Mark my words: Hinglish lessons

A reader of The National in Abu Dhabi, who declares himself a fan of both Indian music and my weekly column on words, inspired these thoughts on the liberties people from the subcontinent take with the English language ...

Almost by definition, anyone entrusted with drawing up a style guide on the use of English has strong views on language. Tradition, context and rules of grammar naturally influence how the task is approached, but so do personal likes and dislikes.

The fair-minded stylist will acknowledge that while some decisions on usage seem beyond reasonable dispute, honest differences of opinion may arise between people who care equally about the written word. These disagreements cannot always be settled on the basis of what it right and what is wrong.

The publishers of each newspaper, magazine, book and practically any other form of written work make their own choices. What works for one would be completely wrong for another.

A magazine aimed at adolescents would stand little chance of pleasing its audience if its articles resembled academic tracts. Variations are even found among different publications from the same company. A reader of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun does not want to feel he has picked up The Times, also Mr Murdoch's property, by mistake (though purists may claim, in an age of broadsheets going tabloid, that the distinction is sometimes blurred).

In countries such as the UAE, with large populations originating in the Indian subcontinent, there is a tendency for certain publications to lapse into what is sometimes called Hinglish. Should this phenomenon attract criticism, or be accepted as just another of the jigsaw pieces making up the English language?

I advocate a tolerant response. When it became known that I was to be responsible for The National's style, a surprising number of Indian people expressed the hope that we would pursue a strictly British English format.

But while these wishes reflected my own, it would have been inexcusable to expect other publications to follow my lead.

One reader of Asian descent, Ash Dar, is not so sure. In an e-mail, he urges me to address “a whole new area of interest, instead of the ‘smaller’ stuff of mere punctuation”.

A fan of what he calls “Indian (Bollywood) music”, he praises UAE-based radio stations that cater for his tastes. But when the music stops, so does his enjoyment. “I have to switch channels when the presenters (known as RJs - presumably that stands for Radio Jockey) speak for any more than about 30 seconds,” he reports. “They speak a mixture of Hindi and English (some call it Hinglish). Their grammar and pronunciation is so atrocious that I just have to listen to something else.”

Ash feels some English language newspapers are little better, citing one item about a "Fake Haul of Credit Cards". The meaning is clear, he says, but “someone just needed to rearrange the first three words”.

I am not persuaded that mangling correct English in this way is really Hinglish, which seems to be more accurately defined as the result of inserting English words and phrases into sentences spoken or written in southern Asian languages.

On a visit to India, I spotted this headline in The Times of India: “Are the local poilce competent enough?” That was not Hinglish either, but a simple, if embarrassing, error.

An Anglo-Indian author, Baljinder K Mahal, has made what appears to be a proper but also entertaining exploration of the subject in a book entitled The Queen’s Hinglish. According to the publishers, Collins, this is a guide to the “fastest-growing area of language change in English today”.

It surely has nothing to do with crazily misplaced adjectives or the bad grammar of Dubai disc jockeys. But Ash has provided the inspiration. I intend to ensure that Mahal’s book is soon be found on the shelf alongside my copy of Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms.

Comments

[Boris Goodenough]

I assume, sir, you were born at a time not unadjacent to 1780 and were the curate in Ms Austen's splendid fictional narrative Pride and Prejudice. Most assuredly, you put me in mind of him.

[SH]

It is interesting to read this article as well as your piece on franglais. Language changes in use, and as English becomes the lingua franca of the world, so French will acquire more English expressions. What is important is to ensure that children, whether French or English, are taught the basic grammar of their mother tongue. Professor Higgins's comment on language defining class and education is still very pertinent today.

[Bill Taylor]

One is tempted to say that's not good enough, Boris. But one's better self will prevail and one will refrain.
SH raises an interesting point about English becoming the lingua franca. There seems little doubt that this will happen but over the years the shifting dominance of various languages has added piquancy (though there may be a better word) to the mother tongue.
When "A Clockwork Orange" was published in 1962, Anthony Burgess was obviously foreseeing a future when the Soviet Union would have far more dominance in the world than turned out to be the case. The slang used by Alex and his gang was peppered with Russian words, one or two of which I believe have stayed in fairly common use.
The insistence in many countries that children learn English makes travel a little easier. I visited Bulgaria two years ago with some trepidation but communication was never a huge problem, even in quite small towns. And in China a few years before that, it was regarded as hip by young and old to say upon parting, "bye-bye."