Talk:Indian English/Archive 2

Incorrect use
I can see a common thread in the discussion about which word should be considered to be included in "Indian English". Well, I have certain reservations. For example, I feel uncomfortable to consider "yaar" as adopted in English. Use of a particluar word like "yaar" by 50% does not justify. In fact, it should be categorized as an incorrect English. And later on when foreigners start using it, it will be a valid candidate to be considered as an English word of Indian origin.

The category of incorrect English (contributed by Indians) would include Primus a brand name of a stove used as if it is equivalent to stove. If you ask Indians above 40, they would be knowing that in India (and in particular in western part) people did not know the word stove. Instead they use the word primus only. Now with the new generation and wide-spread use of LPG, the word primus is not used as the carosene stove is not used. Let me also add that just like this Xerox is a brandname of a photocopying machine derived from the name of the company. But now throughout the globe to xerox is used as a verb interchangeably with to photocopy. So, it should be  and is  accepted as an English word.

Dinesh Karia --Karia 18:46, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think you understand what a dialect is. It's Indian English. There is no such thing as "incorrect" use. If a speech community says it, then it's part of the dialect. 112.169.28.146 (talk) 12:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Doubts on "doubt"
I am a European who frequents some online discussion forums where many participants are from Asia and in particular from India. A very common and somewhat confusing idiom I see over and over is the word "doubt" used roughly to mean "question" or "problem". Is this peculiar to Indian English, or does it trace to a translation from some particular language of India (e.g. Hindi English)? I gleefully note one occurrence elsewhere on this page as of today (although by the time somebody reads this, it might have been edited out).-- era (Talk | History) 06:42, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Indian numbering system
No mention of the Indian numbering system? What about lakh, crore, et all? They're all everyday words in Indian English.... --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * That is not Indian English. It doesn't belong in this article. 75.101.11.171 (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * i feel 'lakh' and crore do need to be mentioned here since its not just used as a slang/substitute. It is used by Newspapers and TV News channels and is not considered wrong Jay (talk) 13:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The word 'lakh' can be found in Kipling (Kim for example). Some very good English literature was written by English people who either grew up in India or lived there for a long time. They helped introduce Anglo-Indian, as the dialect was known at the time, to the rest of the world. Zyxwv99 (talk) 23:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The Anglo-Indian of Rudyard Kipling's time
Shouldn't there be a separate topic for the variety of English known as Anglo-Indian (not to be confused with the people known as Anglo-Indian)? It seems to have been spoken by the English in India since the days of Queen Elizabeth (when the Mughal Empire ruled) and by anyone who did business with the English. Entire dictionaries have been written about it. Many of its words became part of general English and were incorporated into the OED (e.g., "ruttee"). Once India and Pakistan gained independence, it evolved so rapidly (in two different directions) that it became something very different. Zyxwv99 (talk) 16:33, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Non-Comparative "Less"
My Indian colleagues use the word less instead of few or little, e.g. in phrases like "Two man-months are too less to implement this feature." or "We are very less people here this week."

In comparisons, they usually say lesser. AFAICT all of my (south-)Indian colleagues use it that way. I find it quite remarkable, but I never saw it mentioned anywhere else (not in this article, either). I don't know if it can be considered a feature of Indian English. Is it? --史慧开 (talk) 09:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Divergent usage
I have just read this article for the first time and admit to no knowledge of Indian English except for dealing with Indian contract IT staff from Bangalore.

However, the 'Divergent usage' element seems to contain a considerable percentage of items, which as described here, are perfectly normal 'British' English usage and I'm at a loss to see why they are listed as divergent. These include the usage of:
 * Kindly
 * Even
 * Hero
 * Dialogue
 * Timing
 * Amount
 * Damn
 * Dress
 * Engagement
 * Graduation
 * Flyover
 * Godown
 * Gully
 * Mugging up
 * Tiffin
 * Into
 * Like nothing or like anything
 * Ragging
 * Thrice
 * Double and triple (in phone numbers)
 * "The same" instead of "it"
 * Word pair "up to" into upto.

I would suggest that the section is therefore, as written, not fit for purpose. At a minimum it should be described as differences from American/International English. DickyP (talk) 19:51, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that this section be tabularised and for those words/phrases for which an equivalent Contemporary/American/International English word/phrase exists, it should be provided. User:shantnup —Preceding undated comment added 06:23, 26 December 2011 (UTC).

