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Re: "Hindilish" & "Hinglish"

From:Jonathan Chang <zhang2323@...>
Date:Saturday, May 13, 2000, 21:25
In a message dated 2000/05/13 10:49:45 AM, Lijesh wrote:

>As Daniel said, English will always have a place in India. I see it >becoming, if it's not already, the second largest English speaking country >in the world. In fact there was a survey in 1997 according to which 30% of >Indians said they understood English. In a population of one billion, that >even beats America. >
Who said Americans are that fluent *gigglabyte*?
>So what's the situation in China? >
Supposedly 10-15 % of the Mainland Chinese know some level of English. In Hong Kong & Taiwan that could be much higher. In Singapore, Singlish, la, is one of the common street-level languages (Bazaar Malay, also a creole, being the other major one) - but in business & education, etc. Standard British English is being touted as the "Singaporean way." I live in a Chinatown in the Bay Area, California... there are days when I hardly hear English spoken. Cantonese, Fukkien/Taiwanese, & Mandarin seem to be the major regionalects (a better term than dialect) - approximately in that order. Sometimes one may hear Hakka and other regionalects. And it is not too uncommon to hear other Asian languages - Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, Khymer, Japanese, even Pali & Hindi. I met a black South African who speaks fairly good Mandarin & somewhat understandable Cantonese (speaks both better & more fluent than me). It was funny that he could order food for me. Evidently he has been studying martial arts - "big Bruce Lee fan" - & fell in love with Chinese culture - he is a Ch'an Buddhist. He works as a bodyguard for a Hong Kong "businessman," but wants to eventually become a Buddhist monk. zHANg