Daily Prompt: Non-Regional Diction

Nice prompt with mandatory use of regional slang………. funny do you think I am a ‘bokachoda’ (f***ing idiot). Now you see what great difficulty I being a person from non-English speaking zone using slang. You want me to write whatever I want to but using regional slang. There are many problems, firstly in India use of a slang may give rise to situations which may lead to fisticuffs to major law and order breakdown. Does that mean Indians do not use slang? They do but it is mostly very localized sometimes only in own community. Most of the flare-up occurs when slang is misconstrued to have hurt the religious sentiments or the sentiments of a community. Calling somebody a pig-headed would mean hurting the religious sentiments of a Muslim and can land you behind the bar or may be a reason for communal disturbance. To add on to it there are 22 official languages of India and nearly 398 different types of languages spoken. English and Hindi are the link languages. Hindi is spoken in northern India and parts of Western India but is not understood or used as language of communication in Southern India. In the East of India Hindi is understood in the cities and big towns but is not well understood or used in smaller towns and villages. So sometimes innocent word in one language may mean something vulgar in another.

Using a slang is almost always confined in small group of friends or community and use is confined. Some cuss word are widely but some have completely different meaning for different people. In south India in one of the languages kannada (language of Karnataka) slang ‘Korma’ means a crafty fellow but in Hindi or Urdu it would mean a delicacy of mutton.Then another slang ‘Vedhava’ in Telugu would mean a wastrel or a useless fellow but in Bengali it means a widow.Another slang used in Tamil for the upper castes is ‘PAAPA’ but in Hindi it used to call one’s own father.

Slang most used by English speaking Indians is I suppose ‘F***’. Now you have to understand we are second biggest English speaking nation after USA. The fact is that we have English speaking population which is twice that of UK. Mind it that is just 10% of Indian population and the number is more 125 million people. Yes we have our typical Indian accent which little different from that of Americans but little more like the British. Most common slang that you will find being used is calling some an ‘idiot’ or ‘stupid’. While cursing we may use F***. 

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