Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
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srikant1987
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Post by srikant1987 »

By now, I guess many Indians have such proficiency in English as to be able to consider themselves to be native speakers themselves. A kind of English speech different from Indians' may well be termed accented by us.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srikant: That may be true to a very limited extent within India. But outside India, the primary goal should be to speak in a clear and understandable manner to the other person.

There are a lot of issues with Indian English ( in general ). I am including myself in this characterization. First of all we speak too fast ( fluency and rapidity are not the same thing ), We mispronounce words, 'v' 'w' sounds get interchanged, lack of proper distinction of sounds for 'th' ( this, that, there etc. ), a question that requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer and a question that requires a general answer both end with a rising tone, 'echo' sounds like 'yucko', syllable emphasis is all over the place and a whole host of such issues. Someone who worked at a call center would have learnt all this and gotten them corrected in a couple of months ;)

Proper English does not have to exactly imitate British or American English, a properly intoned English is the goal. If it sounds different from the general indian Engish, so be it. People will get used to it. I think the Radio and TV news readers in India and some politicians ( Chidambaram? not sure ) have pretty good intonation and may be that is the standard to aspire to.

coolkarni
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Post by coolkarni »

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Last edited by coolkarni on 27 Nov 2009, 06:50, edited 1 time in total.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

I stand corrected on Chidambaram then ;) I probably mixed him up with someone else.

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

coolkarni wrote:BTW the only English accent I enjoyed was the Left Wing British MP Galloway's deposition in front of the US Senate in 2005 , in the Oil for food Scam.
George Galloway's accent is more Scottish than English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyyGoPerzWc

coolkarni
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Post by coolkarni »

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Last edited by coolkarni on 27 Nov 2009, 06:50, edited 1 time in total.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Galloway reminds me of Schwarzenegger's accent these days ;) Accent or not, yes, GG speaks his mind in a clear and understandable manner.

rshankar
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Post by rshankar »

vasanthakokilam wrote:There are a lot of issues with Indian English ( in general )

When all that VK's said are done, I still have issues with composition - a liberal and inappropriate use of 'present continuos' is one that comes to mind immediately! And this inordinate need to translate from a native tongue - a problem that is an issue with native speakers of European languages as well....Languages have their flow, and not following these 'rules' make for some interesting patterns - take a simple act of 'putting the phone down' - it is not 'keeping the phone' - and equally, 'phOnai pODa pOrEn' is hilariously inappropriate...

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Good point Ravi and that is a much tougher goal to achieve. It is a continuous process, requires conscious effort and possibly some tutoring help too. One of the most humbling experiences is to have a conversation with a 6 or 7 year old native speakers of English and having their parents 'rephrase' what you just said ;)

Nick H
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Post by Nick H »

Someone who worked at a call center would have learnt all this and gotten them corrected in a couple of months
Only the ones working for the American companies! The Brits no longer use the word gotten except in one specific instance ;).

VK RAMAN
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Post by VK RAMAN »

How about ebonics?

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Nick ;) I do not know where I had gotten that 'gotten'.

keerthi
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Post by keerthi »

rshankar wrote:
take a simple act of 'putting the phone down' - it is not 'keeping the phone' - and equally, 'phOnai pODa pOrEn' is hilariously inappropriate...

and with the cell-phone, it isn't even putting down/'keeping the phone'... It is 'pressing' if you want to disconnect the line..! what would that be in tamizh..?

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

Eh? I've never heard of "pressing" the cell phone. That would translate to "amutthu" in tamil, and doesn't make sense there either.
Last edited by bilahari on 06 Jul 2009, 08:58, edited 1 time in total.

gmohan
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Post by gmohan »

I think a remote is called "amukkAN" in Tamil!
Last edited by gmohan on 06 Jul 2009, 09:03, edited 1 time in total.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

BTW, 'phOnai pODa pOrEn' in what context? 'phOne call pODa POrEn'?

