Indian English is a variety of English equal to that of British English, American English, Australian English or any other version. It has its own distinct characteristics of grammar, phonetics, and vocabulary. And of course there are many forms of Indian English (just as there are of British English). I've read many comments here that disparage it as an inferior type of English. Such nonsense! It's high time it took its rightful place at the top table of 'Englishes' across the world and should be celebrated for its richness and diversity.

As a Spaniard living in India, I feel much more comfortable speaking with indians than other native speakers. The vowels and consonants pronunciation is much close to me.

Each Indian has his own English accent. We are like that onlyyyyyy. 😂

I think the “good name” comes from the Hindi phrase “subh naam”. Back in the day it was considered rude to directly enquire about your first name and “subh” (which means auspicious) was a way of showing respect.

Interesting. I wish you also had a south Indian person (Kerela or Tamil), an east Indian (Bengali) and a North Indian (Punjabi or Rajasthani). The English will be very different.

I find the Indian English expressions so charming. I notice that many of them are preserved forms of expressions that have become archaic in British English, others evolving from indigenous languages and it is such a lovely dialect to me

"Only" usage is also an attempt to translate Hindi directly, just like "good name". In Hindi, we would say "Main ne hi kitaab padhi" which word-for-word would translate to "I (erg. marker) only book read" translates to "*I* read the book (nobody else read it, I did)" The "hi" is used immediately after the emphasised word in the sentence but this same word is used to mean "only" when needed like in "Tum ek hi shabd kaho" i.e. "You one only word say" translates to "You must only say one word" In Hindi we use a mix of this stress marker and stressed intonation to show emphasis. The stress marker is what this "only" is in Indian English

In USA they make fun of British English and likewise (vise versa!). However there are some phrases commonly used in India that makes totally different meaning to westerners, one such is “pass out” which means graduation in India while it means fainting in Western World!

For the grammar section, we are taught from a book called "English Grammar and Composition by Wren and Martin". This has been text book in SSC schools from 6th to 10th standard for more than 50 years. Have you gone through the book? You will get a pretty good idea of what Indians are taught in school for grammar and composition section.

If Ajay came to some North-East states in India, as where I am from, we will need Gideon to help us out to make sense of the Central-North Indian accent that Ajay showcased. It is impossible to stereotype Indian English accent.

Nobody says "you're coming for tiffin". Where I come from at least, tiffin refers to the the tiffin-box(lunch box). Ex. "What have you brought in your tiffin today?" If someone asks, "Did you finish your tiffin?" they are asking you if you finished all the contents from your tiffin box. (Usually mothers ask this question when the child is back from school. If the answer is "no" you get a lot of scolding. 😂)

The Indian man's vowels are very similar to mine. I am from North Texas.

On Air India flights, there are two meal choices, "veg" or "non-veg". That was my family's first culture shock (not really a shock, a pleasant surprise).

At this point it’s starting to be funny that the language is called English, when relatively few English speakers are from England!

Brinjal is yet another example that we use instead of saying aubergine or eggplant. What is most astounding is that it is not an Indian word, and we use it only in English. Similarly, we use "rubber" for an eraser, and "scale" for a ruler. Also, you would see using "Na" or "No" instead of "Isn't it" or similar places. Sometimes it is also used to put more emphasis on the words. A lot of phrases/grammar that were mentioned in the video are considered incorrect English. Nonetheless, people do commonly use those phrases. As mentioned in one of the comments, it is caused by word-to-word translation from the native language of the speaker. The "Good name" comes from the literal translation of "Shubh naam". In Hindi, and perhaps in other Indian languages as well, when you want to politely ask someone's name, you say "Aapka shubh naam kya hai (what is your good name)". The pronunciation varies widely from region to region and the kind of exposure the person had. We have people like Shashi Tharoor to people like Modi (STREANH) when it comes to speaking English. The GenZ are using some new words/phrases now that confuse me.

I work from Poland with the UK (Yorkshire) guys and Indians. It's super hard to switch between the accents especially when you hear both on the same call. Thanks for this video as it helped me a lot!