Edited the page
In Mathematics section I found a strange *operator* 'zar', which I have removed. 'Zar' is not a word, but a result of 's' occurring before 'are' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.243.187.136 (talk) 09:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I have modified the page removing all the stuff which is not taught by any english teacher in any school in India. Slangs spoken by college kids are not part of Indian english but hinglish and should be part of that page. If anyone has any objections to my editing, lets have a debate over it. apurv1980 14:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with the removal of the bulk of the material, especially under the heading of "anomalous usage." These elements have nothing to do with "Hinglish" (which is the mixture of Hindi and English -- these terms are almost all purely English, only differing in particular from other dialects or varieties of English) and are not limited to "college kids" slang. That it is not taught in school is irrelevant. Much of the nature of a dialect or variety of a language has nothing to do with what is taught, but rather the actual use in a society. The elements removed by Apurv1980, in my view, are sufficiently widespread in Indian business correspondence and among the educated elite of Indian society (who are most likely to use Indian English in their day-to-day lives) as to be relevant to the descriptions and delineations of Indian English. For now, I am re-inserting the information. I welcome others' comments on the matter. Acsenray 22:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of "there/not there"
One of the first things I noticed about English as spoken in India after arriving there was the use of "is [not] there" to mean what an American English speaker would more normally express as "we [do not] have". Go into a store and ask for milk and the answer could easily be "Milk is not there." Rtmyers (talk) 03:12, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

English medium schools in India do not train their students in using the verbs (have, has, had). So, most of the English medium students use "there/not there" instead of "have/has/had". Even my bother did use the sentence "3G connection is there in my phone" instead of the sentence "My phone has 3G connection". The first sentence is grammatically wrong and the second one is right.

That's the problem with lack of proficiency in English. It is not solely related to the regional dialect. Even in India, a hardware shop's owner can display the board containing the sentence "Floppies are not available" instead of using the sentence "Floppies are not there". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.67.253.210 (talk) 05:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Kinship Terms
Terms or words like co-brother, cousin brother etc doesn't exist in English. It is not right thing to promote such words. Those words are used by those people who have insufficient knowledge in English.

Children of parents' siblings are just called as cousins. There is no term called 'cousin brother' in English. In Telugu language, maternal aunt's daughter is called as 'akka' and paternal aunt's daughter is called as 'vadina'. While translating Telugu words to English, they translate the word 'akka' as 'cousin sister' and 'vadina' as 'cousin'. In English speaking societies, people do not maintain such differences in Kinship Terminology. Social approval for close-kin marriages is different matter here. But phrases such as 'cousin sister' etc are not understood by them who speak English as their native tongue. So, Indians should not use such phrases while translating Telugu words to English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.79.184.18 (talk) 09:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Addressing unrelated people with kinship terms
The practice of addressing unrelated people with kinship terms is solely related to regional culture and it has nothing to do with language. Even Odiya speakers address unrelated women as mousi (aunt). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.76.250.114 (talk) 10:47, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Indians do not address every one with kinship terms. It is not possible to address  bus driver or train TTE as uncle regardless the age. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.96.225.98 (talk) 11:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't even address my neighbours using kinship terms. Such practice is followed by those people who still believe old values.

Inflated Numbers?
Hard to believe that 11% of Indians speak English as a first language and that the overall percentage of Indians that know English is 30-40% (when India's literacy rate itself is about half). I will remove the second part for now. Could we have a reference if it is to come back? Cribananda 07:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

No Indian literacy rate is 66% (2001 census) and they DO have 110 million speakers.86.16.175.223 18:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

This is the most reliable soucrce as far as I could gather (Britannica) and the percentage comes to around 3-4%. This was of course, in 1995, but I doubt if the numbers would have changed much. http://alt-usage-english.org/Distribution_English_speakers.shtml

