topics: |  indian-english | language

Quiz: How many Indian-English-isms in these:

1. Are you the loud noisy type who loves rasta rokos and chakka jams?

2. No - you are the kind who adores pin-drop silence, isn't it?

3. Is it a botheration when you have to turn on the mixie?

So - did you know that pin-drop silence is an Indianism? But that should not make you stop using it. We Indians need to wear our English on our sleeve. In a few decades, we will be the largest nation of English speakers on earth. We should be able to make Indian English as respectable as let's say Canadian or Australian English!

Answer to quiz:
1. rasta roko 2. chakka jam 3. pin-drop silence. 4. botheration 5. mixie. 6. the "isn't it" interrogative.

Levels of Differences

Fascinating discussion on what constitutes Indian English (IE). Is it really a corrupt form of British English?

It turns out that IE is different at many levels. Some highlights:

Pronunciation: there is a "Standard IE" pronunciation (SIEP) - is rather
    like the standard British pronunciation (RP or Received pron), except
    that some r's are not as silent as they are RP and some added (virtual)
    r's are completely absent (e.g.the idea[r] of).  Many other changes in
    stress etc.

Syntax: Sometimes IE speakers appear to prefer American English
   constructions, eg. "do you have" over "have you any".  Non-standard IE
   often varies a lot - e.g. by ending yes/no questions with "isn't it".

Lexicon: IE speakers may use words like "lady's finger" or "dickey" or
   "quarters" which don't exist in AE or BE, or may use words like "clever"
   to mean intelligent / cunning.

Social Issues

Also, there are many differences one finds within different social
structures among speakers of IE; e.g. those educated in upper-strata
schools tend to drop the "r" in card more often than the hoi polloi.

A corpus-based analysis of Indian usage can be found in Andreas
Sedlatschek's Contemporary Indian English: variation and change.
The corpus analyzed is an early corpus of English as used in India (the Kohlapur
corpus).   However, Sailaja is stronger for examples of real usage.

Excerpts

2 Phonetics and Phonology

Indian English (IE) is best identified through its phonological features
yet, paradoxically, the variation in the phonology is widespread. There
is a standard variety of IE both in terms of phonology and syntax.

This chapter will deal with the standard accent and touch upon variation
as well. Accent in Indian speech is marked by regional variation.
Standard accent is usually devoid of regional markers but it is still identifiable
as Indian by virtue of some pan-Indian features. There is also an
intermediate accent that is more Indian than the standard, as a consequence
of the extent to which the regional features appear in it (e.g. ‘generalised
IE’ [CIEFL (1972)]).

As early as 1800, an advertisement by William Carey from Serampore offering
to teach English with particular attention to correct pronunciation appeared
(Sinha 1978: 23–4).

Standard Indian-English Pronunciation (SIEP)

[Today] RP has somehow become the standard of pronunciation to aspire to,
at least from the point of view of educators.  In this process of
attempting to acquire and impart RP, a variety of English, called Standard
IE Pronunciation, (SIEP) has grown in the country that approximates RP yet
has some distinctive features that mark it as Indian.  This has de facto
become the standard of pronunciation and is advocated by most educationists
as the more appropriate norm for Indians. This variety has been labelled
Educated Indian Pronunciation (Gokak 1964, Parasher 1991, Nihalani et
al. 2005).  SIEP is close to but does not precisely match All India Radio
newsreaders’ speech.

SIEP vs RP vs non-standard IE : the "r"s

 * non-rhotic (matches RP). That is, the letter r in words like card, park,
   smart, heart, bird, earth, purse, where it occurs before consonant sounds,
   is not articulated.  Also, it remains silent when it occurs in word-final
   positions as in car, player, singer, sir etc.  An /r/-less accent is a
   prestige marker in India as Agnihotri and Sahgal (1985) and Sahgal and
   Agnihotri (1988) note.
   Thus, the same speaker would pronounce the same word differently in
   another language.
   [Most non-standard varieties of IE are rhotic – r is articulated.
   There are several descriptions of the realisations of /r/ in IE. It has
   been called a post-alveolar frictionless continuant or an alveolar flap by
   Bansal (1976).]

 * linking /r/: words that end with the letter r are followed by words
   beginning with a vowel sound, the r is articulated as in: The car [r] is
   here; The player [r] indicates his displeasure.

