The lingo of the urban youth is all set to get a voice in the form of a unique conference by Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad (MICA).
Aimed at understanding the Indianisation of English, ‘Chutnefying English’: A Hinglish Conference at The Grand Hyatt in Mumbai in January 2009, is about how the English language in India is undergoing a significant transformation in its grammar and vocabulary, as it borrows from colloquial Hindi in its day-to-day parlance.
The conference aims to look closely at the economics and cultural politics of the hybrid language, ‘Hinglish’, and will attempt to understand its place in the linguistic economy of India.
“Over the years, there has been a polarised relationship between English and Hindi. At one time, the country was divided on the issue of English usage in the country. During research, I found that the battle has been interestingly resolved without much effort, thanks to Hinglish. We have given up the pretence of sounding like English and no longer want to speak the Queen’s English. And Hindi cannot help but borrow certain words from English. Moreover, this has become the language of the urban youth and campuses across the country and we aim to give a serious treatment to this mixture through the conference,” says Rita Kothari, an associate professor at MICA.
The conference, which caters to the generation that speaks a mix of Hindi and English, will bring the academia and industry together to reflect on the use of Hinglish with well-known personalities like actors Nandita Das and Rahul Bose, television host Cyrus Broacha, admakers Santosh Desai and Piyush Pandey, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, besides corporates, academic and media professionals from India and abroad.
“Several factors like Bollywood and its permeation can be attributed to this change. Even a veteran like Gulzar, for instance, uses English lyrics for his Hindi songs these days. The advertising world has also contributed in this direction with ads like ‘Hungry Kya’ and ‘What your bahana is?’. Another factor that has led to the widespread use of Hinglish has been the increase in the migration of people within the country and in English-speaking countries. The conference is an attempt to study whether this hybrid mixture is likely to become the language of urban India," adds Kothari.