-Cribananda 07:17, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It probably has changed a fair bit. :) GizzaChat  &#169; 08:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been researching this for the List of countries by English speaking population article. Here's what I've found: the proportion of Indians bilingual in English was reported here as 8.00%. The number answering the question on languages spoken was 838,583,988, so some 67,100,000 were bilingual in English. The number of Indians with English as a mother tongue is 178,598 (see first link), but so far I can't find a figure for how many of them are monolingual. (This would let us calculate the total number of English speakers in India, although it would not be much more than the bilingual figure.) These numbers all come from the 1991 Census of India, which excluded Jammu and Kashmir. -- Avenue 01:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Avenue, the percentage you quote is higher than the one on my link, nevertheless, it is still way lesser than the 10-20% quoted initially on the page. It is very difficult to determine how many speakers of English there are in a country like India simply because it is difficult to define the level of expertise required to call someone an English speaker. Depending on the definition, I can totally see how your numbers and mine can both be correct, but 10-20% does seem stretching it too far. I have no objections to the article reading "4-10%" -Cribananda 02:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree completely that the numbers depend very much on the definition used. However I think the precise number doesn't make a great deal of difference to the sense of the article, and it would be good to have numbers for which we can cite sources. How about "8% of Indians speak English, according to the 1991 Census of India, although other estimates range as high as 15%"? I've taken 15% from the 150 million English speakers mentioned in the Demographics_of_India article, but this could be replaced by the highest figure we can find a reliable source for. -- Avenue 02:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This Guardian article by David Crystal mentions a 1997 survey showing one third of Indians speak English. -- Avenue 02:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * There's definitely a wide variation in the estimates :-) The Demographics_of_India article does not cite a source, but is still in the vicinity. The India Today article mentioned in Crystal's piece looks sort of dubious to me, but if I can see the source I'll shut up.
 * I have no objection to "8% of Indians speak English, according to the 1991 Census of India, although other estimates range as high as 15%". -Cribananda 03:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the existing statement on English speakers with the version above. Regarding India Today's survey, it looks like they have been misquoted. Their results were actually that, while between 31% and 34% of Indians said they could read, write or understand English, only 19% of Indians said they could speak English. I can't find much information about the survey methodology, except that it was based on a sample of 12,651 respondents. But I'm still tempted to change the statement to read "... as high as 19%". -- Avenue 08:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks good the way it is. That survey...well, I don't know. More people can read and write English than can speak it? What is that supposed to mean? May be they know how to write their names in the English alphabet! -Cribananda 08:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally I am much more capable at reading and writing my second and third languages than I am at conversing in them, so that part of it doesn't seem odd to me. -- Avenue 12:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Go to Mumbai/Banglore and you will be surprised to find the percentage of people using English as their first langauge.--Darrendeng 06:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I request you to travel in rural zones of India. You can even find school teachers who are unable to speak English with proper grammar. Even my English teacher did use Malayalam grammar to speak English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.206.17.1 (talk) 14:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Indian English question
My question is, why do speakers of Indian English often type in all capital letters? (Example) I patrol Recent Edits and  notice it all the time. Is this acceptable English for India-related Wikipedia articles, or should I be reverting it?- Gilliam (talk) 13:41, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, being a very exprienced 'wikipedian' you should know that troll peoples come from all places, whether they are americans/indians/chinese/russians here in wikipedia and try to vandalize/distrupt it with writing all sentences in captital letters, and lots of other method. Now, you are generalizing that one indian (or more) came and wrote all words in capital letters now mean that ALL indian english speakers often type in capital letters?! What if a american/chinese/russian whatever comes and write all words in captial, then you make a statement that, why all americans/chinese/russians often type in all captial letters, right? I didn't expected that you, a exprienced editor here in wikipedia will attack indians this way. Shame on you!

Capital letters should be used only for these following purposes:


 * To begin a sentence (Only the first letter of the first word should be capital).
 * To use it as the first letter of a proper noun. (The word "language" is a common noun and the word "Telugu" is a proper noun. The first letter of the word "language" needed not be capital since it is a common noun. The first letter of the word "Telugu" must be capital since it is a proper noun. )

It is unnecessary and also grammatically wrong to use all capital letters in a word or a sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.78.129.2 (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Using "but" before a sentence
I have seen many Indians who use "but" before a sentence. Example: But, I will drink milk today though I woke up late.

It's grammatically wrong. The conjunction "but" must be used only between two sentences. It should not be used before a sentence. You can use "however" in such context. Example: However, Timothy may go to Sydney on a plane since he missed the train.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.196.199.198 (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

V-w
Under the section “Phonology”#“Consonants”, it says, “Standard Hindi and most other vernaculars (except Punjabi, Marathi & Bengali) do not differentiate between /v/ (voiced labiodental fricative) and /w/ (voiced labiovelar approximant).” This contradicts the articles Punjabi, Marathi and Bengali, which all say that said languages do not distinguish /v/ and /w/. Error of information?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 15:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

"V" is voiced labiodental in Hindi. "W" is not found in Modern Hindi. Please read the book Modern Hindi Grammar by Omkar N. Kaul.

Indian English is not similar to British English
There is no dialect called Indian English. Indian universities teach Standard British English, and on Internet Indians read North American English. However, most of the Indians use either school slang or college slang to speak English.