 * intrusive /r/, which is a feature of RP, is absent in IE. There is no /r/
   articulation in phrases like India and China; the idea of it, which in RP
   may have a /r/ between India and and and between idea and of.  Even the
   suggestion of such a pronunciation will seem ridiculous to Indians.

The influence of spelling on IE speech is quite well known.

v, w, th

 * the difference between /v/ and /w/, maintained in SIEP as in RP, is often
   absent in the speech of many IE speakers.
   SIEP /v/: front teeth touch the lower lip and the sound is a fricative,
   that is, air is released with audible friction.
   However, the amount of friction that /v/ carries in RP is greater than
   the friction in IE, even in the standard variety.

   The average IE speaker articulates another sound here without friction
   and, in fact, to replace it with the labio-dental approximant // which
   occurs in many Indian languages. Thus, the advertisement for a
   recent Hindi film that says ‘villager, visionary, winner’ is obviously
   meant to be alliterative.
   spelling error by student: ‘They are playing wolly ball’

 * fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ (/theta/ and /delta/)
   The first sound in words like through, thing, third is the voiceless
   dental plosive.  The sound /θ/ is sometimes articulated in SIEP
   but /ð/ is almost completely missing. 
   It takes a lot of training and practice for Indians to master the
   fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ of English.

 * /t/ and /d/ or /t_/ and /d_/
   IE has been considered to be retroflex in the articulation of the first
   sounds in words like today, tomorrow, terrific and demand.
   retroflex = tongue curls backwards and hits the hard palate.
   However, some SIEP also have alveolar sounds...
   While the voiceless /t/ is more frequent, it is the voiced /d_/ that
   betrays an Indian background.
   More formal situations bring on the alveolar sounds and the less formal
   bring on the retroflex sounds. Non-standard IE consistently uses the
   retroflex sounds.

Regional Variations (non-standard)

  - Some speakers with a Gujarati or Marathi background are likely to say /f/
    as /ph/.
  - speakers with a Bengali, Oriya and Assamese background, /w, v/ are
    problematic because labio-dental sounds are in general difficult.  They
    replace these sounds with /bh/. Bengali speakers also have a further
    problem distinguishing /s/ and /ʃ/. So do some Bihari Hindi speakers.
    who tend to use either /s/ or /ʃ/ consistently in all contexts.
    /z./ is unpronounceable for Kashmiris who replace it with /dz./. /h/ is
    generally unproblematic across the country.

* ASPIRATION is contrastive in Indian languages, barring Tamil. e.g. Hindi: /pal/
  ‘moment’ is different from /phal/ ‘fruit’.   But in RP, aspiration
  occurs in specific contexts where it becomes obligatory (in the initial
  position of stressed syllables). Thus [p] in pin, upon, suppose is
  aspirated, whereas [p] in spin, capers is not aspirated.
  Thus [p] and [ph] non-contrastive in English but contrastive in most Indian
  languages.

  In IE, aspiration does not work the way it does in RP - where aspiration
  does occur, it is the result of spelling.  Thus, ghost and ghastly have an
  initial aspirated sound [gh]. In some words like John, even though the h is
  not immediately after j, aspiration is heard as [dz.h]. In SIEP sometimes
  words with wh- are aspirated – why /vhai/ or /whai/.

  Another non-contrastive distinction known in RP is the difference between
  [l] and [l-], known as clear l and dark l respectively. Clear l occurs in
  most contexts but dark l occurs when it is followed by a consonant or by a
  pause in words such as milk, bulb, feel. Dark l is completely absent in IE,
  including the standard variety and clear l is used in all contexts.

2.2 Vowel sounds

* the truly central vowel /ə/ and the lower central vowel /?/ is sometimes
  neutralised in SIEP or the two vowels are used as free variants (Bansal
  1978).  [/?/, butter, putty; /ə/, appear, allow.]
  Sometimes, in non-standard varieties, another sound /a/ which is more open
  than the English central sound is heard in place of //.
  some non-standard versions (esp. in S. India) may use /a/ for /ɒ/; so
  hot is /hat/.

