Indian accent and language

As you have guessed, the Indian accent is...rich. And their whole concept of English is interesting.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post, at some point in history Indians were practically forced to learn English if they wanted a decent job. Of course their English was never accepted among the Brits - even if they could sometimes speak more grammatically correct English (due to studying from newspapers) than the Brits. Of course that wasn't "the right way" to speak.

Every traveler has problems understanding the Indian accent. Unfortunately at least in this part of India the accent is not the same as Apu's in The Simpsons so it's not that much fun. But still, not all Indians speak English - I think it's their second official language but they don't have to learn it. I guess. Nevertheless, if you are driving anywhere all the warning signs and many other roadsigns are in English. It was only at some point that I realized this and started wondering how small percentage actually can read the signs.

And whenever you are walking on a street, there's bound to be someone who comes asking you "which/what country you belong??". And they have a lot of weird expressions like that. They can't speak English too well but still they all use more complicated versions of many things. Like they couldn't just ask "where do you come from" or "what is your country".

They also have a strange interest in using (unneeded and unclear) abbreviations in their text messages all the time. One of the messages I got from a couchsurfing 'friend' I got in Mumbai: "@ Ra @ phnx mills @ lower parel 800 for 2 veg n 2 non-veg strtrs + unlmtd beer". The only thing I understood is the 'unlimited beer'. The other stuff made no sense.

But having to speak with them on the phone is even worse. I personally don't like much speaking on the phone and less when the conversation is in English. And even less when I need to speak English with an Indian... It's just painful. Usually the calls end without me having no idea what the other one wanted. Text messages are easier then, even if they are truly cryptic.

One of the things Indians love to do is different headshakes. Or, actually not that many different ones. The one they always do is from side to side vertically so your ears go closer to shoulders at time. And its functionality is even better: it means yes, maybe, ok or no idea. That really makes things interesting, like asking "is place X in that direction?" and they answer with headshake. Basically my opinion is that the headshakes just need to be ignored - there's no information in them.

I'll try to cope with the accent. As mentioned, it's more boring than I imagined.