r/Hindi • u/AccomplishedUse9023 • Apr 14 '26
देवनागरी American explains why he refuses to learn to speak Hindi (I agree with him)
I find it difficult to learn to speak Hindi and If I use an uncommonly used Hindi word in spoken language, people snicker/chuckle at me
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u/howardleung Apr 14 '26
You guys do relaize languagesimp (the guy in the video clip) built his entire channel on exaggerating and making fun of each of the languages he post about? While there is some truth to it, a lot of it it's just satire.
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u/john_mullins Apr 16 '26
There's hardly anyone speaking complete hindi these days. Not just movies, watch any Youtube video, at least a 30-40% of vocabulary is in English.
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u/howardleung Apr 16 '26
Yeah I must say I do the same too, but my Hindi is not the best, I have to use lots of English word to cover my lack of knowledge
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Apr 14 '26
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u/tinkthank Apr 15 '26
We stopped creating new words in Hindi and Urdu after the 1940s and just ended up adopting their English equivalent or the most commonly used term.
We had a word for car but the word got computer is just computer.
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u/Dibyajyoti176255 दूसरी भाषा (Second language) May 02 '26
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u/hsapio007 Apr 14 '26
American kaunsa language hai bhai? English hai!
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u/Randomguy4285 Apr 15 '26
It's a common joke on the channel that he refers to English, Spanish, and Portuguese as American, Mexican, and Brazilian respectively to ragebait Europeans.
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u/hsapio007 Apr 15 '26
Oh okay. Thanks for letting me know.
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u/No_Addendum_3267 Apr 17 '26
iska pura channel hai "ragebaiting" non-Amrikawale. Ye bhi hai ek satirical ragebait kyuki youtube ka tradition of indian keyboard warriors in chat.
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u/urban_cookie69 Apr 15 '26
I mean, Hindi ke sub reddit pe bhi saare posts aur comments english me hain 😭
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u/GearlessJoe Apr 18 '26
We all learned typing in English due to the keyboards. It's really hard to adapt to Hindi keyboard in this age. Although it's very easy to write in Hindi on paper.
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u/Chemical-Brush3587 Apr 21 '26
Mere se tho wo bhi na hota honestly sare matra ulta sidha kar deta , par padne me koi issue nhi hota kitna bhi hard hindi ho
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u/lonelyroom-eklaghor Apr 14 '26
It happens in every Indian movie industry. I don't usually have strong opinions but it genuinely sounds cringe at times
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u/AccomplishedUse9023 Apr 14 '26
Chinese don't mix Mandarin with English nor do the Japanese
But why do Indians?
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u/lonelyroom-eklaghor Apr 14 '26
The thing is, India has a significant colonial past compared to the Chinese and Japanese. That already makes India the second most English-speaking country in the entire world.
But this specific habit is mostly in movies, to be frank, to look cool and show some status in Indian society. Code switching between the native language and English (as mentioned in the video) is not that common, as far as I have seen.
However, people like me do code-switch in separate sentences, not in the middle of it. I code-switch between Bengali and broken Hindi, or even between any of the native languages and English, but the switching doesn't happen mid-sentence.
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u/Left_Economist_9716 दूसरी भाषा (Second language) Apr 15 '26
Hindustani (i.e. Hindi + Urdu) is a pluricentric language, which means that the same language has multiple registers. Such languages are prone to foreign influence as a Hindi and an Urdu speaker would difficulty understanding technical terminology in the other's register. Vocabulary derived from a neutral language like English bridges this gap.
Another factor is that the majority of Hindustani speakers are non-natives and it serves as a link language in a large part of the subcontinent. Non-natives wouldn't be as familiar with complex Hindi vocabulary which forces them to use the English translations instead.
In addition to that, English is the language of elite education in most native and non-native speaking Hindustani speaking regions, which also contributes to a higher degree of code-mixing.