Long vowels

* The long vowels are /i:, e:, a:, ɒ:, o:, u:, :/. While RP has five long
  vowels, SIEP has seven. Words that have /i:/ are seat, beat; /a:/ appears
  in card, master; /u:/ is heard in boot, pool
* most important difference between RP and SIEP lies in the long vowels /e:/
  and /o:/. These do not exist in RP which has diphthongs instead. These
  diphthongs are rarely articulated in SIEP. /e:/ is heard in words like day,
  may, play. And /o:/ is heard in words like no, go, groan.  In some
  contexts, generally in word-final positions as in today, these vowels are
  shortened to /e/ and /o/ respectively.
* the quality of the back vowel in words like bought, daughter - the RP sound
  is higher, but the Indian sound tends to be a longer version of /ɒ/. Only
  those who are specially trained articulate /ɔ:/ and this sound is sometimes
  heard in the speech of All India Radio newsreaders. In non-standard
  accents, the equivalent is /a:/.

Dipthongs

  The tendency in non-standard IE is to convert diphthongs other than /ai/
  and /aυ/ to long vowels as beer /bi:r/, poor /pu:r/, tour /tu:r/, fair,
  fare /fe:r/, pear /pe:r/. Those who do not articulate /ɒ/ and /ɒ:/ do not
  do so in the diphthongs either. Thus boil is /ba:il/ and coin is /ka:in/.


"The": may be pronounced with /ə/ or /i/; /i/ before vowels is SIEP,
but many people prefer only one form - either [də] or [di] for all situations

Sociolinguistic cline in IE enunciation

Agnihotri and Sahgal (1985) and Sahgal and Agnihotri (1988):
   organise their informants into three groups based on the type of education
   and schools attended. The more elite schools evidently impart an elite
   accent consciously. In addition to a general accent that an individual
   has, the context also can change the accent. Thus what are identified as
   non-standard above would surface in the speech of a speaker of SIEP if the
   situation is one of informality or if the other interlocutor speaks a
   non-standard variety. A non-rhotic accent can and does become a rhotic
   accent if one is talking to a shopkeeper whose accent is non-standard and
   rhotic. So also with retroflexion and other vowel sounds. Taking a few
   features of IE, Sahgal and Agnihotri (1988) examine the variation that
   exists according to the style of speech – reading and casual. The use of
   retroflex sounds and /r/ articulation increases in the casual speech of
   speakers.

Agnihotri, R. K. and Anju Sahgal (1985), ‘Is Indian English retroflexed and
	r-full?’, Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics X1:1, 97–108.

Sahgal, Anju and R. K. Agnihotri (1988), ‘Indian English phonology: A
	sociolinguistic perspective’, English World-Wide 9:1, 51–64.

3. Morphosyntax

There are some who believe that Indian English tends to be stylistically
different from Western standards, even if it is syntactically close to
standard British or American English. It is considered to be more formal,
with a preference for certain syntactic forms. Debate marks this issue. As in
the case of the phonology of Indian English, syntax too may be placed on a
cline – this time of proficiency. The more proficient speakers, with
exposure to Western standards, tend to use a form of the grammar that is
very close to standard British English (BE) or American English (AE).

Contrary to what Daswani (1978) says, Verma (1978) and Bhatt (2000,
2004) show that the features of IE that are considered to be non-standard
are in fact regular and they can be accounted for by means of systematic
rules. Moreover, speakers have intuitions about these non-standard
structures. Bhatt (2000) claims that standard IE speakers have two
grammars at their disposal – the standard and the non-standard.

Bhatt, Rakesh M. (2000), ‘Optimal expressions in Indian English’, English
	Language and Linguistics 4: 1, 69–95.
Bhatt, Rakesh M. (2004), ‘Indian English: Syntax’, in Bernd Kortmann, Kate
	Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds),
	The Handbook of Varieties of English: vol. 2, Morphology and Syntax,
	Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1016–30.

Influence of American English (AE)

although English came from the British, there are some syntactic
constructions in IE that are American. And, there is considerable variation
in IE. Some structures are definitely British for all individuals. For
example, in the following sentences who (British) is preferred to that
(American):

	23. (a) The people who came yesterday. . .
	    (b) The people that came yesterday. . .

For some types of structures, both the British and the American forms
are heard. For example, we find:

	24. (a) I insisted that she took the sweater. (British)
	    (b) I insisted that she take the sweater. (American)
	25. (a) We’ve just finished dinner. (British)
	    (b) We just finished dinner. (American)

IE has features of syntax that are predominantly British but there are
structures that are American as well. In the use of have in standard IE, one
comes across the different structures given in (26) below [Trudgill and
Hannah 02].  In a study was conducted for this work, forty proficient IE
speakers were asked if they prefer (a) or (b):

	26. (a) Have you any coffee in the cupboard? (British)
	    (b) Do you have any coffee in the cupboard? (American)

It turns out that, in IE as well, about 74% of the respondents prefer the
second structure and this difference is not based on age.

