Indian English: Features andd uniqueness

Uniqueness of Indian English

1. UNIQUENESS OF INDIAN ENGLISH

2. Letter to the Railways, 1937

3. Vocabulary Pass out Would be Revert back Cousin sister/brother Hotel Picture Good name Mother promise Mention not Foreign returned Convent educated Prepone Carrying Timepass Please do the needful Full on Double meaning Bunk batchmate

4. Pronunciation: consonants The voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ are always unaspirated in Indian English Most Indian languages do not differentiate between /v/ and /w/: vow-wow, vet-wet, van-wan, vine-wine, Many Indian languages (except  Assamese ,  Marathi ,  Tamil  and  Urdu ) lack the  voiced alveolar fricative  /z/. A significant portion of Indians thus, even though their native languages do have its nearest equivalent: the unvoiced /s/, often use the voiced palatal / dʒ /. This makes words such as ⟨zero⟩ and ⟨rosy⟩ sound as [ˈ dʒiːro ] and [ˈ roːdʒi ː] (the latter, especially in the North).

5. Pronunciation : vowels Indian English speakers do not necessarily make a clear distinction between  /ɒ/  and  /ɔː/ , the y have the  cot-caught merger : Spot, hot, cot, odd, dot, ox, fox, rock Diphthong  / eɪ /  is pronounced as [ e ]: cake, gate, made, station, paper, nation, pale, staple Diphthong  / ou /  is pronounced as [ o ]: goat, go, four, home, pour

6. Spelling Pronunciation A number of distinctive features of Indian English are due to “the vagaries of English spelling”. Silent consonants in “ mb ” words and “l” are pronounced: comb, plumber, dumb, climb/ salmon, almond, Words with “ gh ” and “ wh ” are prounounced with the “h” voiced aspiration: ghost, aghast, yoghurt, spaghetti, ghetto/ what where, when, whether, which, why, while (exception who, whom ) The “ ed ” in past tense words are pronounced as /id/: (t: helped, looked, washed, fixed) or (d: closed, loved, lived) The silent “r” is pronounced : chair, father, park, bird, cart, star, hear, sister, start

7. SYNTACTICAL FEATURES Use of “s” with plural: womens , childrens , peoples, furnitures Reduplication to emphasize: small-small, fast-fast, little-little, slow-slow Use of past tense with “did”: did not came, did not ate Use of “ ed ” for irregular past form: comed , runned , teached Tag questions: isn’t it, no: “She is Mira’s sister, no?”, Use of only and itself : I was in college only, Can we meet tomorrow itself? Use of continuous tense for simple test: She is having a pen (has), He is going to tuition everyday (goes), They are staying in Secunderabad (stay) Turning imperative sentences to interrogative sentences: You are coming for the party? Sam’s mother made this cake? Today we have exam? It was raining yesterday?

8. MOTHER TONGUE INFLUENCE: A case of Telugu Interlingual errors where the language used is a direct translation of the Telugu phrases or grammar. In second language learners this LI transfer is seen quite often. These errors have a tendency to get fossilized, if adequate corrective feedback or good language exposure is not available

9. 1 . Morphology influence Wanta (from ‘ kaavalaa ’ (T); aa – a question marker, “u” vowel ending—chair-u, cup-u, 2. Reduplication Small-small (from chinna-chinna (T)); big-big (from pedda-pedda (T)); difficult-difficult ; heavy-heavy 3. Grammar >>Omission of auxiliary verbs: I going to the park, She working at the office >>Wrong use of be form: The building was collapsed during earthquake, a mistake was occured during exams, it was rained yesterday >>Subject-verb: She have a beautiful garden, The dogs runs in the street. >> Tense consistency: She was walking to school when she saw her friend Angry on me (for ‘ angry with me; ’ fr om ‘ naa meeda kopanga unnadu (T) , ’ mere pe gussa hai (H) What you want is near me ( for ‘ with me; ’ from ‘ naa deggara vundi (T) , ’ mere paas hai

10. Why because (from ‘ endukante ’ , ‘ kyon ki ’ Now only (from ‘ ippude ’ (T) , ‘ abhi ’ (H)) He can able to (treating ‘ can ’ as a modal only ignoring the meaning – capacity, so a repetition of info) (from vaadu cheyyagaladu (T) ; woh kar sakta hai (H)) Come 8.30, 9.00 like that (translation into English of a typical usage in Indian languages referring to a non-fixed time frame) (from enimidinnara , tommidiki atla raa (T); saade aath , Keep ’ signature (to sign; from ‘ sandakam pettali ’ – pettu = keep/put) ‘Keep’ leave (to apply for leave; from ‘ selavu pettali ’ – pettu = keep/put Dropping comparative form: more tall (taller), more sweet (sweeter)

11. Backside (to mean ‘behind’ or ‘back of’) e.g., write on the backside of this