Most of the Indians claim that Indian English is similar to British English. It's not true. The syntax of Indian English is similar to Hindi. To turn off the light, a native English speaker says "Switch off the light" but an Indian English speaker says "Close the light" that is translation of "batti band karo" in Hindi. The syntax "Close the light" sounds odd to a native English speaker. I can cite so many examples. "Rain is falling" instead of "It's raining", "You are selfish no" that is translation of "tum kanjoos ho na" from Hindi, "Chalk piece" that is translation of "sudda mukka" from Telugu and so many sentences that sound odd are heard in English medium schools. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.79.127.34 (talk) 02:00, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Never compare British English with Indian English. The grammar of Modern English was developed by British poets like Geoffrey Chaucer but Indian English is either an ungrammatical provincial or a slang. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.14.18.109 (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Most of the Indians aren't proficient in speaking English. So they make mistakes while speaking in English. There is nothing such as 'Indian English' in sense. Even the people of southern Orissa include some Odiya words while speaking in Telugu. Can we name such language 'Orissa Telugu'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.67.254.219 (talk) 02:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * If people of southern Orissa speaking Telugu among themselves have usages consistently differing from standard Telugu, and expect these differences (so that if one of them instead uses standard Telugu he/she might be misunderstood), then yes, I'd say a variety exists that deserves its own name. —Tamfang (talk) 09:16, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

If any transformed or malformed form of a language is called a dialect, even Odiya can be called a dialect of Hindi. The shop that sells foreign made liquor is called 'bidesi modo dokaano' in Odiya and it is called 'videsi saraab ki dukaan' in Hindi. The difference in grammar, phonology and word formation is clearly evident in this context. Indian English can be called a different language because words like co-brother and unseason etc are not understood by many of the English speakers. Such division cannot be called a dialect in sense.

Some words used by Indians can be understood by them who speak English as their native language. For example: Private court (kangaroo court or unauthorised court that is organised by a vigilante gang that takes law in to their hands) and bus stand (bus terminal) etc. But words like co-brother and unseason etc are not understood by most of the English speakers.

The grammar question
The difference in grammar structure is the main factor that leads the Indians to speak incorrect English. English grammar is more complexed than the grammar of Indian languages. For example: Translate the Telugu sentence "ఇక్కడ కూర్చోవడానికి చోటు లేదు" to English. In Telugu, the sentence has four words. You need seven words to translate it to English. "There is no room here to sit" is the sentence formed after translation. Indians need to be trained well in syntax to speak correct English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.66.102.165 (talk) 03:48, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I speak three languages. In Andhra and Orissa, I speak Telugu and in Chattisgarh, I speak Hindi. English is my third language. English is not even a second language for many Indians. However, I check the grammar before I speak English. I don't intend to kill the spirit of a language with grammatical errors. I was informed that many English medium students in Tamil Nadu speak English with Tamil grammar and their English cannot be understood by other Indians. I was shocked by this news. Everyone should learn English but speak with the correct syntax.

Indian English speakers think that correct grammar is not necessary to speak English. They are wrong. People may fail to understand your language if you speak with grammatical errors. e.g. Every noun must be followed by a pronoun in the consequent sentence. This rule also applies for Telugu and other Indian languages. "He got a call from home and he went there". Here the noun "home" is used in the sentence before conjunction and the pronoun "there" in the second one. If we miss the pronoun "there" and say "he went', people may think that he went to somewhere else but not to the place where he got the call from.

New additions
I added these but then thought twice about it and decided to post them here first. My boss and 5 coworkers use Indian English and these are two things I've noticed they've said. I have a few more that I can't think of right now. Do they seem okay to add?

easytoplease (talk) 01:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "Why because" instead of "because" (i.e. "I went to the store why because we were out of milk.")
 * "Since" used to indicate duration of time (i.e. "I've been here since a long time.")


 * The first statement isn't Indian English. It's incorrect English. Not too sure about the second line. Azzurro2882 (talk) 03:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a problem related to morphology. In Hindi, the double conjunction "kyoo kee" is used to specify a reason. In English, only a single conjunction is used in such context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.67.164.240 (talk) 03:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * How about "only" as in "I will be here only", meaning "I will still be here"? I've also heard it as in "I will be at home only", i.e. "I'm not going anywhere". That one makes more sense in American English. easytoplease (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Most of the Indians speak incorrect English. An English website that operates from India had omitted the necessary conjunctions in a sentence that contains three verbs related to each other. If news papers and websites use the non-standard/sub-standard language, it is not difficult to imagine the English proficiency of a low educated man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.66.198.208 (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

"Since" used to indicate duration
"Since" should not be used to indicate the duration of time. You can say "I have been here since 1983" but you should not say "I have been here since 30 years". "Since" can be used to indicate the starting point but not the span of anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.15.27.138 (talk) 03:11, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Indian English users do not follow the difference between "since" and "for". "Since" means "from that point" or "from the starting point". It is semantically and grammatically incorrect to use "since" to indicate duration.

