beetle Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Using v's as substitutes for w's is a classic Indian g@andoo trait. Examples; "Vat is your name", "Vhy are you doing this", "vhy, i vish i cood be very vell-off". Then there is the j's for the z's type thing. I don't know sh it about hindi, but i am fairly sure that a "z" doesn't exist in the Hindi alphabet. Hence why any word starting with z is r@ped. Love the way they pronounce Zinedine Zidane "Jinnadeen Jiddane"...:D Other phrases; "I vanted to go to da Joo yesterday but i coodn't pfind da vay", "India vill be playing cricket vith Jimbubwe tomorrow", and when speaking on da "fone"; "hello ji, mai nyoo fone-numbber is, vun-jeero-seven-jeero-two-vun-jeero-jeero-six-vun", talking like this while bobbing their head sideways You should meet my mom predator....:D V becomes bh...bhasundara (vasundhara),sebhen(seven) sh becomes s (sow me....:hysterical:for show me) s becomes sh(shaare budmash hain:P) z becomes j ------------bheer jhaara(veer zaara)....:hysterical: f becomes ph....pad le...nahi to phail ho jaegi...... Add istyle,ishchool,ishcooter...for the tadka...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I have something to say from my own household. My mom doesnt speak English that well. She can understand it, but spoken English is not her forte and She feels really bad about it. Cant blame her, all her education was in Tamil medium. She has never had to deal solely in English at her work, nor has she interacted extensively with English speaking friends. Whenever some guests come to our house and start talking, the conversation invariably meanders slowly into being fully in English. Later she says, she felt so left out because she couldnt participate in the conversation. I have been at pains, trying to tell her that its perfectly OK for her to politely inform the guests that she cant speak in English and she would appreciate it if they converse in Tamil, coz that is a language all of them can understand. But she never listens to me saying " No no no.. How can i openly admit I dunno English". I dont understand why most Indians feel incumbent upon themselves to know English. Its no shame if you dont know that language, but rarely do people realize that. No German will feel embarrassed because he doesnt know English, some French people will even be proud that they dont know English. Such strange things happen only in India. We are nation still searching for our identity, like almost we are not proud of how/what we are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 agree sriram... One of the exceptions to this was my hubby's nani. That lady was one hard working women who could only converse in Garhwali...not even hindi. I have seen her conversing with people speaking in hindi,punjabi,english or anyother language ...and this lady would happily go on and on in garhwali like it was the most natural thing to do...:D Even I couldn't understand her some timesand just kept nodding haanji ...haanji :P She lived in cities in Uttarakhand most of her life but could only speak one language......when most people in her house also spoke mostly in hindi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predator_05 Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I dont understand why most Indians feel incumbent upon themselves to know English. Its no shame if you dont know that language' date=' but rarely do people realize that. No German will feel embarrassed because he doesnt know English, some French people will even be proud that they dont know English. Such strange things happen only in India. We are nation still searching for our identity, like almost we are not proud of how/what we are.[/quote'] English is the language of administration in India, is it not ? If that is case (correct me if i am wrong) then it IS incumbent upon a citizen to know English - at least to a certain degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 English is the language of administration in India' date=' is it not ? If that is case (correct me if i am wrong) then it IS incumbent upon a citizen to know English - at least to a certain degree.[/quote'] Yes I agree, its important for all of us to have a working knowledge in English. If left with no other option, my mom can definitely construct some basic sentences in English and that is enough. There is absolutely no need for her to speak English fluently. All of her interactions in day to day life are with Tamil speaking people. Not being fluent in English is definitely NOT an embarrassment, which is what she thinks it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 agree sriram... One of the exceptions to this was my hubby's nani. That lady was one hard working women who could only converse in Garhwali...not even hindi. I have seen her conversing with people speaking in hindi,punjabi,english or anyother language ...and this lady would happily go on and on in garhwali like it was the most natural thing to do...:D Even I couldn't understand her some timesand just kept nodding haanji ...haanji :P She lived in cities in Uttarakhand most of her life but could only speak one language......when most people in her house also spoke mostly in hindi. Its harder for older people. There is no way a grandma will start speaking English, even though she may have lived in the UK with her son for the last 10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coffee_rules Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 English is the language of administration in India' date=' is it not ? If that is case (correct me if i am wrong) then it IS incumbent upon a citizen to know English - at least to a certain degree.