How Language Has Life: the Phenomenon of Desi Angrezi

“You will reach when?” “I’ll be there at five only.”

“Where did your sister do her graduation?” “In Australia, she passed out last year.”

Time pass, revert back, good name, myself so-and-so this side! Once you start looking, the world of Indian English is endless and fascinating. Some phrases can immediately be clocked as being uniquely Indian, while others feel so deeply entrenched in our day-to-day communication that finding out they are quirks of our English can be a surprise - saying “giving an exam” didn’t make sense to my North American friend, who was used to the phrase “taking an exam”.

Dr. Shashi Tharoor released his collection of essays reflecting on the usage and history of the English language, titled A Wonderland of Words, in New Delhi on August 30, 2024. In a conversation about these essays, Dr. Tharoor noted that there were multiple types of English, and among them is Indian English. Using the example of words like ‘thrice’ and ‘furlong’ no longer being used in the UK while they are still heard in India, Dr. Tharoor said that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with Indian English - it is simply different English. Indian English is an offshoot of British English that embedded its roots into our soil and yielded fruits that were uniquely its own.

Language is something alive; constantly changing, bending, shape-shifting and transforming into something that might be unrecognizable to a speaker from ten years ago, but requires no second thought in the present moment. Language straddles the chaotic balance between being ‘correct’ and being understood, and it leaps off the pages of grammar textbooks to shape itself into something tangible that reflects the world it is used in. Language breathes on the tongues of its speakers, and, being almost alive, it can evolve, converge, diverge, or die out like any living species.

It is no surprise that India took English and shaped it to reflect our languages and our culture. Repeating adjectives helped us emphasize descriptions, and now our English has sentences like ‘I have some small-small issues with this.’ The concept of jugaad, with no direct translation in any form of English, made its way into the Oxford dictionary. It is listed as an Indian English word defined as ‘the use of skill and imagination to find an easy solution to a problem or to fix or make something using cheap, basic items’.

Indian English, then, is not just taking English and moulding it to our needs, but also spreading our ideas out to the wider English-speaking world. Much like other types of English evolving in different regions around the world, Indian English will continue to change and grow as a linguistic fingerprint unique to India.

Dr. Tharoor will be in conversation with Vikam Doraiswami at the session ‘Wordplay: Indian, English and Indian English’ during JLF London at the British Library, being held from June 13-15, 2025. Information on registration, sessions, and more is available at https://events.bl.uk/events/jlf-london-2025-saturday-pass.