I am rusty.. but what does 'keeping the phone' mean? To put it down as in 'hanging up the phone'? That is quite odd. Is that a translation of 'phOnai vai'?

I am not sure if "ring" and "engaged" in the phone context are still in Inglish but a joke I remember: "I tried to give her a ring but she was engaged" :)

keerthi
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Post by keerthi »

vasanthakokilam wrote:BTW, 'phOnai pODa pOrEn' in what context? 'phOne call pODa POrEn'?
No..
vasanthakokilam wrote:what does 'keeping the phone' mean? To put it down as in 'hanging up the phone'? That is quite odd. Is that a translation of 'phOnai vai'?
Yes.. I too have heard vekkitumA..? instead of poDaTTumA, which sounds a little threatening..
bilahari wrote:Eh? I've never heard of "pressing" the cell phone. That would translate to "amutthu" in tamil, and doesn't make sense there either.
what i mean is that vekkitumA etc, which refer to putting the phone/ handset down into the cradle, as a means to disconnect the line, isn't relevant in the case of the mobile, which you can't disconnect by putting down..You need to click/press on a key which disconnects the line.. So vekkituma etc, should be replaced by amuttutumA/amukkutumA..!! ;)
Last edited by keerthi on 06 Jul 2009, 10:33, edited 1 time in total.

coolkarni
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Post by coolkarni »

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Last edited by coolkarni on 27 Nov 2009, 06:49, edited 1 time in total.

vganesh
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Post by vganesh »

Suddenly there were so much about phone :) & English. But still Indian English grammer is taugt from Wren & martin, if I am right. I think in Tamil and write in English. Hence so much of issues while writing. Similarly while talking also. Native speakers are not like that :)

rshankar
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Post by rshankar »

VK - 'phOnai vaikaTTumA?' - gets translated into english as 'shall I keep the phone down?' instead of the appropriate 'shall I put the phone down?'. Someone (who shall remain nameless) did the opposite, and went from 'shall I put the phone down?' to 'phOnai pODaTTumA?' with hilarious results... :P

Nick H
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Post by Nick H »

The technical terms of on-hook and off-hook always confused me!

As for keeping, my wife uses putting and keeping, I think, interchangably, and they can also mean taking, bringing, fetching...

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

Cool-ji's remarks reminds of the following:
when I landed in Bangalore years ago, I decided to pick up the language as quickly as I could.
Ended up saying things like 'sleep mAdu', 'walk mADu', etc etc. The one word 'mADu' came to my
rescue! And I could (somewhat) manage with this 'mADu' bit!
;)

gmohan
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Post by gmohan »

RT, the only kannada words I picked up in my 2 years in IIM Bangalore were, beku and madu!!

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>'phOnai vaikaTTumA?' - gets translated into english as 'shall I keep the phone down?' instead of the appropriate 'shall I put the phone down?'.

OK, I got it now. Given that 'putting the thalam' is used instead of 'keeping the thalam', are we actually interchanging the meaning of 'put' and 'keep'? Are there other examples?

VK RAMAN
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Post by VK RAMAN »

naan oru email adikkarEn or nee tension adikkathE - these are some colloquial usages I have heard.

mohan
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Post by mohan »

have also heard 'rAmu-ku oru phone adikallAmA?'

rshankar
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Post by rshankar »

mohan wrote:have also heard 'rAmu-ku oru phone adikallAmA?'
I wonder if that would be translated to 'shall we hit Ram with a call?' or 'shall we hit the phone and call Ram?' :P :lol:

arasi
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Post by arasi »

Or, hit Ram with the receiver? I know, it's not nice...:)

rshankar
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Post by rshankar »

:lol: Arasi!! Poor Ram!

PUNARVASU
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Post by PUNARVASU »

Poor Ram! he will be at the receiving(receiver's) end!
He will at his wit's end -what hit him, why it hit him. :)

arasi
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Post by arasi »

Let that Ram be!
Our Ram is in seventh heaven now. Hope we get to hear about the happy event and get some pics too soon.