Mispronounciations and odd usage
These are some more odds I have noticed.
 * "Minuscule" spelled and pronounced as "misincule".
 * "Millennium" used as synonym of "million". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.96.227.91 (talk) 06:33, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Indian English used in Wikipedia
I often edit to cleanup new pages on subjects related to India. I often run into a series of oddities in their English:


 * Absence of short words such as "a" and "the".
 * All caps to denote importance of a name.
 * Not using capital letters in a sentence.
 * No spaces in a list.
 * Using odd tenses.

Are these from Indian English or is this simply a translation artifact?-- Auric 21:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is an artifact of translation done by some professionals who aren't trained in English grammar. Indian languages have simple tenses but English speakers often use perfect tenses. Therefore Indians have some difficulty in learning English tenses. In Indian languages, prepositions are used in a different way that doesn't match the rules of English grammar and syntax. For example: Translate the Telugu sentence "Nenu padella numchi samudra teeram daggara umtunnanu" to English. The translation in standard English would be "I have been residing near the beach for ten years", but in Indian English the translation would be "I am residing near the beach since ten years". The second translation sounds odd to native English speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.77.171.96 (talk) 08:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Any website that invites contributors from the public would face troubles with Indian English users. A website had invited the users to submit their stories for publication. Indian English users used redundancies like 'reply back', 'return back' etc in their stories. They even used words like "prepone" that are not found in British English and American English vocabularies. It had been a difficult task for the editors to correct the grammar used by Indian English users. It's not a wonder if Wikipedia's editors have the same trouble with Indian English users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.66.146.96 (talk) 10:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Even I did notice Indians using odd tenses while speaking English. Example: "I am absent yesterday". They use the same syntax for present tense and past tense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.96.238.5 (talk) 11:21, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

They use the wrong syntax even for future tense. They can even say "I will absent tomorrow". Most of the Indian English medium schools do not train their students in grammar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.206.17.1 (talk) 13:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * They definitely do miss out "a"s and "the"s. It drove me crazy when I was in India! For example, everywhere else, Expedia's motto is "The world's largest travel company" or something similar (I forget the exact slogan) – in Indian English it's "World's largest travel company", minus the "the". I don't know where they got it from, but it's grammatically wrong to a native English speaker. — Jon C.  ॐ  11:33, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. In India, most of the English medium schools do not train their students in morphology and syntax. When I was a student, I did notice many of the students using odd or incorrect grammar. e.g. They say "My pen is gone" when they have to say "I lost my pen". If we ask their teachers about syntactical errors, they may reply that morphology and syntax are unnecessary or unwanted subjects.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.235.52.18 (talk) 12:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a and an)
There is a question "Why do Indian English speakers miss 'a's and 'the's while speaking English?". 90% of the educated Indians aren't well trained in English even in the English medium schools. None of the Indian languages contain definite article and indefinite articles. They use the grammar of their local languages while speaking English. So, they miss "a"s and "the"s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.206.17.1 (talk) 13:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Generally "the" or "a" is used to indicate a common noun. Example: The cow is black. Here cow is a common noun and black is an adjective. You need to fix "the" before the word cow. These prefixes need not be applied to a proper noun. Example: In the phrase "United States of America" the word America is a proper noun (a fixed name of a thing). You should also use "the" or "a" while using a proper noun as a common noun. Example: The Hitler of India. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.78.129.2 (talk) 09:56, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

However, in Telugu language, demonstrative adjectives and cardinal adjectives are sometimes used to direct a common noun in specific. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.14.48.187 (talk) 02:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.78.193.120 (talk)