3.2.1 Verb complements

It has been said by Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006) that variation in
syntax is most commonly realised in verb complement structures. That
is, those elements that must obligatorily follow a verb in a sentence differ
from variety to variety. In IE it is noted that some verbs that are normally
transitive tend to be used intransitively.

e.g. verb pelt:

preference in BE is for: pelt+NP (goal)+with+NP(instr):
	They are pelting him with cans.
On the other hand, in IE there are more types used, the most frequent
being structures like:
	They are pelting cans at him.

Mukherjee and Hoffmann (2006) examine the frequencies of the
ditransitive verbs give and send in BE and IE using the British and
Indian sections of the International Corpus of English (Nelson 2007).

  I  Karuna gave Maya a book.
 II  Karuna gave a book to Maya.
III  Karuna gave a book.
 IV  Karuna gave. [no dir or indir object]
  V  karuna gave Maya

In BE, type I is greatly favoured, but in IE, type III is also widely
observed.

Differences in the Lexicon

Words non-existent in BE/AE

brinjal 	aubergine/eggplant
lady’s finger 	okra
wine shop 	off-licence/liquor store
dickey 		boot/trunk
metro 		underground railway
torchlight 	torch

   An example of retained older usage is dickey which meant ‘a seat in the
   back of a carriage for servants’ in earlier BE. It is now used with the
   modified meaning in IE of ‘a boot of a car’.

sweater: term for all kinds of warm clothing worn over other clothes;
purse: be held in the hand;
handbag: must have handles and be slung on the shoulder

Indian meanings different from BE or AE

stir 	‘strike’
shift 	‘move, especially house or office’
clever 	‘intelligent, especially cunning’
smart 	‘well-dressed’ or ‘cunning’
bearer 	‘waiter’
back-bencher 	‘one who occupies the last rows in a classroom,
	generally a dull or mischievous student’
botheration 	‘bother’
quarters 	‘houses owned by government or employer and
	allocated to employees for residence’
	OED quarter:
	   16.  rooms, barracks, lodgings, esp. those allocated to
		soldiers, or to staff in domestic service; slaves

hotel 	‘restaurant’
mythological 	‘a film with a mythological theme’
social 	‘a film with a social theme’
latrine	‘a toilet in any place’
	OED: A privy, esp. in a camp, barracks, hospital, or similar place.
	     e.g. 1884: "Enamelled Earthenware Latrine."

mixture	‘a snack combining several ingredients, such as
	lentils and peanuts’
convent	‘a school run by Christians’

Reverse borrowings

Some Sanskrit words, such as pepper (pippalī long pepper), went to English
through Greek and Latin. The word sandal ‘sandalwood’ (from Sanskrit candana)
is found as early as 1400 (Serjeantson 1935: 221).

from 16th c.

lac ‘resin’, from Sanskrit
divan from Persian
caravan from Persian, perhaps through French
calico from the name Calicut, in Kerala
betel from Malayalam, through Portuguese
coir from Malayalam, through Portuguese
curry from Tamil

from 17th c.

(if source not given, it is Hindustani)

guru
pundit
chintz
punch (the drink)
cot
bungalow
juggernaut
pukka

mongoose from Marathi
sepoy from Persian
shawl from Persian
pariah from Tamil
cheroot from Tamil
catamaran from Tamil
teak from Malayalam, through Portuguese

18th c.

cheetah
chit
bangle
shampoo
nautch

avatar from Sanskrit
jute from Bengali
corundum from Tamil
mulligatawny from Tamil
bandicoot from Telugu

19th century

dacoit
thug
cashmere
pyjamas
chutney
loot
gymkhana
pug

yoga from Sanskrit
maya from Sanskrit
karma from Sanskrit
khaki from Persian
patchouli from Tamil

Assimilated Words used only in IE

The Advanced Oxford Learner’s Dictionary prepared an Indian English
supplement to its fifth edition  (Sengupta 1996). Later editions do not
contain this supplement.