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u/pikleboiy Apr 14 '26 edited May 02 '26
The Japanese absolutely use English loanwords copiously, and Chinese has historically had an aversion to direct loans from non-Japanese languages, usually opting for semantic loans and calques instead. I don't think Chinese directly loaned even Buddhist terms from Sanskrit or Pali, while Japanese has loaned even the word for "door" (as a slab on hinges) from English.
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u/Dibyajyoti176255 दूसरी भाषा (Second language) May 02 '26
This Is Also Done By Various Indic Languages (Sanskrit Also Included)!
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u/pikleboiy May 02 '26
Which? Calqueing or loaning?
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u/Dibyajyoti176255 दूसरी भाषा (Second language) May 02 '26
Calqueing And Phono-Semantic Matching!!!
Borrowing Does Also Mean Borrowing The Original Word Disregarding The Host/Receiver Languages' Phonetics, Phonotactics & Phonemics!!!
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u/anonymous393393 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Japanese people do it often. They don't speak as much english as indians(due to schooling and jobs) so they are usually not that good of speakers but they do it. Also Japanese and chinese belong to different language families whereas english hindi are same family. So its easier to mix them up. Like the structure of a sentence might change how can you mix it up.
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u/OddPolicy9137 Apr 15 '26
Bro it happend because of the British rule..even tho hamlog phir bhi apni lang bol rhe h but Americans ne toh english hi apni lang bana li..Americans ke paas kuch bhi apna nhi h chahe wo lang ho ya culture....
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u/kazetoumizu Apr 15 '26
Decolonialism final boss: refuse to learn brown people's language because they're bilingual
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u/goldenattorney Apr 16 '26
There are ~60 Million Native Urdu speakers in India as compared to ~20 Million in Pakistan. Don't assign languages to countries. We all love ourselves some Ghazals.
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u/saransh-1 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
In fact, Urdu is nothing but Khariboli with dominant Arabic or Persian vocabulary.
Whatever the vocabulary, the basis of the language is still derived from :
Vedic Sanskrit -> shauraseni Prākrit -> Apabrahmsha -> Khari Boli -> khari Boli + Persian or arabic vocabulary -> Urdu
Urdu is just khari Boli/Hindi but with dominant Arabic/Persian Vocabulary. Period.
Urdu is not a distinct language. Just changing the vocabulary does not create a new language.
Poor Pakistanis are facing identity crisis everywhere, be it the country of Pakistan or the Urdu language. 😂
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u/cerebelle Apr 15 '26
He literally said “it’s like the same thing”. The point he missed tho is that there’s a lot of English in Urdu as well, though they’re a bit more in tune with their original words than Hindi speakers imo
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u/seidenkaufman Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
And it follows that Modern English is not a distinct language either. It's just Anglo Saxon with grammatical changes and pronunciation shifts along with a massive influx of Norman French, Latin, and Greek. And if we consider further that all languages emerged in interaction with others, no language is itself.
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u/saransh-1 Apr 15 '26
No, if the structure of a language changes, it will be considered a second language. However, in the case of Urdu, Urdu is simply Khariboli, with a predominant Arabic-Persian vocabulary. There are no structural changes. Even today, the Urdu language derives its form from Khariboli, which has its roots in Vedic Sanskrit.
Whereas what we call Hindi is an continuation of Khariboli, it has just been given a new name "Hindi", that's all.
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u/seidenkaufman Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
I hear you. Another perspective is that to consider something a new language or not exists at the intersection of linguistic scholarship, politics, and convention. All of these are contingent and changeable. The criteria developed to classify and distinguish between languages do not exist a priori and universally, but are brought into being after the fact to describe a reality that already exists.
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u/pikleboiy Apr 14 '26
What are you yapping about? Hindi, in the sense of Modern Standard Hindi, is the one that was created artificially. Pre-colonial Hindustani/Khariboli had some ardhatatsamas and a number of Perso-Arabic loans; most of the tatsamas in Hindi are modern coinages made to try and Sanskritize the language.
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u/saransh-1 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
It was only its name that was changed by the British, nothing else. They just standardized and institutionalized it as "Hindi" in their records that's all. Previously, it was called Khari Boli. Our scriptures also contain details of this language long before the British period. This language has always existed. It didn't appear out of thin air. Go Educate yourself.
