Hinglish

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Hinglish is the macaronic hybrid use of English and the Hindustani language. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Its name is a portmanteau of the words Hindi and English . [6] In the context of spoken language, it involves code-switching or translanguaging between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. [7]

Contents

In the context of written language, Hinglish colloquially refers to Romanized Hindi — Hindustani written in English alphabet (that is, using Roman script instead of the traditional Devanagari or Nastaliq), often also mixed with English words or phrases. [8] [9]

The word Hinglish was first recorded in 1967. [10] Other colloquial portmanteau words for Hindustani-influenced English include: Hindish (recorded from 1972), Hindlish (1985), Henglish (1993) and Hinlish (2013). [10]

While the term Hinglish is based on the prefix of Hindi, it does not refer exclusively to Modern Standard Hindi, but is used in the Indian subcontinent with other Indo-Aryan languages as well, and also by "British South Asian families to enliven standard English". [7] [11] When Hindi–Urdu is viewed as a single spoken language called Hindustani, the portmanteaus Hinglish and Urdish mean the same code-mixed tongue, though the latter term is used in India and Pakistan to precisely refer to a mixture of English with the Urdu sociolect. [12]

History and evolution

Background

Hindustani has an approximately ten-century history. In this period, it has accommodated several linguistic influences. Contact with Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Apabhraṃśa, Persian, Arabic and Turkic languages has led to historical 'mixes' or fusions, e.g., Hindustani, Rekhta. Linguistic fusions were celebrated by Bhakti poets, in approximately the 15th-17th centuries as 'khichdi boli' – or amalgamated speech. [13]

Colonial era

At the turn of the 18th century, with the rising dominion of the East India Company, also called 'Company Raj' (literally, 'Company Rule'), the languages of India were brought into contact with the foreign element of English. In colonized India, English became a symbol of authority and a powerful hegemonic tool to propagate British culture, including Christianity. [14] The political ascendancy of the British extended into social and professional roles; this meant that the legal proceedings, as well as the studies in medicine and science, were conducted in English.

This led to an interest in the promotion of English into the society of Indian natives. Educated Indians, or 'brown sahibs', wished to participate in academia and pursue professional careers. Raja Rammohan Roy, a social and education reformer, advocated that English be taught to Indians by certain British gentlemen for the benefit and instruction of the native Indians. [15] Charles Grant, the president of the East India Company's board of control, championed the cause of English education as a 'cure for darkness' where 'darkness' was 'Hindoo ignorance'. The Charter Act was passed in 1813. This legalized missionary work by the Company, including the introduction of English education. [16] By the beginning of the twentieth century, English had become the unifying language in the Indian struggle for independence against the British.

Meanwhile, English was on its way to becoming the first global lingua franca. By the end of the twentieth century, it had special status in seventy countries, including India. [17] Worldwide, English began to represent modernization and internationalization, with more and more jobs requiring basic fluency in it. [18] In India especially, the language came to acquire a social prestige, 'a class apart of education', which prompted native Indian or South Asian speakers to turn bilingual, speaking their mother tongue at home or in a local context, but English in academic or work environments. [19]

In the late 19th century, Bharatendu Harishchandra, often considered the father of modern Hindi, wrote poems in Hinglish, combining languages and scripts. [20]

The contact of 'South Asian' languages, which is a category that refers inclusively to Hindi and Indian languages, with English, led to the emergence of the linguistic phenomenon now known as Hinglish. Many common Indic words such as 'pyjamas', 'karma', 'guru' and 'yoga' were incorporated into English usage, and vice versa ('road', 'sweater', and 'plate'). This is in parallel with several other similar hybrids around the world, like Spanglish (Spanish + English) and Taglish (Tagalog + English). A fair share of the words borrowed into English from Indian languages were themselves borrowed from Persian or Arabic. An example of this is the widely used English word 'pyjamas' which originates from Persian paejamah, literally "leg clothing," from pae "leg" (from PIE root *ped- "foot") + jamah "clothing, garment." [21]

Contemporary era

A poster for the 1943 Bollywood film Kismet, which features the movie's name written in Roman, Devanagari, and Urdu scripts. (in Hunterian: qismat) Kismet-1943-movie-poster.jpg
A poster for the 1943 Bollywood film Kismet, which features the movie's name written in Roman, Devanagari, and Urdu scripts. (in Hunterian: qismat)

In recent years, due to an increase in literacy and connectivity, the interchange of languages has reached new heights, especially due to increasing online immersion. English is the most widely used language on the internet, and this is a further impetus to the use of Hinglish online by native Hindi speakers, especially among the youth. Google's Gboard mobile keyboard app gives an option of Hinglish as a typing language where one can type a Hindi sentence in the Roman script and suggestions will be Hindi words but in the Roman script. In 2021, Google rolled out support for Romanized Hindi on its search engine and on the Google Pay app. Phrases such as "Naya Payment" for "New Payment" and "Transaction History Dekhein" for "See Transaction History" are used. [22] [23] [24]

