It is ironic that the colonisers who ruled us for 200 years, should today recognise Indian English words and include them in their most well-known dictionary. Hinglish or Indian English has come to be recognised both in India and the country of origin of the English language.
In 2020 alone, 26 new Indian English words were added to the existing 384 in the world’s best selling Oxford dictionary. These included Aunties, uncles and tube lights.
The 384 words in the 10th edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) have an Indian English label, including 22 new additions in print and 26 in the online edition. These include headwords and also some individual meanings or idioms, as per a report in BusinessLine.
Some of the words with an Indian-English label are Aadhaar (system of issuing a unique 12 digit identification to every individual in India), the Oxford Dictionaries Hindi Word of the Year for 2017, Chawl (a large building divided into separate apartments offering cheap and basic accommodation), Shaadi (wedding or marriage), Dabba (a container with a meal or snack) and Hartal (an occasion when all shops and businesses are closed in protest).
The other Indian English words in OALD10e: Auntie (polite way of addressing or referring to an older woman), Auntieji (if you want to sound especially polite), similarly Uncle/Uncleji; Bus Stand (Bus Station), Mugging (learning something by repeating it until you remember it rather than by understanding the meaning of it), Tube light (a fluorescent light in the shape of a tube), Tempo (a vehicle with three wheels, used to deliver goods), Rowdy sheeter (a person who has been found guilty of multiple crimes in the past), Non-veg (containing or serving meat and fish/having a diet that includes meat and fish), Veg (suitable for a person who does not eat meat or fish, not containing or serving meat or fish), Needful (to do what is necessary), Kindly (used to acknowledge and apologise for something that causes problems or difficulties and ask people to accept and adapt to the situation), Looting (crime of stealing money or property from a person or place) Videograph (to make a video recording of somebody or something), FIR (the abbreviation for first information report), extern (to order somebody to leave a region or district as a punishment), Deemed University (an institution of higher education that is officially accredited as a university) are some of the others words.
Other words such as ‘jugaad’, ‘dadagiri’, ‘achcha’, ‘bapu’ and ‘surya namaskar’ ‘anna’ (elder brother), ‘abba’ (father), ‘gulab jamun’, ‘mirch masala’, ‘keema’, ‘funda’ and ‘chamcha’ can also be found in OALD. Oft-used terms like ‘timepass’, ‘natak’ and ‘chup’ also have their meanings in the dictionary.
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