I didn’t say that you said that there was one Commonwealth dialect. I said that I thought you were incorrect in dividing all the various dialects of English up into two groups, American and Commonwealth, as if that was the major division. I’m talking about spoken English mostly, because that’s what’s important mostly. People without some training in linguistics tend to get the impression that writing is more important than speaking in determining how languages work. It’s also not true that school is more important than one’s exposure to popular culture. Speaking is more important than writing and popular culture is more important than school in determine how one’s language works. Yes, if you look at spelling, it’s probably true that more people learn British spelling than American spelling in school. They are also more influenced by American popular culture than British popular culture.
That’s why I think there’s no single division like American/Commonwealth that’s particularly useful in describing the dialects of English. This doesn’t mean that I think American English is any better than other dialects of English, although it may be more influential at the moment. Furthermore, as I said, I suspect that in the future Indian English will be the most influential dialect.
In real life, people in a truly multi-lingual tend to speak all the languages they know all at once. When I visit my relatives in India, I am at a considerable disadvantage, because I speak only two languages (English and Bengali). My relatives habitually use English, Bengali, and Hindi all together, switching back and forth even mid-sentence. And three is not the limit. If I’m in Bombay, there will be some Gujarati and maybe some Marathi sprinkled in. In Bihar or Jharkhand, a dash of Bhojpuri.
The more formal or professional the situation, the more likely it is they will stick to one language. For example, when talking with a boss, or, say, a judge, the tendency will be to stick to English. When speaking to an elderly relative, stick to Bengali. But with peers and in casual situations, all the languages all at once.
The more casual or vulgar the speech, the more likely it is to use a local dialect – Bhojpuri, Bambaiya, Marathi, etc.
More than once, I have been frustrated when someone is telling a story or a joke and the whole setup is in English or Bengali, but the punchline is in local dialect. When I ask for a translation, I’m told, “Well, it’s not funny if you translate it.”
Both. I mean that most Americans don’t speak Spanish. I’m quite aware that there are a million Spanish loanwords in American English, but that’s not the same phenomenon the OP describes.
I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to be snarky. I was just expressing my surprise. You see, I’ve lived with this all my life, so I occasionally get taken aback. I tried to soften my words but I guess they still stung.
And no, I don’t know a darn thing about baseball and probably couldn’t pick a famous ball player out in the street.
Yes, on my Facebook wall are a lot of status updates that I can only half understand because they’re peppered with romanized Hindi and Bambaiya. Moreover, there is quite extensive usage of slang that I wouldn’t have access to even if I did understand Hindi.
Another thing Indians do in casual speech is take a word from one language and modify it using syntax and grammar rules (including declension, conjugation, and inflections) from another language.
So you get things like “Arre, yaar, don’t maro-fy my tiffin.” – Hindi “mara” (to “strike”, but colloquially used to mean “swipe”) – plus the English suffix “-fy.” (“Tiffin” is an Anglo-Indian word meaning a snack.)
Imagine the permutations of combining vocabulary and syntax/grammar of three or more languages.
Exactly. Multi-lingualism is inborn. It’s only because of America’s almost unique monolingualism that we are surprised by this.
I’ve never seen “fren.” All the Indians I know use “yaar” for friend.
People who are bilingual in English and Spanish certainly do, even right here in the United States.
I live in Mumbai and can vouch this is very common among youth in metro and tier 2 cities. I tend to think high school students cannot speak normally now. It is getting accepted as the new norm. Even elders are now doing it. I was in a mall an hour ago, and could here 40ish people conversing like this.
I speak 3 languages fluently, and manage reasonably well to converse in another 3. Sometimes I too do this mid-sentence switching, when other person does the same. Initially I found it very odd, but I am getting used to it now.
You guys are confusing me as to whether I’m supposed to feel bad for only speaking English or feel bad that I didn’t assume everyone else speaks English (because they do).
I’ll stick to American rom-coms from now on, sorry.
It wasn’t a romantic comedy, Indian or American. It was about sports. Just seems like all of a sudden I am a jerk for being fascinated by cultures other than my own and not having some sort of great knowledge of the entire world and the customs therein.
I’ll try to appreciate diversity a little less from now on.
I really didn’t mean to be snarky. I was just expressing my surprise. You see, I’ve lived with this all my life, so I occasionally get taken aback. I tried to soften my words but I guess they still stung.