[/quote'] No who says so? It is one of the offical languages. We use it for convenience. There is no law that says we should always use English when communicating matters related to admin. Most of the govt offices and banks use 3 languages - regional, English and Hindi. We don't have to know English at all. I think it is imbed part of our culture to feel inferior if we don't know English. The social attitudes towards people who can't speak English fluently is appalling. If we go to a store in Bangalore in one of the better looking shopping districts, they cringe if we talk in Hindi or local language. As if they have washed their behinds in Thames all their life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 No who says so? It is one of the offical languages. We use it for convenience. There is no law that says we should always use English when communicating matters related to admin. Most of the govt offices and banks use 3 languages - regional, English and Hindi. We don't have to know English at all. I think it is imbed part of our culture to feel inferior if we don't know English. The social attitudes towards people who can't speak English fluently is appalling. If we go to a store in Bangalore in one of the better looking shopping districts, they cringe if we talk in Hindi or local language. As if they have washed their behinds in Thames all their life. True indeed. It is surprising how few Indians know about this. Another common misconception is that Hindi is Rashtrabhasha(National Language). It is not. Government of India recognizes 17 or so official languages(I am quoting from memory so I may be off here). English is widely used because of the colonial hangover and because Indians can't get their $hit together. It is spoken by far less number of people than those who speak Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil etc. So why should English be official language? The only reason for that is the class mentality of Indians who tend to ape English because it gives them a certain "respect". Otherwise to use a jargon from Pepsi, there is nothing official about English. xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I have something to say from my own household. My mom doesnt speak English that well. She can understand it, but spoken English is not her forte and She feels really bad about it. Cant blame her, all her education was in Tamil medium. She has never had to deal solely in English at her work, nor has she interacted extensively with English speaking friends. Whenever some guests come to our house and start talking, the conversation invariably meanders slowly into being fully in English. Later she says, she felt so left out because she couldnt participate in the conversation. I have been at pains, trying to tell her that its perfectly OK for her to politely inform the guests that she cant speak in English and she would appreciate it if they converse in Tamil, coz that is a language all of them can understand. But she never listens to me saying " No no no.. How can i openly admit I dunno English". I dont understand why most Indians feel incumbent upon themselves to know English. Its no shame if you dont know that language, but rarely do people realize that. No German will feel embarrassed because he doesnt know English, some French people will even be proud that they dont know English. Such strange things happen only in India. We are nation still searching for our identity, like almost we are not proud of how/what we are. It is the highlighted part above which becomes a bigger question mark. If the guests dont understand your mother tongue, then its ok if they need to converse in English. But if they are fluent in the native language, then why dont they speak in that? (English can be interspersed during the conversation - thats ok). But you mention "the conversation invariably meanders slowly into being fully in English" Atleast maybe the remaining folks in your home (incl. yourself when you are present) can bring the conversation back into your mother tongue (with some interspersed english if required for being casual). Usually if some other family member, who is known to be reasonably conversant in English, can bring the conversation back into native language, then it will help the others who are not fluent. (PS: I do agree there is no need to be embarassed for not knowing a foreign language. However, given that such stigma is difficult to remove from the minds of parents or other folks overnight, this above may be a practical tip in the interim). