But the other day, in a terrible, endless bout of procrastination, I was watching episodes of the British desi comedy show Goodness Gracious Me on Youtube, and they often have jokes about British desis saying "innit" which is basically the same thing.
So where does this come from? Is it just a literal translation of the "Hai na?" Urdu/Hindi slang?
13 comments:
Yup. Just like many other sentences we use, hai na becomes 'isnt it?'
Of course, 'right' is very American, I guess. So the largely British influenced diaspora of India wont tend towards that easily.
yes.. inni is very haina..
but it is a very normal way of british speak.. nothing to do with isn't it.. tho i hav heard a lot of people say 'is it' at the end of everything...
suppose that is there version of innnnnieeeeeeeeet :D
LOL Another blog that made me smile and think fondly of Bear...
His favorite tag line...especially when picking on me is...
"Ohhh? Is it?"
Always makes me laugh.
I always thought this was a British English thing. Heard a lot of people saying it in UK when we were there last summer. And my "British" sister in law says it all the time. I call her the British one because she lives there and is the only one in the family with a British accent, everyone else in the family speaks American-style english for the most part. This is because both my fil and mil went to university in the states, that is where they met and fell in the lurve. And the passed down their American English to their kids for the most part, except for my British sister in law, who started talking like that about 5 years ago after she moved there...
See, that's why I like you guys so much! I thought it was a desi thing, but now that you mentioned it, it seems like it is a British (/British Colonial) thing. Enlightenment, thou art commenters...
watch 'East is East' :>
In Urdu/Hindi, you say "hai na?" at the end of a sentence like this:
"She is a very nice girl, isn't she?"
"It is a beautiful day, isn't it?"
Because of some differences in the grammer, some speakers who don't know English very well actually say:
"She is a very nice girl, isn't it?"
because they are doing a direct translation.
haha made me laugh.
LOL, when you learn English as a Foreign Language, that's what you are told to say: isn't it? It is British English.
ANd then you go there and no one says it lol, they say "innit" ...it took me a while to understand it was the same thing lol
Interesting post here. :D "Innit" is used by non-Asians (in a cokney sort of way) but I do think British Asians use it more because of the "Hai na" thing. I'd never really thought of that before.
My Pakman still does that after 18 years with me. old habits die hard i guess.
canadians append 'eh?' to the end of sentences in the same vein. "The weather is nice, eh?"
:) that brings back memories of my in laws and "isn't it" - it used to irk me. I told my husband right off to stop using it because it was wrong and weird sounding, and he did; but there were other people I couldn't tell without sounding rude so I had to put up with it.
one of the few good things i remember about him is that he didn't mind criticism of spelling or grammar, in fact he appreciated it. I can't say the same for my SIL - she preferred to persist in her mistakes rather than admit she was wrong even if she was told nicely or gently.
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