Re: "Hindilish" & "Hinglish"

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