Hinglish2English

India now has the largest English-speaking population in the world, surpassing the United States. David Crystal, professor of linguistics and the author of The Stories of English, estimates that India’s English speaking population now exceeds 350 million. For most it is a second language.

It should come as no surprise that Indians have given their own twist to the language of their colonizers. As early as 1886 Indian English terms, endearingly known as Hinglish, were compiled by Colonel Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell in Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words, which is now available online ( http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/hobsonjobson )

More recently, another Britisher living in Delhi since 1945, Nigel Hankin pulled together 2000 common Hinglish words, such as mistri (artisan), moolah (money) in Hanklyn-Janklin. The internet has spawned other attempts at documenting Indian English contributions, such as the Online Dictionary of Indian English ( http://www.vsubhash.com/desienglish.asp ).

Hinglish terms are peculiarly Indian, their meaning and usage confined to India. However, Hinglish is increasingly being absorbed by English speakers outside India. Words such as chai, mantra, pundit, avatar, guru and karma, for example, have acquired widespread acceptance worldwide. Several other popular English words have Indian roots:

The Revised 2nd Edition, released last year, introduced the world to several new words, from those familiar to the tech savvy, like podcast and phishing, Hinglish terminology, like desi and kitty party. Among the Indian words, introduced by the Revised Oxford Dictionary of English, which “traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books”: