Hinglish and its Distinctive Pronunciation

Hinglish is the English spoken by native speakers of Hindi-Urdu, the main language of India and Pakistan.  Although they differ somewhat in their scientific and literary vocabulary, Hindi and Urdu are so similar in phonology, grammar, syntax, and basic day-to-day vocabulary that it makes sense to view them as the same language.

SEE ALSO: English Language Education in India

It is mainly for sociopolitical reasons that the two are considered separate languages, which is also true of Serbian and Croatian, for example.  What most often surprises people about Hindi and Urdu is that they, like English, belong to the Indo-European family of languages, so they really aren’t that different.  However, because of certain aspects of their phonological system, their pronunciation is one of the most recognizable and distinctive in the world.  The following paragraphs discuss both the characteristics of this accent that make it so recognizable, and what learners of English who have this accent can do to reduce it.

Save the curls for the weight room

Retroflex is just a fancy term for consonants that involve curling the tongue back.  English /r/ is an example of a retroflex.  Hindi-Urdu, however, has a retroflex t, d, n, r, and s! These definitely constitute an important reason for the distinctive accent, so they should be addressed.  Fortunately, English /t/ and /d/ cause most of the trouble, while the others don’t appear to be as much of a problem.  Learners, if they are going to effectively address the problem, need to be made aware of the fact that they are curling their tongue back.

English is rocky and full of thorns

The sounds /θ/ and /ð/, which occur in the words theme and brother, respectively, create a lot of trouble for almost all students of English.  Speakers of Hindi-Urdu are therefore not alone in this struggle.  Both of these sounds are represented in present-day English by th, but they used to have their own letters, thorn þ and eth ð.  Hindi-Urdu speakers usually replace /θ/ with something similar to /t/ in the word tin, and /ð/ gets replaced by a sound akin to an English /d/.  Students who would like to reduce their accents need to understand that these sounds are produced with the tongue between the teeth, not behind them.

Working the VW bugs out

In Hindi-Urdu, as in German, there is no distinction between /v/ and /w/.  Even if students are unable to hear the difference, they can at least be taught to pronounce them right.  Teachers should make it clear that /v/ is pronounced with the lower lip under the top teeth, while /w/ involves only the lips.

Buys will be buys

A few English diphthongs are difficult for Hindi-Urdu speakers to pronounce, including /əʊ/ and /ɔɪ/, both of which end up sounding more like /aɪ/.  Boy therefore sounds more like buy, and go ends up sounding more like guy.

It takes two to tango

Just because a consonant can be pronounced in isolation does not mean a Hindi-Urdu speaker will not have trouble with it.  Some sounds don’t combine well with others, causing the Hindi-Urdu speaker to modify them.  This type of problem often arises when certain consonants occur next to each other, and it is usually dealt with in one of two ways: either one of the two can be dropped entirely, or a vowel can be inserted to make it easier to pronounce the two sounds.  Such a phenomenon occurs in northern British English in words such as film, which ends up sounding like fill ‘em because a vowel is inserted between the two final consonants.  In the English word knight, the problem is dealt with by dropping the k entirely (English no longer permits the cluster kn).  The same occurs in Hindi-Urdu.