Bambaiya Hindi

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Bambaiya Hindi (also spelled Bambaiyya Hindi, Hindi: बंबय्या हिंदी) is a dialect of Hindi commonly spoken in and around the city of Mumbai, India. It incorporates words and pronunciations from Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi and English[1]. It is also referred to as known as Mumbaiyya Hindi or Bombay Hindi.

While many such local dialects have evolved in cosmopolitan cities around the world, Bambaiya Hindi is widely known throughout India as a result of its frequent use in Bollywood movies. Initially, this dialect was used to represent crooks and uncouth characters as, to quote film critic Shoma A. Chatterji, "Indian films have the unique quality of different characters speaking different varieties of Hindi according to their social status, their caste, communal identity, education, profession, financial status, etc. [...] The villain's goons, speak in a special vulgarised, Bambaiya (from Bombay) Hindi concocted specifically to typify such screen characters in Hindi cinema."[2]. Lately, however, Bambaiya Hindi has become popular and prominent, particular with the success of the Munnabhai movies, in which the lead characters - being members of the Mumbai criminal underworld - speak entirely in this dialect[3].

Despite this increase in popularity, this dialect has its critics, and is sometimes seen as being disrespectful and vulgar[4].

Among the more prominent neologisms which originated in Bambaiya Hindi but have spread throughout India are the words bindaas (from Gujarati, meaning 'relaxed'; this word was incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2005[5]) and Gandhigiri (invented in the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai, a portmanteau of Gandhi and -giri, which means 'to follow').

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  1. ^ Novelist Salman Rushdie jokingly refers to this language as "HUG-ME" in his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, published in 2000.
  2. ^ See 'The Language Detail' in Shoma A. Chatterji's paper, The Culturespecific Use of Sound in India Cinema, presented in 1999.
  3. ^ The Hindu newspaper, May 11, 2007. Chronicles of the City. Read online.
  4. ^ DNA, Verbal assault of Bambaiya Hindi, December 12, 2006. Read online.
  5. ^ Indian Express, August 10, 2005, 'Bindaas' finds its way to the Oxford Dictionary. Read online.
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