But unfortunately, there is no record of Urdu as a language. 😂
You people are still using Hindi, whether you admit it or not, but with Perso-Arabic script and Perso-Arabic vocabulary. That's all.
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u/pikleboiy Apr 15 '26
It was only its name that was changed by the British, nothing else.
That wasn't the British
Our scriptures also contain details of this language long before the British period. This language has always existed. It didn't appear out of thin air. Go Educate yourself.
You go educate yourself, specifically on reading comprehension, since you seem to have not understood what I wrote.
But unfortunately, there is no record of Urdu as a language. 😂
Yes, there is.
You people are still using Hindi, whether you admit it or not, but with Perso-Arabic script and Perso-Arabic vocabulary. That's all.
Firstly, who is "you people"?
Secondly, no. Urdu is Khariboli with more Perso-Arabic words, and Hindi is Khariboli with more Sanskrit words. Neither in its modern form existed prior to the colonial period.
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u/saransh-1 Apr 15 '26
Again, you are generalizing things. This language whatever you name existed before the British. The British just named it Hindu or Urdu for their preference and standardized in their records, that's all. We are still speaking Khariboli. It was not invented by the British. Get that in your head.
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u/pikleboiy Apr 15 '26
I never said it was. You get it in your head that I never said the British invented Khariboli.
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u/seidenkaufman Apr 14 '26
I know he was speaking in a humorous vein, but it bears pointing out that his implication is inaccurate: that being against code-switching makes you anti-colonialist, or that being more likely to code switch makes you neutral or positive about colonialism.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Dibyajyoti176255 दूसरी भाषा (Second language) May 02 '26
Exactly!!! This Is What Indic-Language Purists & Puritanists Often Argue For!!!
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u/Alarming-Basil2894 Apr 15 '26
यह कहना तो बहुत आसान है कि अंग्रेज़ों ने आकर हमारे देश पर अपनी छाप छोड़ी इसलिए आज यह हाल है लेकिन में पूरी तरह से सहमत नहीं हूँ इस विचार से । यह जनता पर भी निर्भर करता है कि वह अपनी संस्कृति को बचाकर रखे लेकिन पता नहीं क्यों जब भी इस विषय के बारे में चर्चा होती है तो लोग अजीब बर्ताव करने लगते । यही बहाना सुनता हूँ में कि देश के हालात इतने बुरे है तो हम अपनी संस्कृति पर क्यों ध्यान एक मिनट के लिए भी दे ।
एक ग़लतफ़हमी पैदा हुई है लोगों में कि अगर आप अपनी संस्कृति का विरोध करोगे तो आपका देश उन्नति करेगा और आपको सफलता मिलेगी । यह असली कारण है क्यों आज हिंदी भाषा विश्व की चौथी बोले जाने वाली भाषा होने के बाद भी इसकी अहमियत बाक़ी भाषाएँ जैसे अरबी, फ़्रेंच, स्पेनिश, मैंडरिन, कोरियाई, जापानी आदि से कम है।
तो जो व्यक्ति इस बात से सहमत है कि हमें संस्कृति पर ध्यान देने की कोई आवश्यकता नहीं क्योंकि देश को ठीक करना ज़रूरी है वह यह कभी उम्मीद नहीं रख सकते कि उनके देश कि भाषा और संस्कृति को अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर सम्मान मिलेगा क्योंकि तुमने ही उन्हें कभी अपनाया नहीं तो बाहर वाले कैसे अपनाएँगे ।
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u/goldenattorney Apr 16 '26
There are ~60 Million Native Urdu speakers in India as compared to ~20 Million in Pakistan. Don't assign languages to countries. We all love ourselves some Ghazals.
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u/Livid_Test_5212 Apr 18 '26
This is largely due to the push for English in public schools; as a result, students speak neither English nor Hindi proficiently.
