I find the Indian accents I’ve heard to be charming and also sexy as hell. Mmmmmm.
I don’t find Indian accents funny, exactly. I find them very hard to follow, which is odd. I don’t seem to have any problems with any other accent, but when someone is talking to me with an Indian accent, my brain gets caught up in the up-and-downs of the tone of voice, and it is very hard for me to even hear the words spoken.
It’s very musical and pretty, but I have to concentrate very, very hard to hear the words behind the tone.
…and that ladies and gentlemen, is why I failed high school chemistry class.
I didn’t want to say anything to the teacher because I thought he would feel really bad…and it wasn’t him, anyway, the fault was in my own perception. Here was this very nice man, and excellent scholar, and all I can hear is the rhythm of his voice, and not the words.
That was pointed out to me pretty often when I first went to Germany to study - I sorta had to train myself to speak slower so that the French, Italians, Spanish, etc., could understand what I was saying. I really had no clue that we speak fast!! Later on, a friend working in an IT firm told me that even his American colleagues had trouble understanding what they were saying.
shijinn, South Indians do tend to roll their heads about a bit while speaking - my mother is South Indian (brought up in Bombay though), and whenever we visit her relatives, spread out over the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, I see plenty of head-bobbing while they speak. I suppose that because I’m used to it, I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary, but I can definetely see the funny side to it.
In a way, litost is correct - southern India is dominated by is dominated by the four languages, namely Telegu, Tamil, Malayali and Kannada. English is spoken to a rather large extent in urban areas. I keep getting the impression however, each time I’m there, that Hindi (our national language, taught in schools everywhere) is somehow looked down upon - when I’d speak to a rickshaw driver in Hindi, more often than not, he’d either reply in English or indicate that he doesn’t know Hindi.
And it’s not much different in the north, from where my father originates. Hindi is the predominant language there, aside from various regional dialects - English is not spoken much outside of the (economically) upper classes. And simultaneously, non-native speakers of Hindi are indeed made fun of. I’ve lost count of the number of times my cousins and their friends have laughed at my accented Hindi!! I get back at them by laughing at their atrocious English 
Indian accents are funny from an Anglo-centric viewpoint. They are caricatures of themselves…they don’t need to be emphasised or ‘pronounced’ to sound amusing.
Re “do you think your own accent is funny:” I’m desperately trying to get the boi to imitate a Canadian accent, but he says he doesn’t do voices. pout
The funniest use of an Indian accent I ever heard was a linguistics teacher of mine, who was of Indian descent but ordinarily spoke with a Canadian accent. At one point in the class she switched into an Indian accent to show how compelling the illusion was. It was so perfect we were all in stitches; it was like Margaret Cho imitating her mom.
I’m not sure how finding an accent comical qualifies as racism, subtle or otherwise. If the amusement led to behavioral discrimination or even a mental put-down, then it would be racism, but otherwise? I don’t quite see it.
In any case, politically incorrect though it may be to admit this, just about all of North India finds it amusing to make fun of the South Indian lilt. And all of India pokes fun at the Gujarati accent. My poor Gujarat.
Oh yes, and before I forget, let me give gouda a thwap on the side of his head. Repeat after me: “Malayalam” is the language, “Malayali” are the people! Honestly, you’re just as bad as all those foreigners who ask if you’re a hindi and whether or not you speak hindu.
[humbly accepting the thwap]
My bad! I typed without thinking!! I think that came from my habit of using the word “Mallu” to describe anything related to Kerala - the food, the people, the language, and so on… I simply forgot the disctinction!
[/humbly accepting the thwap]
And now, would you like to join me for some snakes? My treat
Thenkyou but I am filing very fool. 
I agree, it’s very melodic.
The only time I think an Indian accent was really funny (to me) was when it was Peter Sellers doing it in the movie, The Party. But then he could make just about anything funny.
Were there any other films which portrayed the Peter Sellers in The Party kind of stereotype?
I think the Indian accent is probably considered funny for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the intonation, the rise and fall of pitch, seems to exaggerate the emotion in whatever is being said. Secondly, people with an Indian accent often speak very precisely (they speak English better than most Americans) and we tend to find people who over-enunciate their words funny.
Dunno, but Robin Williams does a good stereotypical Indian accent. My parents love it, actually.
Which reminds me of the conversation in Pygmalion between the hostess and Nepommuck (the great linguist) at the final party (the one which was the test of whether Eliza succeeded or not).
Well, I am Indian, have an affinity for mimicry, mock my parents and their friends mercilessly and quite accurately (hey, they mock my crappy Marathi) and I have yet to use the word “veddy” when doing so-that whole Apu thing is so inaccurate. I don’t mind if peope mock Indian accents-my only beef is that it’s rarely performed all that well. Besides, it all comes down to who is doing the mocking and under what circumstances.
I would also have to say that overall the Indian community speaks fair to extremely good English (after all, it is a national language)-so I don’t think the funniness lies in it being less correct. Dude, my father used to take the SATs along with me and my sister (to encourage us) and would never get anything below a 700 on the verbal part. Rather, it’s the intonation and the funny Indianisms behind the accent.
aasna-I’m sorry…I just can’t help giggling at “rape the chicken”
I think you’ve nailed it.
It isn’t that the English is less than correct, it’s that it is far more correct than the general English speaker would hear on a regular basis, combined with the accent itself. There is, IMHO, a lack of contractions, an expansion of the vocabulary, and an absence of poor sentence construction that would, by itself, set the utterance apart from the general run of conversation. Throw in a different pronunciation of the words and it’s a recipe for hillarity.
At my old highschool the group I hung out with, oddly was all Indian kids (I’m mixed black/white). I agree the stereotypical “Indian” accent is the funniest accent. So did my Indian friends from India, who had to learn English but can now speak English fluently.
I would chalk up the humor to how distinct and different it is than the American way of speaking English. Not racism (which I think is a cheap low blow).