Sengupta, Indira Chowdhury (1996), ‘A supplement of Indian English’, in
	A. S.  Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current
	English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1429–75.


words from Hindi:
   bandh ‘a closure of all shops and institutions in a place’
   crore ‘ten million’
   hartal ‘a strike’
   gherao ‘to surround an official to prevent movement’
   henna/mehendi ‘a natural dye used decoratively on hands and hair’
   shamiana ‘decorative tarpaulin made of cloth’
   dharna ‘a sit-in’

Words in specialized domains

arts:
   abhinaya ‘expression in dance’
   raga ‘patterned melody in Indian music’
   tala ‘patterned beat in Indian music’
   aasana ‘yogic posture’

Religion:
   aarti ‘ritual offering of camphor flame to a deity’
   puja ‘ritual prayer’
   hundi ‘receptacle for offerings mostly in temples’
   sadhvi ‘woman spiritual aspirant’
   sadhaka ‘male spiritual aspirant’
   darga(h) ‘a tomb of a Muslim or Sufi saint’

Food items:
   chikki ‘fudge made usually with peanuts’
   bhel puri ‘item in Indian fast food’
   khichdi ‘rice and lentil dish’
   maida ‘refined flour’
   chota ‘small, in particular, a measure of alcohol’

   jeera cumin
   haldi turmeric
   kari patta curry leaves
   amla gooseberry

miscellaneous:
   challan ‘pay-in slip’
   acharya ‘teacher of high standing’
   agarbatti ‘joss stick’
   achcha ‘good, OK’
   chaalu ‘cunning’
   baccha ‘novice’
   dhaba ‘road-side eatery’
   hungama ‘commotion’
   kabaddi ‘Indian version of the game Tag’
   kadai ‘deep frying pan’
   kho-kho ‘Indian game’

Clothing:
   kurta ‘long, loose Indian shirt’
   salwar-kameez ‘loose pyjamas with a long top commonly worn by women’
   dupatta/chunni ‘scarf used with salwar kameez’

from dravidian

Most of the words above are from Hindi/Urdu and a few are from
Sanskrit. Words from other languages do not make it to the national level as
easily as Hindi words do.

	shikakai ‘vegetable extract used for washing hair’
	rasam ‘mulligatawny soup’
	sambar ‘liquid, lentil dish eaten with rice’
	idli ‘rice and lentil cake’
	dosa ‘pancake made of rice and lentil batter’

Compounds

	rail roko ‘agitation in which trains are stopped by protestors’
	rasta roko ‘agitation in which roads are blocked by protestors’
	jail bharo ‘agitation in which jails are filled deliberately by protestors’

It is not easy to distinguish between borrowing and code-switching in
these contexts especially because there is no definitive dictionary of
Indian English.

Noun-Noun compounds

	black money ‘unaccounted money, earnings on which tax is not paid’
	auto-rickshaw ‘a motorised three-wheeler’
	table fan ‘an electric fan meant to be placed on a table’
	ceiling fan ‘an electric fan meant to be fixed to the ceiling’
	pedestal fan ‘an electric fan mounted on a tall pedestal’
	plate meal ‘ a meal with fixed portions of various items’
	sacred thread ‘strands of thread worn by Hindu men, with religious significance’
	outstation cheque ‘a cheque meant for a recipient who lives in a
		place away from the issuer of the cheque’
	hill station ‘a place in the hills which is generally cool in climate’
	pass percentage ‘the percentage of students who have passed’
	god-woman ‘a woman who claims spiritual attainment, and
		the ability to perform miracles’
	soapnut ‘a herbal extract used for washing hair’
	blouse-piece ‘a piece of cloth cut to size and sold specifically
		for getting a blouse stitched’
	kitty party ‘a women’s club of sorts, which meets regularly’


with a verbal derivative:

	playback singer/artiste ‘singer who sings for actors in films’
	eve-teaser ‘male who teases a girl’
	room cooler ‘electric device which blows cool air’
	solar cooker ‘cooker powered by solar energy’
	milk boiler ‘double-walled vessel for boiling milk using steam’
	speed breaker ‘bump on the road to control speeding’
	car-lifter ‘car-thief ’
	child lifter ‘kidnapper of children’
	stone-pelting ‘throwing stones by a mob by way of protest’
	eve-teasing ‘the act of teasing a girl’
	booth capturing ‘rigging elections by capturing polling booths’

compounds that are used adjectivally:
   hydro-powered ‘powered by hydroelectricit
   self-proclaimed ‘proclaimed by oneself ’
   convent-educated ‘denoting one who has studied in a convent school’
   Bombay-based ‘denoting one based in Bombay’

Words such as those given below would not be acceptable in standard

	cousin-sister ‘a female cousin’
	cousin-brother ‘a male cousin’
	foreign-returned ‘one who has returned after study or work abroad’
	native place ‘place of birth’
	pin-drop silence ‘absolute silence’
	military hotel ‘a non-vegetarian restaurant’

