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’Incorrect’ English or just ’different’? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| deej Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5338 days ago 31 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Hindi, English*, Italian, French | Message 1 of 11 24 September 2011 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just got back from a month long trip to Mumbai, India (I live in London but
frequently go to India to visit family). While I was there I couldn't help noticing that even though the people there generally communicated in English, they would say everything differently to how we would say it. They would use different words a lot of the time-e.g. 'catch this' instead of 'take this' (when handing something over), 'curd' instead of 'yoghurt', 'tease me with' instead of 'tease me about', pretty much everything they said ended up slightly different to what I would have expected, and the stress was always on a different part of the word to where I would have put it. At first, I regarded their English as 'wrong' and even started correcting a few people. But then I thought that just because their English is different to ours why does that make it 'wrong' or 'incorrect', is it not just a different style/ variety of the language just like the French spoken in Ivory Coast differs from that of mainland France and how Portuguese differs between Brazil and Portugal? What is your take on this? Is there an objective, correct version of a language or simply different styles? And what should our attitude be to the different types of a language, should variety be encouraged or should we all be speaking the same English? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 2 of 11 24 September 2011 at 11:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would go with just "different."
I have several Australian friends, and mostly the dialectical differences between our versions of English don't bother me. The odd one that does is where an American would usually ask "How are you doing?" my Australian friends tend to ask "How are you going?" It feels a little uncomfortable for me to hear it (because that's not my dialect), but it's correct for them as native speakers. So... it's just different. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 3 of 11 25 September 2011 at 12:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Standard/nonstandard are the terms I often see used and I think they're the most
appropriate, being purely descriptive and not involving any judgement of worth. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 11 25 September 2011 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think we have to accept, particularly in the case of India, that the English they use
is likely to diverge more and more from the standard British English from which it once derived. Maybe the written language will continue to look the same (although I'm not even sure about that), but the spoken language continues to be enriched by words from native languages, and it will probably evolve into something which most linguists will agree is a language and not just a dialect or a variety or whatever. Some British people especially will find this hard to accept, but there is nothing they can do about it. A lot of Indians don't actually speak English and probably know little about Britain and don't really care about it, despite the romantic notions harboured by some old-fashioned Brits. So I doubt if the English speakers are particularly bothered whether they are speaking "The Queen's English", or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 5 of 11 25 September 2011 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are there any native English speakers in India? Maybe that's just mistakes made by
foreigners? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 6 of 11 25 September 2011 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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@jdmoncada: From a UK perspective we use both "how are you doing" and how
are you going all the time. I tend to use, "how are you going" in less formal situations (often omitting the "are"). If I can just add a few other common ones here (I'm limiting myself to standard UK terms, not local dialect!), can you tell me which of these sound incorrect in the US, please? I'm just curious. How's it going? How are things? You OK? How are you? How are things going? How's everything? How's everything going? @ OP: It varies IMO. I have worked with a lot of Indians, almost all of whom had truly excellent Indian English. Their English was good enough to study for masters degrees at UK universities and IMO was better than that of most Brits. For me that's a dialect- a really interesting one at that! Moreover, like educated speakers of any dialect they would switch to something much closer to International English when necessary. I'm aware that if they're studying at a UK university than they are going to be far better educated than average, but still. A few spoke an English that was a bit, er, funky, IMO that's an imperfectly learned language- though their English was still good enough to put my efforts at foreign language learning in the shade. I remember once seeing an "Executive Head Chef" point at some mixed cutlery and ask an Indian waitress (who had perfect English and a masters degree under her belt) whether she knew what a fork was! I would have been too angry for words at being patronized like that; but she just kept her dignity and (with a puzzled look on her face) asked whether he wanted an example or a definition, brilliant! I should add that this was a guy who couldn't even spell "mopped" and had printed signs up insisting that the floor be swept and moped[sic] at the end of every night! @ montmorency: you may be right but I hope you are wrong! I agree that speakers of Indian English absolutely shouldn't care whether their dialect of English conforms to the UK standard- there are more speakers of English in India than in the UK and Indian authors have already produced great literature in English (Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy both won the Booker Prize, for instance); but, there is much more to English than England, or you would be the only native speaker on this thread ;-) (I'm assuming you're English, my sincere apologies if you're not)! I hope that all the varieties of English (including the Indian) remain mutually comprehensible at all but the most colloquial level for as long as possible, and that they all maintain a formal register that is essentially International English! Edited by Random review on 25 September 2011 at 3:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 11 25 September 2011 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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@RandomReview: Indeed there are gifted speakers and writers in English in India and of
Indian origin (and we should probably include Pakistan - I'm thinking of someone like Tariq Ali who was actually born when P. was still part of India, and who is exceedingly articulate in English (whether one agrees with him or not)). I was just trying to make the point that while English is a lingua Franca, originally for historical reasons and now perhaps for reasons of international business and trade, etc, not everyone speaks it, and in that vast and varied country, not everyone has the need to speak it. I haven't been there, but my wife and daughter have, and they encountered a fair number of people who apparently could not speak or understand it. Moi? - Yes, English blood, with as far as our recorded history goes, Irish and Scottish "chasers" :-) @Mapk: Interesting question about whether there are any native speakers of English in India (ignoring of course those of direct British origin). I have a feeling that there must be some. What about the so-called "Anglo-Indians", for example? - I'm not sure, just posing the question. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 11 25 September 2011 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
This is unlikely. Indian English as a language has a fairly consistent norm (I hesitate to use "standard" in this context), so it would remain stable all things being equal. There are still many children coming to English as a non-native language through the school system, but on the other hand, India is now a hub for global technology companies and there is a huge pressure to conform to a more "international" form of English. Last time I was there, there was very little foreign TV. Most English on the TV was Indian English, although cartoons were a mixture of US dubs, Indian English dubs and Singapore English dubs. It's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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