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One typical expression that stuck with me is "[please] do the needful" (often used when assigning Jira tickets to someone else).
by rob74 1y ago
One typical expression that stuck with me is "[please] do the needful" (often used when assigning Jira tickets to someone else).
- yaseer 1y agoIn a similar vein, there's also "I'll revert back" as a more formal "I'll get back to you".
- gulabjamuns 1y agoWe have a knack of placing only wherever we like, even at the beginning of a sentence. Only we understand what the sentence means :) "Only I'll do it tomorrow". "He only wanted milk."
- signal11 1y agoThis is a feature of many Indian languages. Word order doesn’t matter or doesn’t matter as much. गाय वह चऱायेगा, वह गाय चऱायेगा, चऱायेगा वह गाय all mean “he will take the cow out to graze” irrespective of word order, but of course there can be subtle shifts in meaning. (Apologies for any typos / potentially bad translation). Eg चऱायेगा वह गाय could be “he WILL graze the cow” if vocal stress is applied to चऱायेगा. A lot of “Indian English” traits make more sense if one understands a few Indic languages. Southern Indic languages have their own super interesting traits as well, eg Tamil speakers often insert “simply” into sentences, this reflects usage in Tamil.
- _yy01 1y agoI am Indian and I was confused when I first saw that phrase in a corporate setting. Only revert I knew was git revert.
- sevensor 1y agoWhat I’m learning from this thread is that there are at least as many ways of speaking English in India as there are in the UK. I’d noticed this with pronunciation (one colleague propels P and T sounds with explosive force, but none of the other Indians I work with do this), but I hadn’t picked up on grammar and vocabulary differences.
- _yy01 1y agoApparently this revert thing is common across Indian corporate, but non-existent in other places, eg: academia.
- schoen 1y agoMaybe a difference of aspiration? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant Aspiration is contrastive in some Indian languages but not in English. (It's regular in most native speakers' English, but never distinguishes words by its presence or absence.) I could imagine that some Indian language speakers would learn to pronounce English /p/, /t/ consistently as [p], [t] and others consistently as [pʰ], [tʰ], even though English native speakers would have this difference in realization conditioned by other things. The [pʰ], [tʰ] versions would probably sound "louder" or "stronger" when they occur in unusual contexts in English (I guess, I don't have enough control over aspiration in my speech to record a useful sample; maybe I could synthesize it?).
- signal11 1y agoIt seems to be a direct translation of the word करणीय (karaniya, that which needs to be done) in many Indic languages. A more idiomatic translation might be “please get this done”; the “needful” phrase might also be a signal that the writer isn’t that familiar with idioms used in other English-speaking countries. Hobson-Jobson[1] had a great early compilation of some phrases that arose in the subcontinent— many are still in use. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson-Jobson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson-Jobson PS. there’s some evidence from Google Books[2] that “do the needful” might be an old English legal term as well. More research is definitely required. The bigger point is, the phrase’s popularity in India may be because it mirrors a Sanskrit-derived word often still used in Indian legal contexts. [2] A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States, 1860 https://books.google.com/books?id=VXdIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA428&dq=%E2%80%9Cdo+the+needful%E2%80%9D+phrase+origin&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0 https://books.google.com/books?id=VXdIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA428&dq=%...
- ksynwa 1y agoSaying this as someone whose first language is Hindi, I have never used this word nor heard anyone else use it. I think whatever similarities there are might be coincidental. Can't say about other Indian languages.
- signal11 1y agoIt comes from Sanskrit[1] and is fairly common in languages which use Sanskrit derived terms in large numbers eg some dialects of Bengali, but more importantly “sarkari” (government) Hindi which is way more Sanskitized vs regular Hindi. Regular Hindi even in the Gangetic plains is way more “hybrid”, and this is way before you come to eg Mumbai Hindi. Here’s the term in gov.in: https://www.google.com/search?q=%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF+site%3Agov.in https://www.google.com/search?q=%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%... Of course the Indian government loves “do the needful” as well: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22do+the+needful%22+site%3Agov.in https://www.google.com/search?q=%22do+the+needful%22+site%3A... But there’s evidence that “do the needful” might be an old English legal term as well. I’ve updated the parent comment. Further research is definitely required. [1] https://sanskritabhyas.in/%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF-%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%AC%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A6-%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%AA https://sanskritabhyas.in/%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%...
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- rockyj 1y agoAs an Indian, I do not like this. Big banks like Hdfc also send emails with subject like - "Intimation to update account" or things like I had already sent an "intimation" email. Just makes no sense, you are a billion dollar bank, get it right.
- DrBazza 1y agoYes. "Please do the needful" and "revert", are the most common Inglish phrases I encounter when talking to our employees in that part of the world. More recently 'can I connect?' is a new one that is becoming common.