I am from Bangladesh, and while we and our ethnic cousins in India have a lot in common with the variety of Indian English presented here, there are many differences as well. India is a huge country, so it is natural that there is not one Indian Engish, but many varieties of it. As Bengalis, we have distinctive pronunciations for v and w, though they are different from how the Brits pronounce them. I always thought 'do the needful', like 'out of station', was something that the colonial bureaucrats had introduced in their official communications in India. My mother used to pack a 'tiffin box' with a light meal for me to consume during 'tiffin period' at school. Office workers carry their lunch in multilayered 'tiffin carriers'. Other words used in subcontinental English include dacoit (robber), eve-teasing (harassment of girls), ladies' finger (okra), and brinjal (aubergine). There is an explanation for 'good name' as far as Bengal is concerned. Bengalis typically have two names, a 'daak naam' (nick name) used by family and close friends, and a more formal name used by others and in official documents. The latter is one's 'bhalo naam', which literally means good name.

As a South African of Indian descent, whose native language is English, I was forever baffled by the lexicon of the folks I grew up around and their use of odd phrases e.g. "cousin brother" & I know now (finally) as to the origin of their phrases. Another great video Gideon. and Ajay.

Lakh and crore are also used in writing numerals. Not as words, but I understand Indians places commas to show the powers of lakh and crore in a number, whereas at Brits only place commas to show the multiples of thousand. It's a whole system.

Here in the corporate sector in India, I have observed just 2 broad categories of Indian English- North Indian (including east, west & central India) & South Indian. All North Indian english tend to merge into one standard english form while South stays different. We can immediately catch whether a person is from south or non-south the moment he/she starts speaking.

13:53 Indian English being pronounced as they are spelled is quite true. All Indian origin languages are phonetic - it is spoken exactly as it is written. So, there is very little, if not no ambiguity. So, the same rule applies even to English. Until, the pronunciation is 'corrected' by a more erudite speaker, more well versed in the nuances of spoken British English.

Hi, I’m Eunyoung. We met on the street on last Sunday. I’m sorry about making mistakes because of my English. I meant your videos are so good, not ‘quite’ good 😭. I realised that I made a mistake when I said that, but I couldn’t correct it at the time. Anyway it was such a pleasure to bump into you like that.

The use of terms like cousin brother and cousin sister in Indian English I have always suspected is also because in several of our Indian languages like f.ex. Hindi or Urdu we have very specific gendered terms for even extended family members that in an instant tell someone else how we're related to another person, ex. mameri behn (literally maternal uncle side sister) is maternal uncle's daughter or phoophizaad bhai ( paternal aunt side brother) is paternal aunt's son. Those terms translated in English are a mouthful so more efficient to just say cousin sister or cousin brother.

Who speaks the correct English? Who pronounces it perfectly? Is it the the Victorian / BBC version ? What about cockney , Welsh, Scottish or Irish versions? How about French, Italian or Germans speaking English ? American English changes from state to state The Southern US states have a rhyme of own while people (of those states) speak English . What difference does it make whose is perfect

Most of the Indian languages are read as it is written. No change in phonetics or silent letters. English, on the other hand, is written and read differently and has many silent letters.

Beautiful video as always, Gideon. Indian English should be perfect for Italians, because saying 'informations' instead of 'information,' or 'fornitures' instead of "forniture", not to mention all the other simplifications like isn't it, is priceless.

A very interesting and helpful episode indeed. Thank you both!

There are all sorts of mixed eccentricities in Indian English. It all depends on the kind of teachers and social circle one has.

Very nice. Many Indian languages share the common inherited characteristic from Sanskrit that makes each syllable count; and also, each consonant in a word, unless it's specifically silent, gets its due. E.g., plumBer. Conversely, if an Indian term is written in English, one must touch upon each consonant. E.g., Jammu is not to be pronounced as Jamu. Btw, lakh and crore also have their origins in Sanskrit.

This video interview/conversation has been very enriching for me. Thank you both for sharing!

Egg is considered a " non vegetarian" food in India, but it's not in the UK. Non-vegetarian food is hence meat+ egg . Secondly, many Indians have a" nick" name", and an official name. None of them are " bad", but the latter is the " good" name.

I love this video. I worked with lots of Indian colleagues in Saudi Arabia from the mid-eighties to the early 2000s. It's very interesting to hear this pronunciation analysis+1 😀👍.