While Hinglish has arisen from the presence of English in India, it is not merely Hindi and English spoken side by side, but a language type in itself, like all linguistic fusions. [25] Aside from the borrowing of vocabulary, there is the phenomenon of switching between languages, called code-switching and code-mixing, direct translations, adapting certain words, and infusing the flavours of each language into each other. [26] [27]

The Indian English variety, or simply Hinglish, is the Indian adaption of English in a very endocentric manner, which is why it is popular among the youth. Like other dynamic language mixes, Hinglish is now thought to 'have a life of its own'. [28]

Hinglish used to be limited to informal contexts and ads, but it is now also used in university classrooms. [29] [30]

Computational analysis

With its widespread use in social media such as blogs, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), the analysis of Hinglish using computers has become important in a number of natural language processing applications like machine translation (MT) and speech-to-speech translation. [31] [32]

Users

Hinglish is more commonly heard in urban and semi-urban centers of northern India. [33] It is also spoken to some extent as an easier-to-learn variant of Hindi by South Indians and members of the South Asian diaspora who are more comfortable with English. [34] [35] [36] Research into the linguistic dynamics of India shows that while the use of English is on the rise, there are more people fluent in Hinglish than in pure English. [37] David Crystal, a British linguist at the University of Wales, projected in 2004 that at about 350 million, the world's Hinglish speakers may soon outnumber native English speakers. [1]

In India, Romanised Hindi is the dominant form of expression online. In an analysis of YouTube comments, Palakodety et al., identified that 52% of comments were in Romanised Hindi, 46% in English, and 1% in Devanagari Hindi. [9] Romanised Hindi is also used by some newspapers such as The Times of India . [38] [39] The first novel written in this format, All We Need Is Love, was published in 2015. [40] Romanised Hindi has been supported by advertisers in part because it allows a message to be conveyed in a neutral script to both Hindi and Urdu speakers. [41] Other reasons for adoption of Romanised Hindi are the prevalence of Roman-script digital keyboards and corresponding lack of Indic-script keyboards in most mobile phones. [42]

Hinglish has become increasingly accepted at the governmental level in India as an alternative to Sanskritised Hindi; in 2011, the Home Ministry gave permission to officials to use English words in their Hindi notes, so long as they are written in Devanagari script. [43] [44] [45]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Modern Standard Hindi, commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in Devanagari script. It is the official language of India alongside English and the lingua franca of North India. Hindi is considered a Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas. It is an official language in nine states and three union territories and an additional official language in three other states. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urdu</span> Language spoken in India and Pakistan

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindustani language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and Pakistan

Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan, and functioning as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.

Indian English is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined in the Constitution of India. English is also an official language in seven states and seven union territories of India, and the additional official language in seven other states and one union territory. Furthermore, English is the sole official language of the Judiciary of India, unless the state governor or legislature mandates the use of a regional language, or if the President of India has given approval for the use of regional languages in courts.

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Hindustani has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script of Ancient India. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years, the Latin script has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons. Historically, Kaithi script has also been used.

Old Hindi or Khariboli was the earliest stage of the Hindustani language, and so the ancestor of today's Hindi and Urdu. It developed from Shauraseni Prakrit and was spoken by the peoples of the region around Delhi, in roughly the 10th–13th centuries before the Delhi Sultanate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of South Asia</span>

South Asia is home to several hundred languages, spanning the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It is home to the fourth most spoken language in the world, Hindi–Urdu; and the sixth most spoken language, Bengali. Languages like Bengali, Tamil and Nepali have official/national status in more than one country of this region. The languages in the region mostly comprise Indo-Iranic and Dravidian languages, and further members of other language families like Austroasiatic, and Tibeto-Burman languages.

Hindustani, also known as Hindi-Urdu, like all Indo-Aryan languages, has a core base of Sanskrit-derived vocabulary, which it gained through Prakrit. As such the standardized registers of the Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu) share a common vocabulary, especially on the colloquial level. However, in formal contexts, Modern Standard Hindi tends to draw on Sanskrit, while Standard Urdu turns to Persian and sometimes Arabic. This difference lies in the history of Hindustani, in which the lingua franca started to gain more Persian words in urban areas, under the Delhi Sultanate; this dialect came to be termed Urdu.

Urdish, Urglish or Urdunglish, a portmanteau of the words Urdu and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of South Asian English and Standard Urdu. In the context of spoken language, it involves code-switching between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. In Pakistan and India, many bilingual or multi-lingual Urdu speakers, being familiar with both Urdu and English, display translanguaging in certain localities and between certain social groups.

Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages. It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community, or less commonly, with introducing a more upper-caste status into a community. Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit historically.

References

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