Yes. "Please do the needful" and "revert", are the most common Inglish phrases I encounter when talking to our employees in that part of the world. More recently 'can I connect?' is a new one that is becoming common.
> A juggernaut, in current English usage, is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as merciless, destructive, and unstoppable.
> This English usage originates in the mid-nineteenth century. Juggernaut is the early rendering in English of Jagannath, an important deity in the Hindu traditions of eastern and north-eastern India. The meaning originates from the Hindu temple cars, which are chariots, often huge, used in processions or religious parades for Jagannath and other deities, the largest of which, once set into motion, are difficult to stop, steer or control by humans, on account of their massive weight.
In my experience, at least some aspects of the Indian English exists because we Indians often mentally translate what we want to say from our native language (which are plentiful) to English before it comes out of our mouth.
I don't imagine this is a uniquely Indian phenomenon – other non-native English speakers would be doing the same.
I think the most confusing one is the usage of "I'll revert back" to mean "I'll get back to you". At least once in my life, I've seen an actual confusion caused by this. Here's how it went:
Let's call the two people involved Bob and Raj. Bob was working in the US and Raj was based in India. Bob emailed the team, addressing Raj, and said one of the attachments in a service needed to be deleted (I don't even remember why anymore).
Raj replied something along the lines of: "Yes, fine with me! Please delete and revert back."
Bob immediately replied, "Once the attachment is deleted, it's gone! It can't be reverted. Please confirm if you really want me to delete it."
It took a bit of back-and-forth before everyone was on the same page. What Raj had actually meant was simply, "Please delete it and get back to me."
I came across and am fond of "give a click". Came across it watching youtube tutorials, used along the lines of "to open the context menu, give a click on the menu item"
a bit of a sensitive question, but I've noticed my indian colleagues (PhDs) have a much more limited vocabulary compared to American colleagues. To the point where slightly archaic word or literary words are completely unusable in conversation.
I have to consciously "talk simple"
However, as I understand, higher education is all conducted in English... so it feels like there shouldn't be as large of a gap as there is?
Is English language literature not widely read in school? Are people mostly reading in their local languages?
It's a bit similar to English in Malaysia/Singapore - but there I assume schooling is done in large part in Chinese/Malay and maybe people don't read as much in English
These days in my generation (Gen-Z) more youth watch movies and television series in English. Yet I find many of my more urbanized peers roll their eyes when I use a figure of speech i.e a metaphor.
In contrast, I picked up my language from technical books, blogs and documentation - and they sometimes find my choices of wording rather rude and insensitive.
I think I had to be more conscious about picking up the language because I did my early schooling in local language, and picked up reading English books on my own. For them it was natural in an urban environment. However, the urban english is "just enough" to get by. Since it is the "bureacratic" language (Indian schools too are as bureacratic as it can get), they had to be polite and standardized.
> However, as I understand, higher education is all conducted in English...
That english is way more limited, and higher education is way more mechanical than you folks have in the west.
> Is English language literature not widely read in school?
It depends on the quality of the education. I had the lower tier schooling (government-funded and similar). The English included is just rote-learned rather than understood - in high school we were expected to produce approximately same sentences as given in the textbooks, and any creativity in answers might lose grades!
There are better boards (school systems) like CBSE and ICSE, which are expensive and higher level. I have a few friends from ICSE who have much wider vocabulary than me. In the next generation, you will see Indians with better language skills, since most elite Indians now flock to these schooling systems.
(2) In an academic setting, people often use "doubt" to mean question. For example, at the end of a lesson, a teacher might say "Does anyone have any doubts?"
(3) Another verb which can be used intransitively is "wish". For example, "I wished Ravi on his birthday".
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] threadI have never come across the "where" example.
The article misses out on many common usages, and cites some rather unremarkable ones.
The best I could devise is "progesternate" (via "gestern").
Its a morphed version of the name of an Indian deity – Jagannath.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggernaut:
> A juggernaut, in current English usage, is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as merciless, destructive, and unstoppable. > This English usage originates in the mid-nineteenth century. Juggernaut is the early rendering in English of Jagannath, an important deity in the Hindu traditions of eastern and north-eastern India. The meaning originates from the Hindu temple cars, which are chariots, often huge, used in processions or religious parades for Jagannath and other deities, the largest of which, once set into motion, are difficult to stop, steer or control by humans, on account of their massive weight.
I don't imagine this is a uniquely Indian phenomenon – other non-native English speakers would be doing the same.
Let's call the two people involved Bob and Raj. Bob was working in the US and Raj was based in India. Bob emailed the team, addressing Raj, and said one of the attachments in a service needed to be deleted (I don't even remember why anymore).
Raj replied something along the lines of: "Yes, fine with me! Please delete and revert back."
Bob immediately replied, "Once the attachment is deleted, it's gone! It can't be reverted. Please confirm if you really want me to delete it."
It took a bit of back-and-forth before everyone was on the same page. What Raj had actually meant was simply, "Please delete it and get back to me."
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/updation_n
"Lakh" => 100K
"Crore" => 100Lakhs
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English#Numbering_syste...
Its a combo of "Press" and "Prostitute" and it aptly describes some journalists and media people who clearly take sides and have sold their souls.
a bit of a sensitive question, but I've noticed my indian colleagues (PhDs) have a much more limited vocabulary compared to American colleagues. To the point where slightly archaic word or literary words are completely unusable in conversation.
I have to consciously "talk simple"
However, as I understand, higher education is all conducted in English... so it feels like there shouldn't be as large of a gap as there is?
Is English language literature not widely read in school? Are people mostly reading in their local languages?
It's a bit similar to English in Malaysia/Singapore - but there I assume schooling is done in large part in Chinese/Malay and maybe people don't read as much in English
These days in my generation (Gen-Z) more youth watch movies and television series in English. Yet I find many of my more urbanized peers roll their eyes when I use a figure of speech i.e a metaphor.
In contrast, I picked up my language from technical books, blogs and documentation - and they sometimes find my choices of wording rather rude and insensitive.
I think I had to be more conscious about picking up the language because I did my early schooling in local language, and picked up reading English books on my own. For them it was natural in an urban environment. However, the urban english is "just enough" to get by. Since it is the "bureacratic" language (Indian schools too are as bureacratic as it can get), they had to be polite and standardized.
> However, as I understand, higher education is all conducted in English...
That english is way more limited, and higher education is way more mechanical than you folks have in the west.
> Is English language literature not widely read in school?
It depends on the quality of the education. I had the lower tier schooling (government-funded and similar). The English included is just rote-learned rather than understood - in high school we were expected to produce approximately same sentences as given in the textbooks, and any creativity in answers might lose grades!
There are better boards (school systems) like CBSE and ICSE, which are expensive and higher level. I have a few friends from ICSE who have much wider vocabulary than me. In the next generation, you will see Indians with better language skills, since most elite Indians now flock to these schooling systems.
(1) The use of "only" for emphasis. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/107454/indian-en...
(2) In an academic setting, people often use "doubt" to mean question. For example, at the end of a lesson, a teacher might say "Does anyone have any doubts?"
(3) Another verb which can be used intransitively is "wish". For example, "I wished Ravi on his birthday".