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 The funny thing is, niether me or most of my other friends make a big deal out of English, western culture or whatever. Most of us are fiercely Indian and understand the difficulties of the people who dont speak english well. Its our parents who seem obsessed with all this English/Amreeka and stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 MM, I posted a note above to your original comment. Regarding the ^^ (on parents being obsessed), what happens is - when something is "foreign" to you, then you tend to be more 'awestruck' (not you as in "you* but i've noticed this with other parents too) When you know the 'foreign thing' and have experienced it, then it is no longer a big deal, and you appreciate your own culture better after having seen both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 It is the highlighted part above which becomes a bigger question mark. If the guests dont understand your mother tongue, then its ok if they need to converse in English. But if they are fluent in the native language, then why dont they speak in that? (English can be interspersed during the conversation - thats ok). But you mention "the conversation invariably meanders slowly into being fully in English" Atleast maybe the remaining folks in your home (incl. yourself when you are present) can bring the conversation back into your mother tongue (with some interspersed english if required for being casual). Yes of course, If the guests dont understand my native tongue, they are well within their rights to speak in Hindi, but I am talking about people who know/understand/speak Tamil VERY well, but they too prefer to converse in English. And I can relate with them a bit, English is now so big a part in our lives, i think almost all of us equally comfortable with it, as we are with our mother tongue. But I feel its just basic manners for a person to speak in a language that everybody in the room are comfortable with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 MM, I posted a note above to your original comment. Regarding the ^^ (on parents being obsessed), what happens is - when something is "foreign" to you, then you tend to be more 'awestruck' (not you as in "you* but i've noticed this with other parents too) When you know the 'foreign thing' and have experienced it, then it is no longer a big deal, and you appreciate your own culture better after having seen both. I disagree with the bolded part. I dunno about others but i can speak for myself and few of my other friends ( coz i interact with them at a personal level). None of us, were , or are, awestruck in any degree with "foreign country" or all those related things. Thats mainly because we are proud of what we already are, Indians. We dont go around gaping at other countries with our jaws opened. I suppose, at some level, my previous generation didnt feel that pride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Yes of course, If the guests dont understand my native tongue, they are well within their rights to speak in Hindi, but I am talking about people who know/understand/speak Tamil VERY well, but they too prefer to converse in English. And I can relate with them a bit, English is now so big a part in our lives, i think almost all of us equally comfortable with it, as we are with our mother tongue. But I feel its just basic manners for a person to speak in a language that everybody in the room are comfortable with. I have to agree with that esp. in Real life...(and I know at ICF, some of us have occasionally broken that rule, though where possible, translation is posted - this applies to Hindi as well which is liberally sprinkled as it applies to Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, whatever...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I disagree with the bolded part. I dunno about others but i can speak for myself and few of my other friends ( coz i interact with them at a personal level). None of us' date=' were , or are, awestruck in any degree with "foreign country" or all those related things. Thats mainly because we are proud of what we already are, Indians. We dont go around gaping at other countries with our jaws opened. I suppose, at some level, my previous generation didnt feel that pride.[/quote'] As I mentioned in my previous post - you as in not *you* Same here. I'm quite comfortable for the most part with either culture and see the pros and cons in both. What I meant is that previous generation (parents, grandparents) sometimes have this awestruck feeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty_South Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 No who says so? It is one of the offical languages. We use it for convenience. There is no law that says we should always use English when communicating matters related to admin. Most of the govt offices and banks use 3 languages - regional, English and Hindi. We don't have to know English at all. I think it is imbed part of our culture to feel inferior if we don't know English. The social attitudes towards people who can't speak English fluently is appalling. If we go to a store in Bangalore in one of the better looking shopping districts, they cringe if we talk in Hindi or local language. As if they have washed their behinds in Thames all their life. Exactly .... I'm really poor in Regional languages/Hindi .... bcoz of my education in different Places/countries. I recently went to a shop to buy Cigarettes , I asked him "Ek pack *cigarette's name* dhena" and that guy replied " Did u say one or a Pack ,Sir ? " I was like :omg: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predator_05 Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 [ame=http://youtube.com/watch?v=rBdKjsysHGY]YouTube - Hi handsome man -- Fair and handsome for men, attract women[/ame] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 What a joke of an ad ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predator_05 Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Gora bana chahte ho ? :haha: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ram Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Nc9tU3g2cWI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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