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Hinglish (the name is a combination of the words "Hindi" and "English") is a macaronic language, a hybrid of English and South Asian languages – it is a code-switching variety of these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. While the name is based on the Hindi language, it does not refer exclusively to Hindi, but "is used in India, with English words blending with Punjabi, and Hindi, and also within British Asian families to enliven standard English."
Since the time of British Raj, there has been a history of Indic words making place in English. Raj is a Hindi word for 'rule', "British Raj" itself is an example of one of the earliest Hinglish Words. Guru, Yoga, Ghat, Ghee, Pandit, Pyjama, Sati, Thug etc. are many such examples. Similary, many English words also came to stay in India. Time, Late, School, College, District, State etc. are example of few words which have naturalised in indic languages, long before the word Hinglish came into being.
In recent years, due to an increase in literacy and connectivity, the interchange and mixing of languages has gone to a new level, especially in social media, leading to recognition of Hinglish.
Columnist Devyani Chaubal was the first author to use Hinglish in her work. Author Shobhaa De then began to use Hinglish elements in her books and columns in the Indian magazine Stardust. Other authors who have used Hinglish extensively in their novels are Salman Rushdie and Upamanyu Chatterjee.
Over the years, Hinglish has been effectively used in Indian advertising in advertising slogans, like Pepsi's 1998 slogan Yeh Dil Maange More! (This heart desires more!), Yehi hai right choice, Baby (This is the Right Choice, Baby), Yeh Hai Youngistaan (This is the contry of the young).
In 2003, a trend of Hinglish pop songs was popularized by DJ Aqeel whose Tu Hai Wohi became a success. Other Hinglish songs soon followed like "Chadti Jawani Meri Chaal Mastani" by Harry Anand which samples the "The Ketchup Song" and Kaanta Laga by DJ Doll.
A full-fledged Hinglish Novel was published by Richa Devesar in March,2015.
A dictionary for Hinglish has also been published.
This is more commonly seen in urban and semi-urban centers of the Hindi-speaking states of India, and is spoken even by the Indian diaspora. Many speakers do not realize that they are incorporating English words into Hindi sentences or Hindi words into English sentences. David Crystal, a British linguist at the University of Wales, projected in 2004 that at about 350 million, the world's Hinglish speakers may soon outnumber native English speakers.
Hinglish is also affecting the English spoken in the United Kingdom, with the adaptation of words and expressions used by Indian immigrants and their offspring into colloquial English in the United Kingdom.
Aspects and examples
Hinglish refers not just to the use of Indic language words into English, but vice versa also.
Example of using English Words, in sentense basically written in Hindi : Yeh Dil Maange More! (This heart desires more!), Yehi hai right choice, Baby (This is the Right Choice, Baby).
Example of using Indic Words, in sentense basically written in English : How to Speak Pukka,
- airdash: going somewhere in a hurry
- pre-pone: the opposite of postpone, to bring something forward in time
- co-brother: brother-in-law - Co-brother, to be very precise, is the sister-in-law's husband
- Eve teasing: street sexual harassment
- glassy: wanting a drink
- timepass: a distraction to pass the time
- badmash: hooligan
Hinglish is also the way English is pronounced by people speaking Hindi. Example of Hinglish:
- 'juo' for you
- 'pphunny' for funny,
- 'pphOOr' for four/for,
- 'iskool' for school,
- 'ispade' for spade and other twin consonants starting with the letter 's' at the beginning of a word.
The above pronunciations are typically used in rural areas. The urban population uses the Indian English pronunciation.
In some sections, Hinglish is considered as a pollution for the original languages.
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- Kasbekar 2006, p. 94
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- Sailaja, Pingali. Hinglish: code-switching in Indian English. ELT Journal, Oxford Journals (2011) 65 (4): 473-480. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccr047. First published online: August 1, 2011
- "A Hindi-English jumble, spoken by 350 million".
- Rob Gifford, Baljinder Mahal (December 4, 2006). "Practicing 'The Queen's Hinglish' in Central England". NPR.