Indian English and Pronunciation

chillibreeze writer — Sheela Jaywant

Working in a hospital is a good way to learn a couple of geography lessons. If a daakter (Hindi for doctor) asks for a jesta x-ray, he’s from Tamil Nadu; a chaste x-ray would make him a Maharashtrian; a chest eggs-ray means he’s a Keralite; and a chest ekkas-ray means he’s from Delhi or beyond. The North-East has its own version: the chess-ess-ray. And if he axes for the x-ray, he’s a Goan Catholic. Eenjuctions and madiseens are what finally kewer (cure) the patients.

There’s no piss in India, we have too much violence. Just as loins are Kings of the Jungle. Curds elsewhere become cards in Bengal. And pain in Maharashtra is an implement to write with. Some of the words have been absorbed so beautifully in the local lingo, that it’s difficult to trace the original: pliers have become plus; lawyers are liars (pun unintended); lanterns are laltains; that part of the blood with the oxygen is homogoblin; diabetes is diebittiss. Believe it or not, a few Indians crack jocks for others to laugh at, drive motor-vehicles on rods, eat snakes with their tea, and play with ties (toys, in case you hadn’t guessed). You can’t be sure if shaarts is shorts or shirts. Not the least, the best loved game in India has been imported from England: kirkit.

If you think a person who asks you to put a spoon of soogar in his caapi (coffee) has a problem with ‘sh’, just wish him ‘Happy Diwali/Christmas/New Year’ and observe him say ‘shame to you’.
True-blue English-speakers have to be careful about their pronounciation when it comes to names, too. Balse doesn’t rhyme with false, it’s a surname, pronounced Bel-say. Sohain, another surname, becomes swine.

English numbers in India: vun, too, tree (or thuree), phore (this with both lips together, please), phie, sheess, sheban, yate, nie, tane….
Then the spellings. Balloon: bee, yay, yull-yull, voh-voh, yun. Correct!! Not to worry, everybody gets by, we all addjust to each others’ accents.

A major reason for this oral gap between the erstwhile rulers and us has been because the Indian script is phonetic. We see and read each letter, whereas words in English are read as a whole, sometimes swallowing a syllable (Wor’stershire) or keeping silent a part of the written word (tongue). We pronounce everything. A letter must have a sound: a simple word like ‘hour’ becomes hower with even the ‘r’ stressed. Accents cause confusion, too: muscles can be mehsills or maasales, depending on the background of the speaker. Commonly, the short ‘i’ sound, as in ‘it’, is lengthened: pin – peen . Ditto with the short ‘e’, as in ‘get’: it becomes gate. The concept of stress is absent in local languages: hotels therefore become ho-tulls.

However, having explained Indian pronunciation, not everyone speaks like this. India has a large English speaking population and those who converse in the language on a daily basis are well versed with the nuances of the English language and its pronunciation.

It is this diversity that gives the Indo-English language its flavor. It is slowly evolving into a dialect of its own, and thanks to the television, may rapidly mature into a language.

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—About our writer:

Sheela Jaywant, who writes short-stories (has published a collection, “Quilted, stories of middle-class India), articles and interviews in print and on the Net, whose byline has appeared in most of the national Indian newspapers, who continues to write her three-year-old weekly column for Gomantak Times’ Weekender.

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