So what exactly is Indian English?
This article seems to be about the way Indians, in general, speak English, and not about native Indian English speakers. As a native English speaker from India, I find this article inaccurate, and frankly, quite offensive. I might be part of a extremely small minority of Indians who consider English their first language, but shouldn't this article be about "proper" Indian English? Even the lines that are cited (especially by "JC Wells", a 1982 publication) seem to be about how Indians incorrectly pronounce and speak English. So I'm beginning to wonder if this article is about how Indians stereotypically speak English, or about the Indian dialect of English. Azzurro2882 (talk) 03:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, based on Sedlatschek's book, there's no consensus on what it is! Tijfo098 (talk) 08:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The empirical research in this area is rather sketchy, but there's no shortage of theory-laden views. Sedlatschek (p. 2) "The conceptualization of IndE as a linguistic entity has posed challenges, and its existence as a variety in its own right has repeatedly been questioned. Although linguists nowadays agree widely that IndE has established itself as an “independent language tradition” (Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 441) not to be mistaken for an impoverished version of the ‘Queen’s English’, the question of just how unique or different IndE is as compared to other varieties of English is open. Should IndE be treated as an autonomous language system (Verma 1978, 1982)? Should it be treated as “‘normal English’ with more or less learner-specific deviations” (Schmied 1994: 217)? Or should it be treated as a “modular” (Krishnaswamy/Burde 1998), “national” (Carls 1994) or “international”(Trudgill/Hannah 2002) variety? It is surprising to see that in spite of the plethora of publications from theoretical, historical and sociolinguistic perspectives (cf. Carls 1979; Leitner 1985; Ramaiah 1988), comparatively little empirical linguistic research has been conducted on the structure and use of IndE that would help us put the available hypotheses to test." (p. 32) "there is to date no comprehensive dictionary or style guide that would document the extent of lexical-grammatical nativization in the Indian subcontinent and be up to the standards of present-day lexicographical research". (p. 40) "The available descriptions of IndE are marred by several shortcomings that a new description of IndE must set out to minimize. The major weakness of feature-list descriptions of IndE lies in their presentation of data in a decontextualized fashion without documenting the stability of individual items, their domains of use and their overall relevance for IndE as a linguistic entity. The available IndE usage guides are mostly based on introspection rather than factual research and tend to disregard (and, in the case of Yadurajan 2001, also occasionally disrespect) local usage norms, which is likely to instill a sense of linguistic insecurity in users rather than provide ‘guidance’. Corpus-based descriptions of IndE, on the other hand, have been more successful in pinpointing the status of individual Indianisms, suggesting inroads of nativization, and illustrating external influences, for example from AmE. However, the areas investigated have so far been restricted mostly to the written domain, and cross-varietal comparison has often been limited to BrE and AmE." Tijfo098 (talk) 08:34, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Azurro, Indian English isn't kutti pi assuming the allusion that Indian English is about native speakers and further assuming that it is implied that these native speakers are Anglo Indians, if I am jumping the gun and that is not what you mean, I withdraw the statement, so the strike through. Indian English could be English based on the latest edition of Wren and Martin, as edited by N. D. V. Prasada Rao, Tijfo since you must be watching this place another IE reference. For example we have railway and highway, and petrol, lift, flat, tiffin, hotel, picnic, strike, corruption, wagon, dickey, dinner, bumper, mud guard, shut down, zero budget, holy cow, rock oil, with laws and the like made every day, neologism would be created, which would eventually gain acceptance. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * More words: Wash, bath room, WC, terms like sofa cum bed, hall for sitting room, kitchen cum dining, Ladies bar, item song, etc.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * As one who has a degree in English linguistics, I take it as a dialect. There's African American Vernacular English, British English, Minnesotan English, etc. To me it seems that a discussion of a dialect focuses on the differences it has from the reference language. They have to be pretty general. I theoretically speak Minnesotan English, but it doesn't mean I use all of the idioms or pronunciations. It's just kind of a gathering of examples. I feel bad that you are offended and hope I haven't added to that. easytoplease (talk) 23:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This article itself is a joke. The whole article must be deleted. Errors related to syntax, phonology and morphology done by Indian English speakers are classified as Indian dialect of English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.67.253.210 (talk) 06:31, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Even some of the Anglo-Indians speak incorrect English if they learn the language in the school. My neighbours are Anglo-Indians and even they do pronounce "birth day" as "birt day". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.64.78.194 (talk) 06:04, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I am an editor of technical articles written by people in India. People outside of India need to know what a fresher or a snap, when used in the manner that only the people of India use them, is. Also, the people of India need to know what words such as those are only used in India. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I still have never gotten an explanation of what they mean by "different-different" and other words duplicated with a hyphen to separate the duplications. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Increased use of Subjunctive?
One trait I often notice in Indian speakers of English - that I don't see mentioned in the article - is a tendency to use the subjunctive much more often than I would expect from a speaker of NA or RP. (e.g., "We would run some tests tonight and let you know the result" or "I would be out of the office next week" when there is no implied condition or hypothetical). Have others noticed this trait? And, if so, is anyone in a position to comment on whether it reflects grammatical forms found in Indian languages, or to comment on whether it represents a consistent distinction that happens to be drawn in a different place than NA/RP but that still has a bright line between situations that call for 'will' versus 'would'? Willhsmit (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I am a programmer, not a language expert, but I have been editing technical articles written by other programmers in India for a few years. So I do not understand what a subjunctive is but otherwise I have noticed that what you describe here is accurate. My impression is that it is a misunderstanding of verb tense; "would" is past tense yet the people of India use it when they should be saying "will" for the future. It would really, really help me to have an authority I can refer to that will help them understand. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:26, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Also I wish people would use quotes instead of apostrophes when quoting. In other words, 'will' versus 'would' should be "will" versus "would". British people are most likely to use apostrophes instead of quotes. Misuse of apostrophes began in an effort to save ink, which is currently irrelevant in many ways. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of sections 'Grammar Quirks' and 'Interjections and casual references'
I don't see why incorrect Indian English grammar needs to be mentioned in an encyclopaedia. The 'Grammar Quirks' section could might as well be renamed "commonly used incorrect English used by Indians." I think it should be deleted. The "Interjections" section, while less inappropriate than the "Quirks" section, also does not belong to an encyclopaedia, in my opinion. Azzurro2882 (talk) 16:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * People not from India need to be able to understand the English used by people in India and the people of India need to know what English might be difficult to understand by people outside of India. Are you saying that the people of India do not want to understand? Sam Tomato (talk) 18:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