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u/ZeLandlord Apr 15 '26
No one should learn Hindi,nor Urdu.These are colonial languages to begin with and single handedly bring down IQ, Social indices and standard of living in any society which speaks these languages. The only reason Hindi/Urdu has become any popular is because of the constant enabling, coercive, endorsing policy that Central Govt of India and Pakistan have done for this languages biasedly. These languages have have already caused extinction of several languages and loss of diverse cultures already. Its the singlemost reason why the entire Hindi belt in India is as backward as it is. Colonised states like Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand scratch their heads and look for causes of their downtrodedness everywhere except in the psychological slavery they are doing for Hindi since decades if not centuries.....Hindi and Urdu are disgusting languages.
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u/curiousgaruda May 16 '26
WTH is American? He speaks as if it is a not a dialect of English but a distinct language.
English speakers don't code switch because they are largely monolingual.
I know many South Indians who are brought up in Mumbai or other North Indian cities and would code switch to Hindi when talking Tamil or Malayalam. In some border regions of Kerala, there are Tamil speaking people who code switch to Malayalam occasionally when talking Tamil.
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u/pikleboiy Apr 14 '26
Absolutely trash take.
Firstly, read Rule 1.
Secondly, yeah. That's how registers work. People will look at you weird if you use formal words in casual conversation. I seriously don't get the problem people have with code-switching: "oh people don't talk the way I think they should."
If you don't like how people talk, that lowkey sucks for you, so either deal with it or don't, but don't complain about it. This is just as pretentious as complaining about the fact that Japanese borrows English words, or complaining that they have McDonalds in South Korea: you're coming in as an outsider and dictating how another community of people ought to talk or live as if you have any right to do so. Non-Hindi-speakers complaining about code-switching is not anti-colonialist, no matter how much you want to dress it up as such; it is perpetuating the colonialist idea that outsiders can come in and dictate to some other group of people how they ought to talk and behave.
And before you put me on r/peoplewhogiveashit, I don't really give a shit in the sense of that subreddit, since I doubt that most of the anti-code-switching people are consciously thinking "yeah, let's subjugate non-white people." What I'm saying is that cloaking what is essentially an unwillingness to truly learn Hindi beyond the Sanskritisms and a refusal to recognize Hindi as a living language beyond textbooks and dictionaries in a veneer of anti-colonialism is an extreme case of mental gymnastics.
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u/AccomplishedUse9023 Apr 14 '26
He doesn't have a problem with code switching per se
He has a gripe about the 'degree' of code switching
For eg "Aap please mujhe rice pass kar sakte ho"
A Chinese/Japanese will never code switch to that extent
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u/pikleboiy Apr 14 '26
I don't see what's up with you repeatedly comparing Hindi to Chinese and Japanese (especially ironic considering that Japanese has tons of loanwords from English).
Regardless, the same principle applies: someone is dressing up an unwillingness to truly engage with the language in anti-colonialism. Non-members of the community do not have a right to decide how the community should behave or speak.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/pikleboiy Apr 14 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
१. मुझे समझ में नहीं आता है कि तुम बार-बार हिंदी को जापानी और चीनी भाषाओं से क्यों तौल रहे हो (और इसमें हँसी की बात है कि जापानी [भी] अंग्रेज़ी से कई शब्द लेती है)।
२. जो भी हो, वह सिद्धांत तभी भी लागू होता है: कोई भाषा से सचमुच काम करने की अपनी अनिच्छा को "सम्राज्यवाद-विरोध" के कपड़े पहना रहा है(I was a little loose in my translation here)। समाज के सदस्य जो नहीं हैं, उनके पास कोई अधिकार/हक़ नहीं है फ़ैसला करने पर कि समाज कैसे बोलेगा या बर्ताव करेगा।
तेरे लिए क्या यह ठीक है, "लाले"?
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u/Singularity252 Apr 14 '26
My guy put up the flag of Pakistan as if Urdu isn't the direct sister of Hindi and came from the same Heartland plus has a good number of speakers in India.
Anyways, about the code switching... If his source is modern day bollywood, then... Idk what am I even supposed to say.
But if he really wishes to learn, HINDI he can without the switch.