Absolutely fascinating!

Thank you for inviting Ajay❤it is hilarious to listen to you both. So good!🎉i learned a lot today. I love India as well as the UK very much. Cheers and hugs from Germany

Absolutely fascinating. Thanks to both of you!

I will send this video to everyone who refers to Indian English as incorrect English.

Never ceases to amaze me how much there is to learn about my native language -- your posts are a continuous revelation -- gratitude for all the work you do in preparing them ❤

This is the best version of the Indian English comparison videos I have seen. Also, just stumbled upon this channel. Subbed! I used to make almost all the mistakes mentioned. I have corrected most of them, but one or two still occasionally pop out.

Brilliantly researched !!

There has been a marked shift in Indian english pronunciation from strictly british type english which few indians used to or rather tried to follow before, during and post British Raj to American tawng which became popular among few during the 80s, 90s and maybe around the century to a more neutral accent which basically went by the following rule that there is no need to speak english in either older elitist British accent or the subsequent Yankee one. 😂😂

Fantastic stuff!

😃 I experimented it when I was working with indian friends. Weird yet it all sound nice.. Thank you for sharing.

You two gentlemen have a nice chemistry to do this sort of program to teach your viewers. Thoroughly enjoyable!

You found the most quintessential Indian guy for this video. All over India, there are many accents of English but what this guy is speaking is BY FAR the most common one. Some other regions will be too posh or too ugly but this is the most balanced one.

Biharis, Nepali, Bengali,odia and Assamese in india do differentiate between W and V but they approximate V to 'Bh'

The best explanation about stress and intonation of indian English is that it's actually how we speak our native languages and just change words to English. Also, in devanagri script, there is no ambiguity of pronunciation. It's spoken as it's spelled. They apply the same for English in most cases unless they learn the correct English pronunciation.

Pronunciation will differ from various Indian state to state. The English pronunciation is effected by that person's state language. India doesn't have any National language, however Northern parts speaks the most Hindi. So to say that Indians from different states will pronounce those words like him (or even remotely close) would be incorrect.

great video! Like Jay said, most of these expressions and phrases and word usage also vary from region to region. like 'tiffin' is used for breakfast where I'm from. Also, expressions like, 'good name', 'I have a doubt', etc come from direct translation from mother tongue. Some other examples of Indian English responding to 'Thanks!' with 'No mention' (we use this in the south a lot) saying, 'I'm here only' to mean 'I'm right here'. that is, to add emphasis. shortening 'fundamental(s)' to 'funda(s)' Addressing all males in authority as 'Sir' and even adding it behind their position or name, like, 'Hello, engineer sir' saying 'I have 'n' number of things to do' to mean I have a lot of things to do. 'telling lies' instead of 'lying'

phrase 'good name' comes from most indian language use.... people as for the 'shubh naam ' ( auspicious/ given at auspicious time - not nicknames ) So shubh naam translated into good name.

Most interesting. First time I have watched a video like this. Great.

I found this discussion quite engaging and informative. I appreciate your efforts in facilitating this exchange.

Thanks to both of you, this was brilliant!! I love the word "prepone"! After all, why couldn’t "postpone" have an antonym? 😊 It reminds me of the French Canadians coming up with the verb "magasiner" to avoid the anglicism "faire du shopping". Also, the musics and the shots were lovely. It is curious that there are words and expressions making "Indian English" when you consider that not all Indians have the same native languages (or even that all their languages aren’t part of the same family). I wonder if English-speaking Indian television could have somehow "impacted" on so many Indian people speaking different languages?

It's interesting that Hindi has almost all consonants aspirated, yet not used in English. My language has none, Serbian. Otherwise it's similar to how we speak English, without the prolonged vowels.

Thank you!

In central and northern part of India, a "tiffin" (short form of tiffin box) refers to a lunch box. It could be a simple rectangular plastic box or it could be multiple stainless steel containers stacked and held together with a metal frame. But in south, the word "tiffin" means snacks or small portions. On a restaurant menu there would be a separate section for "tiffins". Most of the Indian languages have very specific words to describe the "cousin". For example there are 4 different words for, son of your father's brother, son of father's sister, son of mother's brother and son of mother's sister, while in english they are all "cousins". When two Indians are conversing in English, the word "cousin" just doesn't cut it.