what is right?
1. If people from UK and USA learn Indian national/regional language, they can't have the same accent like the Indians. 2.The expected pronunciation of English language can't be based on the pronunciation of U.K. or U.S.A. people. We can't call it standard because, it is not defined before origination of language. But it is evolved over the years. This evolution is different in India. 3. English language differs in it's script and pronunciation of it. This could be the main reason behind the very different accents of English all over the world. 4. Over the years, no. of people in the world who are speaking so called Indian_English are more than who are having English as their native language.But it doesn't mean that then based on majority Indian_English will be considered as a standard because majority people are using it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.91.201.54 (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * These days, one doesn't talk of "right" and "wrong" but merely different dialects, registers, varieties. What's appropriate (/normal/prestigious) for one dialect may not be apt for another, etc. So the answer to your question ("what is right?") is that the question doesn't make sense. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This question makes sense. This article looks biased. What is right? Nobody can answer it, and that's why it is important question. The main problem with English is that, this language is not spoken as it is written. Indian languages are based on Sanskrit. In Sanskrit script( Devnagari ),You have to read the words as they are written. Which is not the case with english. " Internet" is read as "Innernet". Many more examples can be given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AbhijeetDh (talk • contribs) 15:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If nobody can answer a question, it's often not a meaningful question. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate ways in which the varieties of English spoken in India differ from other varieties of English, which (like anywhere else) is often because of influence from local languages. The purpose is not to demonstrate "common mistakes", which seems to be what it has become. Wherever you see bias, please be bold and fix it. (Wrt your other comments: (1) Spelling pronunciation has no bearing on grammatical differences, (2) Not all Indian languages are based on Sanskrit, (3) Sanskrit was traditionally written in many scripts and standardised on Devanagari only in recent centuries, (4) Although most Indian languages do have mostly phonetic spellings, all of them involve pronunciation that does not correspond to spelling and must be learned. For example Hindi drops terminal 'a's (schwa apocope): कल is pronounced kal rather than kala as in Sanskrit, even though the two consonants have the same vowel. It also has notoriously complicated schwa syncope rules: consider पकड पकडा पकडना, which are written pakaḍa pakaḍā pakaḍanā, but pronounced pakaḍ pakḍā pakaḍnā, where the vowel/schwa after 'k' comes and goes. Consider also the noun (heartbeats) धडकनें and verb (to beat) धडकने, written almost identically dhaḍakaneṃ and dhaḍakane but pronounced dhaḍkaneⁿ and dhaḍakne, with different schwas being deleted. Of course, all these changes are natural to native speakers, and just goes to show that spelling is no barrier against learning pronunciation of words.) Shreevatsa (talk) 16:02, 16 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The examples given are not logical. The examples given proves the point raised above.

W.r.t. to fourth point, its clear that problem lies when writing "कल " in English. If you are using devnagari script,"कल" can not be read in multiple ways. But if you write "Kal",it can have multiple pronunciations. Word written in most of Indian script, have unique pronunciation. If a word is written "पकड़", it should be read as Pakad only. But in english if a word is written as "pakada" it can be read as pakad,pakada etc.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AbhijeetDh (talk • contribs) 05:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion at least, it is wrong to use "no." instead of "number" unless there is a limited amount of space. Also, "who are having English" should be "who have English" or "with English". Also, "majority Indian_English" should be "majority of Indian_English" and "standard because majority people" should be "standard because the majority of people". Yes, it is really scary to think that the English language should be used in the uncorrected manner just because the majority uses it that way. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Broken links
Many, probably most, of the external links are broken. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Long ago, I added some external links and subsequently those links were deleted by Indian English users. Indian English is not a real dialect. Many Indians use English with grammatical errors and claim it Indian English. If we expose the facts about Indian English, these people get frustrated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.76.251.162 (talk) 09:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The given link of Jason Baldridge's article is missing. I found his article here.

