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Yeah, when I listen to Nigerians talk, especially the older ones that grew up in cities like Lagos, you can hear similar things. I don't really hear any of the old colonial expressions in South African speech, though (although they have their own colorful vocabulary borrowed from Afrikaans, e.g., bakkie for pickup-truck).This language stuff is pretty interesting.
I work in the IT field, and I also work on a team of about 15 people, at least 8 of them are Indian. But Ive also worked for an Indian firm in which I was the only American on my team. I have found that many Indians have a different sort of english they speak. Sometimes it comes out pretty hilarious, but it seems to be a VERY common dialect amongst people in India. How this come about, as it appears that these errors are exclusive to India only. And many Indians have spoken English much of their lives, so why are these gramatical errors so acceptable amongst Indians. Here are some of them:
I have done the needful/Please do the neeful
The request is taking long time
One help please
The task, I have done.
Kindly revert back
Please do xyz without fail
Traffic will be very less today
Tell me. (This is common when you are about to ask Indians questions)
Does anyone know why it is like this? I have seen that this doesn't seem to happen in a lot of other former British colonies.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Indian English is its prosody or rhythm, which is more similar to Italian or Spanish than almost any other English dialect.
the OP's thread title just smacks of grammatical ignorance of the cultural perspective of the language and condescending american-centric attitude--that since US americans (the native ones--not naturalized) speak american english only, their grammar is perfect and not at all laughable. if the OP looked at some of the examples in the thread here, he/she would've seen how sad the state of his fellow countrymen's grammatical correctness is. not to mention the horrid spelling (even among the professionals in the healthcare field), handwriting and punctuation.
a few of mine here:
would have -- would of? (oh c'mon now)
i have nothing (just as simple as that) -- ain't got nothin' and its derivatives (really? double negatives? why do you have to make it complicated?)
so before you (the OP) create a thread title like that, you better do your research. walk the talk!
Also, "nauseous" doesn't mean you are sick of something, rather it means you yourself make others sick. I means disgusting rather than "disgusted", as many seem to think. The correct word is nauseated.
Last of all, forum members often say this issue is "moot", when they actually mean "superfluous" or "redundant". "Moot" means "inconclusive, open to debate".
At least others have the excuse of speaking English as a second language.
i beg to disagree on your usage of nauseous. "nauseous" and "nauseated" are in the same continuum of usage per merriam-webster dictionary, meaning that a person is/was feeling such state. however, if the person intends to mean that something else is causing that feeling/state, then that object is described as "nauseating" e.g. the smell is nauseating.
it's like this (basing on your reference points):
nauseous = disgust (as in "i feel nauseous/disgust")
nauseated = disgusted (as in "i felt nauseated/disgusted")
nauseating = disgusting (as in "the food was nauseating/disgusting")
Like Dude, I mean like Americans speak perfect English..
Typical American greeting, "How's it goin?" (no g, improper English pronunciation).
If you spend enough time listening to the dialects of various English speakers, including your own, you will find that slang and improperly constructed phrases are incorporated in many dialects/versions of English.
Like Dude, I mean like Americans speak perfect English..
Typical American greeting, "How's it goin?" (no g, improper English pronunciation).
If you spend enough time listening to the dialects of various English speakers, including your own, you will find that slang and improperly constructed phrases are incorporated in many dialects/versions of English.
yeah, but does it mean that the grammar is perfect? and that you dont have laughable grammatical errors? of course, americans can understand each other because that's the language they grew up with--including the slangs and idioms. all other languages have that. my fellow countrymen perfectly understand me, but i usually have a lot of grammatical errors in my own native language.
This is coming from someone who is of Pakistani/Indian decent. I think many Indians don't know how to enunciate English and instead, try (and fail) to speak with a British accent and speak as if they were living in the 1880s.
For example, instead of asking, "What's your name?" they say, "What is your good name, sir/ma'am?"...basically they try too hard to sound sophisticated and in turn embarrass themselves.
As I found from experience, two reasons play role in sticking up to usage mistakes like that:
1. Immigrating with family and/or working with peers from the same country dulls the person's ear to picking up grammar/modern usage. Modern American English becomes some sort of a few interactions at retail stores. If a person immigrates alone, he/she is hard pressed and the ability to pick up correct usage goes into the full gear.
2. Personal traits. Some people are more pedantic and must understand the rules of the language they are learning, must be sure that they construct the sentence correctly and use correct words. Others don't care about perfection, (maybe happy-go-luckier?) - the ebullient exchange in broken language with laugh and emotions are all they really need.
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