There are a couple of things that I find interesting of the tendencies Indian English speakers have with English speakers in Latinamerica. As in how the native languages of the speakers influence the way they pronounce English. Mostly between both groups in how there's an emphasis in sounding out all the letters, which is not a thing with American english or British English for the most part. The R sounds are always pronounced amongst the people I hear speak English in Latinamerica because that's a holdover from Spanish and Portugese, in having to sound out all the letters in words. That's something I had to struggle with because it makes accents more apparent, but that's just the prevalent way people who move from speaking Spanish first do when moving onto English. So it's quite interesting that Indian English has these things develop separetely but similarly too.

Amaging discussion

I also love how its a full 30 min video not a half assed 12 min video just to grab views! I'll be binging ur channel

Actually in Tamil Nadu tiffin is used to refer to the mid-afternoon snack as well as breakfast. I have never heard the term used in Kerala. So plenty of regional variations in the usage of these terms.

To call it "Indian" English is the same as saying British English. We know that there are several dialects and things change from city to city, even between neighbourhoods, even in the English language.

Cash and Carry is a thing here in Ireland too, typically it referres to bulk wholesale suppliers for grocery shops.

Most of these Indianisms occur as a direct translation of the local language. That’s where grammatically dubious uses of ‘also’ ‘only’ ‘yesterday night’ good name’ come from. Another interesting thing I have noticed is that while such phrases are used very frequently while conversing with someone casually, they often almost disappear in formal written version of the language.

Interesting, loved the video thanks!

Quite a pleasant video. Funny reactions of the Londoner. I love hearing Indian English. Also about pronunciation, I found few similitudes with non fluent French speaking English.

About Cousins... Indian languages have specific words for each of the diffrent cousin relations. Same goes for Uncles and Aunts. Maternal , paternal , gender , elder , younger ... All thes attributes have specific words . Example in Hindi Fathers elder brother will be called Tauji, Younger one wil be Chachaji. Chacha's wife would be Chachi , Tauji 's wife will be called Taiji. And so on ..... Elder sister is Tai in Marathi. If one has three elder sisters , in the order of their age , they will be Tai, Mai and Akka.

English is the defacto langauge in all companies in India including government companies. Usage of english doninates south india in various ways but English is widely prevalent in other parts of India too.

The Indian accent looks like amazing! Thanks for the video.

A quintessential Indian phrase is "do the needful". I work in IT, and whenever I see that phrase in messages & posts, I know the writer is Indian (or influenced by Indian English). I remember when I first saw it and thought "that's an odd phrase". But, then I kept seeing it, and found out online that it's an Indian phrase.

Devnagri is script not a language . Both Marathi and Hindi originated from Sanskrit.

Hello Gideon, great video. Some good inputs from Ajay. Indian English has a lot of variation as well. The part about using continuous present tense, using 'only', and 'also' at the end - these might not exist for certain groups of speakers. However, I agree that using 'isn't it' is quite common. Some of us actively avoid using 'prepone' and say 'advance' instead. I would also note that 'tiffin' seems to have a different connotation between the North and the South. As a South Indian, I've seen it to mean either breakfast or dinner. We also use the term 'Tiffin Box' to refer to the box that carries the recess snacks or lunch when in school. Lunch would most probably be called 'Meals', referring to a meal combo available in most restaurants. As an Indian what we've observed is, all the syllables (or most of them) are pronounced and stressed in Indian English. Often, based on the place certain suffixes are added. For example, 'This is what I told, re!'. 😂 Don't ask me what it means. It's a little difficult to explain. We also use Sir/Madam/Ma'am to refer to people formally, in addition to uncle/aunty (new term for you, I guess). 😂 I haven't heard of 'air dash' as well. But yes, great video! Thank you! 🙂

Ajay is very accurate! Love the tongue-in-cheek tone of this video.

Hi Gideon, just so you know, the way Ajay speaks, his pronunciation, is not indicative of how most Indians sound. A lot of people in India speak certain words that you used in this video as examples, in a clear and better way. Our pronunciation of English words and vocabulary is dependent on our mother tongue influence.

