What is Hinglish—sociolect, insurrection or language? Why and how does Hinglish occupy such a prominent place in our daily language? What does it represent and how does it define our notions of self? Hinglish Live asks these and other questions about English and language mixing in contemporary India across a range of media domains—from English teaching to advertising; FM radio to literature; newspapers to cinema; technology to TV programmes. The essays in this volume are interdisciplinary, juxtaposing the personal with the political, the academic with the popular, and are complemented by a selection of images that demonstrate how widespread the use of Hinglish is.
Francesca Orsini is Professor of Hindi and South Asian Literature, School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics, SOAS, University of London.
Ravikant is Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and Coordinator, Language and Media Project, Sarai.
Acknowledgements Publisher’s acknowledgements Note on transliteration
Introduction: Francesca Orsini & Ravikant
1. Why Hinglish is a process and not a language: Ratnakar Tripathy
2. One whisky and one masala dosa: The many meanings of Hinglish in advertising: Santosh Desai
3. Hinglish is cool yaar!: Ravi Ratlami (Translated by Mehak Sawhney)
4. Hindi in the time of remix: Hinglish and Navbharat Times: Rohit Prakash (Translated by Francesca Orsini)
5. ‘Not too nanga-panga?’: Variety, mixing, and stratification in a Hinglish chick lit novel: Francesca Orsini
6. ‘Hindi hain hum’: Publishing in Hinglish: Aakriti Mandhwani
7. ‘Hinglishtani’ cinema: Historicising the contemporary: Ravikant
8. ‘I do fatafat constipation with goras in tip-top gora English’: Hinglish and English accents and speech in Jab Tak Hai Jaan: Helen Ashton & Rachel Dwyer
9. Hinglish signage@small town bazaar: Ravikant
10. The insurrectionary lateral-ness of Bhojpuri media: Akshaya Kumar
11. Hinglish hierarchies: The two-way process of linguistic humiliation on reality TV in India: Mohini Gupta
12. Hinglish FM: Kuch political ho jaye: Vineet Kumar
13. Bad, good and appropriate English: Negotiating English proficiency in Bangalore, India: Sazana Jayadeva
14. Fluidity, scale, and the colonial experience: A postcard from Senegal: Friederike Lupke
Contributors Index