American bias
It seems to me (A native British English speaker) that many of the quoted examples of Indian idioms are also common in British English. The article therefore (in its present state) would be useful to people wanting to understand Indian English, especially Americans, but misleading to a scholar looking for reliable source material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.249.187 (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I noticed that too. For example:
 * Rubber - Pencil eraser
 * Flat - 'Apartment' / 'Apartment house'
 * "Railway Station" - Train station.
 * "expire" - To die, especially in reference to one's family member.
 * Amount - a sum of money, such as "please refund the amount." or "the amount has been billed to your credit card."


 * Admittedly, "Amount" might be OK (I'm not sure) and "expire" is a bit iffy because of "especially in reference to one's family member" Zyxwv99 (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I also found that:
 * bunk a class - To skip class without permission.
 * club - To merge or put two things together. "'Just club it together'"
 * coaching classes and tutorials - Cram school.
 * mess - A dining hall, especially used by students at a dormitory. 'Mess' is also used in reference to eateries catering primarily to a working class population. Originated from the military term of similar meaning.
 * railway station - Invariably used, whereas "train station" has become more popular in some BrE.

I am British and used to say 'bunk off', not really 'a class' we say 'a lesson' more than a class. 'Club' is used like 'club together and buy something'. I say 'coaching classes' or 'tutorials' but NEVER 'Cram school'. It feels grammatically wrong, like it should be 'cramming school'. I said called the dining room a 'mess' on a ship. Railway station is used more formally than train station. I found that we do use some of these statements and the alternatives seemed a bit American. In the first examples I say amount, and I only ever say rubber and flat, not eraser and apartment. I would only say apartment when referring to a holiday apartment. Sweetie candykim (talk) 11:18, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I am an American and I think that the word "amount" when used as described might be unusual at most. I think it would at least be understandable. Also, it is my understanding that a flat is a type of apartment. Sam Tomato (talk) 18:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm British as well, but over 60 and there has been a "drift" of some terms in BrE and even American English in recent years. For example "Sitting at the Railway Station, got a ticket for my destination..." was quite normal American usage. Also it's still common with my age group to say "he's done a bunk", meaning absconded or fled, that would not be used by younger people. "Flat" is also used somewhat in North America, for example to describe the large suburbs of "French Flats" in Montreal and some other Canadian cities, being charactaristic rows of two storey walk-up apartments or flats with their own staircase opening to the street. --MichaelGG (talk) 02:07, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

History
I think there is a need to discuss the origin of Indian English. The language of the rulers and the ruled has not been the same in India for the past 2000 years. In ancient India, Sanskrit was the language of ruling classes and Prakrit was the language of the ruled. In the middle ages, Persian was the language of the ruling classes and now so is English. I visited a town in Maharashtra. There are no English sign boards in that town except on banks, police station and railway station. The language used for official purposes is not often used for colloqial use. This is the current position of English use in India. Indian English speakers often use redundancies like "revert back" and "reply back" but official records used in government offices do not have such words. Indian English is a colloqial language but not a standard dialect. Therefore I was surprised when I was informed that there is a dialect called "Standard Indian English". In B.A. English syllabus, we have lessons about British English and American English. We have no lessons on Indian English because a colloquial language is not attributed importance by any university. However, we need to know "why Indian English users commit grammatical errors". An American English speaker can understand British English because there are few grammatical differences between American and British Englishes, but he cannot understand Indian English which is highly influenced by the grammar of the mother tongue of the speaker. Praveen-vizag (talk) 11:10, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

It is not possible to standardise Indian English. Indians have Hindi as lingua franca. Since 1947, India has been socially and culturally not connected with the Great Britain. Therefore, Indians need not rely much on English for inter-ethnic communication.

Removed long unsourced lists
I have removed the long lists of unsourced expressions of Indian English. This article is not the List of expressions of Indian English; rather, it is about the history, syntax, and phonology of the dialect. Eight years ago, when I arrived on Wikipedia, books Indian English were few and far between. But now, as I have demonstrated above, a number of reliable studies exist.

Random long lists, in any case, serve no purpose in an encyclopedia article. Examples can be added judiciously in the relevant sections of an expanded Indian English article in order to illustrate notable (syntactical or lexical) features of the dialect. But that requires a grammatical description of those features first. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  02:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the sentence "My all friends are like this only" is a syntactic error. It is not just related to expression. Praveen-vizag (talk) 15:11, 29 March 2014 (UTC)