Oxford becomes more 'Hinglish'

There was a time when we used the Oxford dictionary to learn and understand the “British” English and today, the relevance of the Indian language in day-to-day use is so much that 70 new Indian words from Telugu, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi and Gujarati languages have been added to the dictionary.

These are some of the most commonly used words here in India – Abba, Anna, gulab jamun, vada, jugaad, dadagiri, achcha, mirch masala, keema, funda, timepass, natak, chamcha, chup, bapu, surya namaskar; these and many more are now officially in the dictionary.

Oxford has stated that the September 2017 update adds to the 900 items already covered by the dictionary and "identified as distinctive to Indian English". The words were added to the dictionary as Indians have "a highly specific vocabulary with no direct equivalents in English.”

The seventy words newly added to the OED reflect not only the history of the country, but also the many and diverse cultural and linguistic influences which have shaped and changed the English language in India.

The dictionary publishes four updates a year in March, June, September and December respectively.