Bangalore English..

Typical Bangalore English is a phenomenon. This hasn’t changed at all in the last decade. I got overwhelmed by this when I came here in 1993 and again now.

Here are some rules on how to communicate in Bangalore:

  • If you want to clarify a thought, state it and then ask “No?”. eg: “Today is Monday. No?”.
  • If you want to present a thought, state it and then add “only”. eg: “Today is Monday only”.
  • If you want to agree to an idea, say “it is like that only”.
  • If you want to agree hesitantly to an idea, it follows from previous rules that you say “it is like that only, no?”.
  • If you know one thing and you think there are additional things, say “and all”. Eg. “This US and all are in Iraq”; implies US, UK and their coalition are fighting in Iraq. You can say “and all” to fill in the gaps too.
  • If you want to talk about things that are not known to the audience, prefix each sentence with “actually”, “basically” or “generally”. For example, “My name is Babu. I am from Kerala. I go there every weekend.” translates to “Actually my name is Babu. Basically I am from Kerala only. Generally I go there every weekend.”

Found it here

4 comments:

Faraz Ahmed said...

Yeah, Indian English is generally pretty funny.

I had a visiting Indian professor for a course and it was just fun to listen to him speak. He memorized the names of everyone in class and when we'd talk, he call out our name really loudly and ask us as to why we are creating a 'local disturbance.'

Another time he was talking about a 'non-key' and half the class thought he was referring to a 'monkey' and were confused as heck!

Humairah Irfan said...

simply.. hilarious.
Can you believe you can actually "explain" how they talk?? lol...
Reminds me of all my years of school with those Indian teachers, and indian students!

Hafsa said...

ha ha Faraz, that is funny!

Another phrase my teachers loved to use was "pin drop silence"!

Hrah, i'm sure we have the same stories - just with different names :)

Din said...

lol...


Here are some I wrote about some time ago...My favourite is "whats your good name?"