so many’, as in “I am little bit tired” or “And so many other things are also there.” Maybe this is also a grammar issue…so on to grammar.

Grammar

My sole issue with the grammar is tense. (This is limited to the poorer English speakers.) The cook asks me halting things like “Alyssa… was… eat… was… breakfast?” This can still mean anything from “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” to “Would you like to eat now?” to “What do you normally take for breakfast?” Another example: Today a patient invited me to her house and said “Told Dr. Parida you come.” She told the director I am going to go for lunch today? She is going to tell him? She wants to tell him? I am supposed to go tomorrow? Or maybe I am the one who is supposed to ASK if I can go? The only possible answer: “Maybe. I’ll try.”