[this is a cline, of course. "pin-drop silence" may be pretty much Standard, perhaps.]

	headbath ‘washing one’s hair’
	pant-piece ‘a trouser length’
	lemon-set ‘a plastic set of jug and glasses to serve juice’

Adj-N / N-V / compound V

	tall claim ‘an exaggerated claim’
	joining report ‘a report given by a person who has joined duty,
		either at the beginning of employment or after
		long leave’
	creamy layer ‘the economically well-off sections of those
		who belong to underprivileged castes’
	gazetted officer ‘a government official of a particular rank’
	gazetted holiday ‘officially notified government holiday’

	half-pants ‘shorts’
	English-educated ‘one educated in England or in English’
	cool drink ‘soft drink’, ‘juice’


	charge-sheet ‘an internal list of accusations’, ‘to conduct an
	inquiry based on the list of accusations’
	double-fry ‘an omelette fried on both sides’, ‘to fry an egg
	on both sides’

	steam-cook ‘to steam food’
	air-dash ‘to rush by air’

match box : common in Indian English - for box with matches
	BE: "box of matches".

OED:  A box for holding matches.  (Indian English and colloq.): such a box
	containing matches, a box of matches.  [but most usages have latter
	meaning]
1903   S. E. White Forest 383   Absolute necessities for hard trip... Knife;
	mosquito-dope; compass; match box.
1946   Civil & Mil. Gaz. (Lahore) 17 Dec. 15/2   A match-box worth half an
	anna is sold at two annas a box in the black market.
1979   P. Nihalani et al. Indian & Brit. Eng. 120   ‘May I borrow your
	matchbox, please?’.. The speaker of the above sentence presumably
	required a box with some matches in it..‘a box of matches’. This
	usage is highly characteristic.

affixations:

	delink ‘to separate one unit from another’
	wheatish ‘light brown complexion’
	reservationist ‘one who espouses the cause of reserving seats
		in educational institutions and government
		jobs for certain underprivileged groups’
	derecognise ‘to withdraw official recognition, particularly
		of an institution’

indeterminate constructions:

	mixie ‘a food processor, a machine that mixes food items’
	would-be ‘fiancé’, ‘fiancée’
	brought-up ‘upbringing’
	co-brother (in-law) ‘one’s wife’s sister’s husband’
	co-sister (in-law) ‘one’s husband’s brother’s wife’

Hybrid compounds

English word in Head:
	ghat road ‘a road through the hills or mountains’
	gobar gas ‘gas formed from cow dung’
	Hindipop/Indipop ‘fusion of Hindi and popular western music’
	iftaar party ‘party breaking the fast during Ramadan, in the evening’
	kirana store ‘grocery store’
	baba suit ‘adult’s dress in reduced form to be worn by little boys’
	lathi charge ‘caning of demonstrators by police’

Indian w in head:
	disco bhangra ‘a Punjabi dance to disco music’
	disco dandia ‘a Gujarati dance to disco music’
	mutton do-piaza ‘a dish of lamb with onions’

Affixation:

	Delhiite ‘one who lives in or hails from Delhi’
	UPite ‘onewho hails from Uttar Pradesh in north India’
	hostelite ‘inmate of a hostel’
	ashramite ‘one who lives in an ashram’
	Keralite ‘one who hails from Kerala in south India’
	Naxalite ‘refers to Communist extremists, originally
		 meant those who came from Naxalbari inWest
		 Bengal where the extremist movement started’

The English -er as in Londoner, New Yorker is absent for Indian names-
er/ese:
	Assamese / Maharashtrian / Calcuttan / Tamilian
but also Indian forms:
	Madrasi  /  Bengali / Malayali / Hyderabadi

affix from english:
	Brahmoism, Brahminism, Gandhian, Gandhism, Vaishnavism and Saivite

goondaism ‘unlawful activities involving violence’

affixes from Ind lg:

	filmi ‘artificial’, ‘melodramatic’

	vegetablewala ‘vegetable vendor’
	paperwala ‘newspaper and magazine vendor’
	presswala ‘journalist’

Generification:

	Godrej ‘a steel cupboard’ (originally brought in by Godrej)
	Maggi ‘instant noodles’ (Maggi being the first brand)

redundancy:
	potluck lunch
	tissue paper