FUN IN INDIAN ENGLISH

28^th July, 2009.

Through the recent years, a lot of Indians are opting to speak English language as often as possible. The reasons being many, may it be for obtaining a good job, may it be for pursuing higher studies etc. What ever the reason may be, we have to agree the fact that in this contemporary world, good language skills are of utmost importance.

Albeit, at times we manage to speak in English, that too with averring fluency, we are incognizant of the blunders we make while speaking so called Indian English. There is a famous peculiar message circulating among the mobiles across India, stating that “British destroyed our country for 150 years, so let us destroy their language forever”. Very truly said. Only exception being that there is no need of ‘let us’ in the message, for knowingly or unknowingly we have always made fun out of the language. This I felt because of the few examples which were cited in my CAT class today. Few of them I would like to discuss below.

Firstly our mother tongue has a great deal of effect on the English language we speak. For instance once a person approached my sir and advised him, “Be careful with his spoonerism”. My sir, then baffled, asked him what he meant by spoonerism. He then replied in Hindi ,“chamchagiri” sir. How funny, right. Actually the word spoonerism has got some other meaning in English, which means slip of the tongue. For example, if we speak ‘down trained’ instead of ‘town drained’, this slip of tongue is called as spoonerism. Further few more such sentences to make you interested: “I am talking to him, why are you coming center center or middle middle(beech beech main)”. “He went to the village to sell his property along with his wife”. Read this sentence carefully, you will find something irresistible to laugh at. Keep going.

Secondly, we tend to frame our own words with the limited knowledge we have. And moreover we use them with such confidence as if it is a general word. K, let me ask you a question, rather simple one. What is the opposite of postpone? 99% of the Indians will answer it within a second as prepone. But in reality, atleast until 1998, there is no word called prepone. It is in the new oxford dictionary in 1998, the word was included, but with a note i.e, (from india). So must be feeling proud of being an Indian now, but in contrast to this, we use many other words that do not exist.

A few more instances to perplex you. “Walking on the road, a stone fell on me”. Most of us infer from this sentence that you were walking on the road and the stone fell on you. But actually it means that the stone is walking on the road and it fell on you. “Having gone to the market, all vegetables were bought by my father”. Now you can understand, who actually went to the market.

Here finally to make you involved, I post to you a few questions. Please do answer to find out the funny side of it. “The river is flowing _____ the bridge”, “ I am sitting _____ the shade”. Hope you had fun reading this post, and wish to see your replies in the comments section. Thanks for sparing such time. Have a good day.