Tanglish – The Hybrid Indian English.

Abstract

New Englishes are evolving as a result of mixing English with a language. Tanglish, the hybrid variety is a blend of Tamil and English. This hybrid variety is popularly spoken by the youngsters in Tamilnadu. Advertising, media, movies are also extensively using it. The amount of mixing of English in Tamil (Tanglish) varies according to social context, attitudes, education and usage surroundings. The mixing or switching of the matrix language (Tamil) and the embedded language (English) in the form of insertions, alterations or blending inter-sententially or intra-sententially takes place with perfect ease in a Tamil-English bilingual speaker. Tanglish users have a very positive attitude towards its use and the trend shows that this hybrid variety is likely to evolve into a new language. This paper describes the various reasons for the use of Tanglish and its growing popularity. It also explores the reasons for the non-popularity or decline of the use of code mixing between two Indian languages. In multilingual India, a common person's verbal repertoire consists of at least three languages. However, the dominance of English over several other linguistic codes in the hybrid English is noteworthy. Based on observation and questionnaire, correlations are established between the level of exposure of English and its use, degree of mixing and locality of the speaker, the age of exposure to English and extent of mixing, attitude towards code mixing and its use. Language shift begins when a community chooses a new language in domains formerly reserved for the old one. This paper also discusses the implications of language shift.