Can you spell ‘awkward’? CNN host assumes Indian-American spelling champ reads Sanskrit

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Twelve-year-old Ananya Vinay of Fresno, California, holds her trophy after winning the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee by spelling the word "marocain" 7 in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:09pm, 5 Jun 2017Updated: 10:08pm, 5 Jun 2017

A CNN anchor became the target of rebuke for assuming that the 2017 US national spelling champion, a California resident who’s of South Asian descent, is “used to using” Sanskrit.

Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo were talking to 12-year-old Ananya Vinay on New Day after Ananya’s Thursday victory at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Toward the end of the interview - and after several awkward seconds of asking the sixth-grader to spell “covfefe” - Camerota joked about the origin of the gibberish that US President Donald Trump conjured on Twitter last week.

“It’s a nonsense word. So, we’re not sure that its root is actually in Sanskrit, which is what you’re probably, uh, used to using, so, I don’t know. Anyway,” Camerota said.

Vinay, an Indian American, is from Fresno, California.

Ananya Vinay, 12, from Fresno, Calif., celebrates onstage with her parents, Anu Pama Poliyedathpp, left, and Vinay Sreekumar, right, after winning the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee in Oxon Hill, Maryland, last Thursday. Photo: AP

Criticism of Camerota’s comment has since been circulating on social media. Many said her comment was racist, while others were simply in disbelief that the CNN anchor had made such an assumption.

A CNN spokeswoman said Camoreta’s comment had nothing to do with the girl’s heritage, and the interview was not the first time the anchor joked about Sanskrit being the origin of “covfefe.”