One of the biggest characteristics of Indian languages is that their plosive consonants are unaspirated just like French, Spanish, Italian or Russian does. So they aren't used to aspirated sounds which is typical in Germanic languages like English, German, Dutch or Swedish. On the contrary, if you hear Indians speak Spanish or French they sound much more natural thanks to their similar phonetic system of Romance languages and Hindic languages.

I have personally witnessed an Englishman from the South of England being unable to understand the English of a Scotsman in a rural part of Scotland. The Englishman was our chauffeur during a tour of Scotland when we got lost and needed to ask for directions.

Greetings from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. 🇮🇳

Being a web developer, I have watched a gazillion of videos and screencasts run by Indian developers. I honestly don't recall a single one who would stress the word comPOnent as native Americans/Brits do, they all seem to say COMponent. And speaking of the question tags, it is also so common for them to say 'OK?' every other sentence when talking. I loved "to prepone" btw!

You need to get the linguist Peggy Mohan on your show. She has done extensive research/books on how Indian languages came into being, & also on Indian-English sounds.

I'd add one thing about 'Tiffin' - this is mostly about Mumbai and people living there - back in 1980s-90s the city was fast growing with respect to population, jobs, city area etc and the workplace would be very far from home so the wives would pack a lunchbox for their husbands - a tiffin, but it'll get cold by lunch time so the locals came up with a delivery system where they'd collect the tiffins from all the houses and deliver it to the office exactly before lunchtime so it's nice and hot so Tiffin would be a 'lunchbox' not 'lunch' and now we all use it across the country

loved the content! Take my subscribe 👍🏻

I follow your videos Gideon because I love the English language! Let me fill in some explanatory gaps, folks: 1. Pronunciation: we approximate Indian letters to Roman ones in English words and say the word that way. For instance, "Great" would be decoded as Ga or ग+ half-Ra or र + Ey or ऐ + Ta or ट - and be prounced ग्रेट or "Grreyt" We don't have a W sound in Indic scripts except borrowed from Turko-Persians (Muslims). That's why wheel and veal sound the same. 2. What is your good name? Is a hashed translation of a Hindi and other Indian languages enquiry " what is your auspicious name?" as it is considered rude and interrogatory to say " what is your name?" Since a name reflects your identity. 3. Nobody uses Air Dashed anymore - Ajay didn't know it because he's from a younger generation. Even out of station is archaic. 4. Truncated English words are fun. Such as "Don't be such an enthu cutlet!" Or " what's the funda? "Which means what's the underlying principle or explanation - a slang term born in the hallowed IIT engineering colleges from " Fundamentals" 5. The world may as well get used to Indian English because we will soon be the largest English speaking nation on Earth, albeit as a second language. Its the language of Science & Tech and business most of all in India. My Bengali scientist pal when working for Thales in Europe was told by Italian and French scientists they wished they had his English skills 6. As a recent ad campaign celebrating Indianess proclaimed " We are like this only!" Love & best wishes to Gideon. Parshu from Delhi

"He's out of station" sounds quite posh, actually... 👍

28:48 Well here in India 🇮🇳 We say ( not everyone) " what is your good name? " Cause of our native language influence on English . Like, in my mother tongue Bengali , when we say " What is your good name?"/{ Tomar valo(good) naam ki? } it means ,"What is your name on government papers" , I mean the real offical one. Cause we also has our nick names. So people ask like this.

A very useful and interesting video, I liked it very much!

Most of the major Indian languages, like Bengali, Hindi and Marathi, have aspirated plosives. They are distinct phonemes and not allophones as in English. But most Indians don't know that aspirated P, T and K exist in English because the spelling doesn't show it. We would have spelt PH, TH and KH.

Super awesome! Love the way you gave Indian English its rightful respect as a perfectly justified and correct language. None of the bad old cultural imperialism days of 'proper British English'. Was also interested to see some similarities with Mandarin Chinese, repetition of words (come come come, eat eat eat, OK OK) and the use of uncle to convey respect to older men as a mark of respect. Incidentally, in Mandarin there are even more words for cousin depending on the gender, elder/younger and which side (maternal/paternal) they come from. A real headache to learn! Would have enjoyed hearing some Indian language, Hindi perhaps - maybe it would have given clues as to why these language differences have arisen? How about South African English? The vowel shift is really cool! Check in desk becomes Chicken disc e->i etc.... Keep'em comin'!

