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Very common among bilingual speakers. It's called "code switching" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

Very common among bilingual speakers. It's called "code switching" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching It's hilarious watching my wife's aunts talk. They grew up in Hyderabad in a Sindhi household but emigrated to UK. They effortlessly switch between Telugu, Hindi, Sindhi, and English in the same conversation.

mcny 8y ago
The characters in Anna Karenina speak French in some parts (at least in my English copy of the book). I don't know why but it clearly meant something for that conversation to be in French. It's there something the story is trying to say when they switch between Hindi and English on that show?
- drdaeman 8y ago
  As far as I know, it was just a matter of style - no deep meaning beyond the fact the speaker was being conformant to the societal norms of the day. Of course I cannot fit the background into a short comment (and I'm not good enough with history of that period), but the reason for this is that in 18-19th centuries the majority of Russian nobility was very francophilic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophile#Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophile#Russia Of course, switching to a different language - or different style of the same language, like switching to extremely formal speech - has a stylistic meaning, but that's it.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  For the Russian aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries, French was often their everyday language. Russian was only used to communicate with servants. The sprinkling of French phrases through Tolstoy is meant to evoke this aristocratic world, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the phrases which Tolstoy sets in French are somehow more important than the dialogue he presets in Russian.
  - drdaeman 8y ago
    AFAIK, in 19th century, esp. after the Napoleonic invasion of Russia it wasn't as hardcore as that. Aristocracy spoke a fair amount of Russian among themselves, but still mixed in a lot of French (and IIRC some accidental Latin). I could be wrong though.
walrus01 8y ago
If you speak and understand Dari (the Afghan regional variant of Farsi), it's not just code switching... There's so many technical things that simply don't have words in Dari. There might be a word for radiator, such as in an automobile, but nobody uses it, they use the english word radiator. Almost anything that deals with technology invented and imported after the year 1900 is derived from either an English, French or Russian word (in the north/Uzbek speaking parts). Listening to a conversation between two fluent native Dari speakers regarding any moderately complicated business, technical or engineering subject will be about 10% English words. There are also a lot of words in Iranian Farsi that are derived from French. France was one of the first western european countries to form serious diplomatic and trade relationships with Iran, (a long, long time before Mossadeq and coups, oil companies, etc). One example, in french: English: Potato. French: pomme de terre pomme = apple Farsi: seeb zameenee (literal translation ground apple). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Persian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Pe...
- puranjay 8y ago
  It's the same in Hindi. There are words that most people don't even know the Hindi equivalent for. Even if they do, they use the English version, regardless of their education level. Examples would be "car" and "phone". Language proliferation in the entire north-west belt from India to Iran is really interesting. Lots of Persian words in every language from Dari to Urdu to Hindi. "Zameenee" is ground in Dari, "Zameen" is ground in Urdu, which is used in every day Hindi as well
  - walrus01 8y ago
    The more one studies the history of the Mughal empire, it's obvious how the Persian language of the court influenced things in the region for a long, long time. The relatively brief Sikh empire also made extensive use of Persian. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=persian+language+mughal+empire&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=per...

mcny 8y ago

The characters in Anna Karenina speak French in some parts (at least in my English copy of the book). I don't know why but it clearly meant something for that conversation to be in French. It's there something the story is trying to say when they switch between Hindi and English on that show?

drdaeman 8y ago
As far as I know, it was just a matter of style - no deep meaning beyond the fact the speaker was being conformant to the societal norms of the day. Of course I cannot fit the background into a short comment (and I'm not good enough with history of that period), but the reason for this is that in 18-19th centuries the majority of Russian nobility was very francophilic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophile#Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francophile#Russia Of course, switching to a different language - or different style of the same language, like switching to extremely formal speech - has a stylistic meaning, but that's it.
Mediterraneo10 8y ago
For the Russian aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries, French was often their everyday language. Russian was only used to communicate with servants. The sprinkling of French phrases through Tolstoy is meant to evoke this aristocratic world, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the phrases which Tolstoy sets in French are somehow more important than the dialogue he presets in Russian.
- drdaeman 8y ago
  AFAIK, in 19th century, esp. after the Napoleonic invasion of Russia it wasn't as hardcore as that. Aristocracy spoke a fair amount of Russian among themselves, but still mixed in a lot of French (and IIRC some accidental Latin). I could be wrong though.

walrus01 8y ago

If you speak and understand Dari (the Afghan regional variant of Farsi), it's not just code switching... There's so many technical things that simply don't have words in Dari. There might be a word for radiator, such as in an automobile, but nobody uses it, they use the english word radiator. Almost anything that deals with technology invented and imported after the year 1900 is derived from either an English, French or Russian word (in the north/Uzbek speaking parts). Listening to a conversation between two fluent native Dari speakers regarding any moderately complicated business, technical or engineering subject will be about 10% English words. There are also a lot of words in Iranian Farsi that are derived from French. France was one of the first western european countries to form serious diplomatic and trade relationships with Iran, (a long, long time before Mossadeq and coups, oil companies, etc). One example, in french: English: Potato. French: pomme de terre pomme = apple Farsi: seeb zameenee (literal translation ground apple). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Persian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_loanwords_in_Pe...

puranjay 8y ago
It's the same in Hindi. There are words that most people don't even know the Hindi equivalent for. Even if they do, they use the English version, regardless of their education level. Examples would be "car" and "phone". Language proliferation in the entire north-west belt from India to Iran is really interesting. Lots of Persian words in every language from Dari to Urdu to Hindi. "Zameenee" is ground in Dari, "Zameen" is ground in Urdu, which is used in every day Hindi as well
- walrus01 8y ago
  The more one studies the history of the Mughal empire, it's obvious how the Persian language of the court influenced things in the region for a long, long time. The relatively brief Sikh empire also made extensive use of Persian. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=persian+language+mughal+empire&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=per...