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

This 'aDikkiradu' is used in other contexts too: "enakku bore aDikkiradu" is a classic.
;)

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

Our Ram is in seventh heaven now.
Curious, where does this expression come from? Are there are six other heavens?

mohan
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Post by mohan »

Seventh heaven is the highest of the seven heaves ... Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Heavens

keerthi
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Post by keerthi »

something like the seven lOka-s of indian myth..?

bhUr-lOka, bhuvar-lOka, suvarlOka, maharlOka, janalOka, tapOlOka, satyalOka...

VK RAMAN
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Post by VK RAMAN »

Gate padi open pannu dA

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

Oh, so seven heavens is a judeo-christian concept?
I was thinking perhaps there's a relationship between seven swaras and seven heavens!

arasi
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Post by arasi »

Why not? Can you imagine? Without interpretations, how will all the kathAkAlakshEpam folks thrive!

By the way, even my generation used 'bOr aDikkiRadu' expression. No other aDis! Is the expression still au courant?

ragam-talam
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Post by ragam-talam »

For a sample of the lovely Indian accent, see here:
- RK Narayan's 'Malgudi Days' -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6302940609

Pratyaksham Bala
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

Here is one more aDikkira usage: sAppattukkE 'lottery' aDikkirAn.

VK RAMAN
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by VK RAMAN »

email adikkaRen

Pratyaksham Bala
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

kuLirle pallu thanthi aDicha jnapakam varudu.

Pratyaksham Bala
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by Pratyaksham Bala »

aDi udavuvathu pOla aNNan tampi udava mAattAr.

Quoting this saying how many times our teachers and elders have whacked us! But ‘aDi’ here does not mean whacking.

aDi means ‘foundation, the foundation on which the family runs’; it refers to ‘WIFE’. The meaning of the above saying is: Brothers will not be able to help you as much as your wife helps!

NOTE: Till a few generations back, ‘aDiE!’ was how one used to call his wife.

ragam-talam
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

My favourite Inglish expression: Do the needful.
Conveys the message quite succinctly.


arasi
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by arasi »

Just as the old 'kshEmam, kshEmattiRku badil ezhudavum' ('kAlaNA card pODavum' of then and today's 'oru phone aDi')!

ragam-talam
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by ragam-talam »

srkris - that's a great find!
>>Although sometimes parodied as a staple of contemporary South Asian English, the expression was current in both British and American English well into the early 20th century.<<

Wonder if there's any writing from that period that uses this expression.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by vasanthakokilam »

r-t, one example is this 1920s translation of Tolstoy's Resurrection: http://books.google.com/books?id=7HlFAA ... ul&f=false

Google books is a great resource for the research of this kind.
Surf to books.google.com and search for "Do the needful". You will see some old books that use this expression. And if you have patience, you can sift through the various books google puts up and see the usage dropping off .

srkris
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Re: Languages - Indian, English, Inglish, Accents etc.

Post by srkris »

ragam-talam wrote:Wonder if there's any writing from that period that uses this expression.
This one is from 1871: "... it is to be hoped that the Provincial Government will do the needful...."
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bi ... 10331.2.14

Such expressions are relics of a bygone era retained in communities that did not originally speak the language.

One can see similar expressions in conservative pockets... like in the Tam-Brahm lingo where the word "aam" (house) is used. It was originally tamil "agam", but then it became aham (not to be confused with the sanskrit aham) and finally aam. Once (many centuries back) this word would have been a part of popular speech among all sections of the society, but the brahmin dialect being one of the most conservative dialects has retained such old tamil words.

Similarly namboodiris use the word "illam" to refer to their house, which would have made perfect sense when kerala was speaking malai tamizh (i.e pre-malayalam). Today it is just a relic word in malayalam.

sureshvv
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Re:

Post by sureshvv »

Nick H wrote: The Brits no longer use the word gotten except in one specific instance ;).
And what instance is this? You have gotten curiosity piqued :-)

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