I know very little about India or any of the languages (the few Indian folks I know well are from Toronto, Canada!)... but this was quite informative. Also, Ajay was a joy to listen to... not just for his accent, but his knowledge of phrases and clear explanations.

Awesome video! 👍🏼

Good Name can have other meaning too. I got used to it with increasing indianisation of english and i think.ot refers to the official or legal or professional name. So people can have a nick name, a name used at home and an official name. Good name refers to the first name of the official name.

Has anybody ever considered looking at Philippine English? English is an official language in the Philippines, and everyone speaks at least some form of it more or less, depending on your educational level. It is so widely misunderstood especially by foreigners of Filipino descent trying too hard and failing at speaking Philippine English. Also, Filipinos are one of the most voracious social media users in the world, and anything Philippines related gets viral really quickly.

Indian English spoken by an Indian Woman is the most beautiful sound ever!!!!

I lived near an indian comunity in South Africa in 1965 to 1979. It would be interesting to compare the two.

Interesting overview of Indian English. I would have liked to hear a discussion of the syllabic stress differences for individual words as well. This is where I often have trouble understanding. For instance, a professor of mine would often say "we will develop the formula". But, since he stressed the first syllable of "develop", and I only knew the word to be pronounced with the second syllable stressed, I thought he was saying "we will devil up the formula". I'm curious about whether there's a pattern to look for that would help my comprehension.

Amazing job, both of you! Iearned a lot!

It's been ages since we last saw your video Sir... let them talk .... nice ❤

Very true. I'm American, and when I visited India I noticed many of the points mentioned in this video!

secretly he is enjoying the "funny" accent. You can see his hidden laugh on every reply of Ajay.

Hello Gideon. Enjoy your videos. Some important mis-pronunciation didn't get covered. Determine is universally (in India) pronounced as Deter-mine (Mine as in something belonging to me) Same with Examine Exa-Mine. Biology - Bio-logy (logy like Logical not as lugy). Similarly Economy is pronounced as Eco-nomy (like nominal). The latter two are mostly from certain regions. Some Heteronyms are pronounced as well, with same sound in some regions. For ex. Project is pronounced as in verb "project" even if is noun "project" (endeavor). Oh it would be a long list.

28:26 Well as an Indian I do have the answer, why people say " come, come sit with us" instead of " hey come here " cause they just simply translate their mother language to English 😅. Yeah, that's it , no rocket science.😁 Like, in my mother tongue Bengali, we would say " এসো/ēso(come) এসো/ēso (come)বসো/bāso(sit) " . And same in Hindi too " आओ/Aoo(Come) आओ/Aoo(Come) बैठो /Baitho (Sit )" . Just like that.😙😁

Thanks for giving indian english its own place rather than considering it as a distorted english.. but one thing one should know is that we just go by how words are spelled. That's why we dont pronounce words like the native speakers do.

Gideon, as you explained in a previous video, it's hard to get a number for how many Indians speak English fluently. For each citizen, the Indian Census tracks only their one native language (which it designates as the "mother tongue"), not the other languages they speak. So while hundreds of millions do speak English fluently-many even at native or bilingual proficiency-most don't designate it as their mother tongue. For that matter, all schools in India (except a few run by certain religious minorities) are required to teach English. Unfortunately, not everybody ends up learning English proficiently-or even functionally-due to various reasons: they drop out, are taught poorly, can't afford books, aren't motivated enough etc. The question of "mother tongue" is a highly divisive issue-both emotionally and politically. For one, the states in India are demarcated on the basis of language. Further, a language that has a large number of native speakers gets special privileges from both the State and Central governments. Which is why people vote strategically when answering census questions. The only people who list English as their mother tongue are the ones who grew up speaking English naturally with their parents. The rest of us were taught English explicitly, whether at home or in school. We'd never consider it our "mother tongue" even if we win Pulitzers, Bookers, or Nobel Prizes for our English works!