Language Matters | Indian words, from yoga poses to menu items, enter Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) recently added 70 entries originating from and chiefly used in Indian English. They were added to the 900 or so such words already in the dictionary – a consequence of British involvement with India for 400 years, from the early days of colonisation, through the Raj, to independence, the diaspora and contemporary culture.

Many terms originate from India’s most widely spoken languages, including Hindi (chup,“be quiet”), Marathi (vada, “deep-fried ball or ring made from ground potato or pulses”), Bengali (didi, “elder sister or female cousin, respectful term for an older woman”), Punjabi (jhuggi, “hut, slum dwelling, typically made from mud or corrugated iron”), Tamil (anna, “respectful title or form of address for an older brother”) and Urdu (gosht,“red meat”).

Two languages with important historical ties to India also figure significantly: Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hinduism and literary language of ancient and medieval India, is evident in terms such as surya namaskar, from sūryanamaskāra, literally “obeisance to the sun god”, a series of yoga poses linked by fluid movements and popularly known as sun salutation; while Persian, which was the subcontinent’s administrative language and lingua franca before English, comprises the roots of Urdu borrowings such as bachcha, meaning “child”.

There are recognisable thematic categories, including food (bhindi, for example, meaning “okra”) and the complex system of kinship and address terms with no direct English equivalents, marking age, gender, status and family relation­ships (with both abba [Urdu, originally Arabic] and bapu [Gujarati] meaning “father”, and often used as a familiar term of address; and -ji [Hindi, from Sanskrit j ī va] being a respectful form of address, often an honorific attached as a suffix to a name or a title).