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I see nothing wrong or nonstandard with Indian English, as a native US English speaker living in Canada myself. Are you going to claim that Canada uses nonstan

I see nothing wrong or nonstandard with Indian English, as a native US English speaker living in Canada myself. Are you going to claim that Canada uses nonstandard English simply because it's a hybrid of US and UK English with a few phonetic and lexical twists of its own? Or that Scottish English is somehow less legitimate than England's English (the two are quite different) despite Scotland being part of the UK for centuries? As well, Indian English is spoken by an estimated 125 million people, more people than the total populations of the UK and Canada combined and about a third of the US population. And this is the predominant version of English in a country of more than a billion people, which makes it standard enough there to count as a standard. Deferring to a standard requires a context in which to say whether one is or isn't speaking standardly. Since we're discussing a topic about India on a US-centric but globally inclusive website, either we should insist that everyone uses the site's predominant US variety of English (I'm happy we don't do this) or the Indian commenter should be free to use standard Indian English in discussing this without that dialect being called wrong.

BossingAround 6y ago
> I see nothing wrong or nonstandard with Indian English, as a native US English speaker living in Canada myself. I try to see it from the perspective of a non-native speaker trying to learn English. If I know no English, and pay for teachers to teach me English, I definitely do not want to be taught Indian English. Not because it's wrong, not because it's $whatever_adjective, but because it will sound incorrect to the majority of native English speakers that are not of Indian origin. In a similar manner, you don't see Cockney English being taught, and you don't think of as Cockney English as "correct". It has indeed its rules, and is perfectly understandable to the speakers. I have nothing against Cockney English. That said, I wouldn't want to be taught Cockney English by professionals who claim "it is correct." It is indeed correct, but it will hurt my communication even in the most of the UK.
- klodolph 6y ago
  There’s a difference between “This is the version of English that I want to learn because it is well-respected,” and “I am going to tell you that you are wrong because your version of English is not well-respected.”
- gourabmi 6y ago
  I want to point out your claim about 'majority of English speakers'. The number of English speakers in the Indian subcontinent is much higher than anywhere else in the world, including US. Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... If numbers decide what is the norm, Indian English should be it. However, I feel like there are other factors that you are using to determine the "correct" English.
  - BossingAround 6y ago
    > majority of English speakers That's fair... That should have been "majority of native English speakers". Corrected. You'll now argue who's a native speaker, won't you... :)
    - gourabmi 6y ago
      Of course, I would. :) IMHO everything other than British English is a regional derivative. The software world has caught up to that fact and soon the popular language tests will follow. They would need to do the needful eventually. Lol.
- jkaplowitz 6y ago
  It depends on the goal, though. What if you were a Spanish speaker trying to move to India, and didn't already speak any Indian language to a useful level? I'm guessing in that scenario you'd want to learn Indian English. Same thing if you were a call center representative communicating in English with Indian audiences. As for non-native English speakers, there are already some choices to make when deciding what to learn. If someone learns US English as a second language, they'll find it a lot harder to understand people from the UK, especially less globally common styles like those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. But if someone learns British English, they'll probably find those styles easier to understand than Louisiana or Newfoundland English, to name two less standard North American varieties. (Cockney is especially difficult to understand for non-native speakers of any kind, so I'm leaving it out of this.) In this case, we're discussing an Indian commenter's choice to use their local dialect of English when discussing a topic about Indian tech companies with a global English-speaking audience. Yes, I admit I thought "codes" was wrong when I first read the comment, but that's because I didn't know that aspect of Indian English, and I no longer view it as wrong. Anyway, it didn't detract from my interest in or respect for the commenter's substantive opinion.
- sumedh 6y ago
  > I definitely do not want to be taught Indian English. So does that mean you would refuse to learn English words which originated in India like Shampoo, Juggernaut etc? https://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-english-words-of-indian-origin/ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-english-words-of-indian-...

BossingAround 6y ago

> I see nothing wrong or nonstandard with Indian English, as a native US English speaker living in Canada myself. I try to see it from the perspective of a non-native speaker trying to learn English. If I know no English, and pay for teachers to teach me English, I definitely do not want to be taught Indian English. Not because it's wrong, not because it's $whatever_adjective, but because it will sound incorrect to the majority of native English speakers that are not of Indian origin. In a similar manner, you don't see Cockney English being taught, and you don't think of as Cockney English as "correct". It has indeed its rules, and is perfectly understandable to the speakers. I have nothing against Cockney English. That said, I wouldn't want to be taught Cockney English by professionals who claim "it is correct." It is indeed correct, but it will hurt my communication even in the most of the UK.

klodolph 6y ago
There’s a difference between “This is the version of English that I want to learn because it is well-respected,” and “I am going to tell you that you are wrong because your version of English is not well-respected.”
gourabmi 6y ago
I want to point out your claim about 'majority of English speakers'. The number of English speakers in the Indian subcontinent is much higher than anywhere else in the world, including US. Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... If numbers decide what is the norm, Indian English should be it. However, I feel like there are other factors that you are using to determine the "correct" English.
- BossingAround 6y ago
  > majority of English speakers That's fair... That should have been "majority of native English speakers". Corrected. You'll now argue who's a native speaker, won't you... :)
  - gourabmi 6y ago
    Of course, I would. :) IMHO everything other than British English is a regional derivative. The software world has caught up to that fact and soon the popular language tests will follow. They would need to do the needful eventually. Lol.
jkaplowitz 6y ago
It depends on the goal, though. What if you were a Spanish speaker trying to move to India, and didn't already speak any Indian language to a useful level? I'm guessing in that scenario you'd want to learn Indian English. Same thing if you were a call center representative communicating in English with Indian audiences. As for non-native English speakers, there are already some choices to make when deciding what to learn. If someone learns US English as a second language, they'll find it a lot harder to understand people from the UK, especially less globally common styles like those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. But if someone learns British English, they'll probably find those styles easier to understand than Louisiana or Newfoundland English, to name two less standard North American varieties. (Cockney is especially difficult to understand for non-native speakers of any kind, so I'm leaving it out of this.) In this case, we're discussing an Indian commenter's choice to use their local dialect of English when discussing a topic about Indian tech companies with a global English-speaking audience. Yes, I admit I thought "codes" was wrong when I first read the comment, but that's because I didn't know that aspect of Indian English, and I no longer view it as wrong. Anyway, it didn't detract from my interest in or respect for the commenter's substantive opinion.
sumedh 6y ago
> I definitely do not want to be taught Indian English. So does that mean you would refuse to learn English words which originated in India like Shampoo, Juggernaut etc? https://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-english-words-of-indian-origin/ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-english-words-of-indian-...