Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T07:28:25.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

English in film songs from India: an overview

Exploring the presence and functions of English lyrics in Bollywood and other Indian films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2011

Extract

‘C-a-t, cat. Cat mane billi; r-a-t, rat mane chooha’ went a song from a Hindi film of the fifties (mane = ‘means’, billi = cat’, chooha = ‘rat’). The song, enormously popular with Indian youth of that generation, was scoffed at by the then contemporary purists who found it hard to accept such ‘blatant’ dilution of the Hindi language. This song, like a few more of its times, was merely an exception to the largely acceptable language of songs, then largely a mix of Hindi, Urdu and Persian. English was, thus, used in songs either when it depicted (literally, since songs are acted out as autonomous scenes in Bollywood) a comic actor in a light-hearted situation or a semi-literate character desperate to accommodate to the urban ways of life. A celebrated song from Gopi, a Hindi film of the early seventies, goes a step forward with its novel coinage. The hero is a rustic who tries to impress his fellow villagers by dressing up in city (read English) style and sings:

      Gentleman gentleman, gentleman/London se aaya mein ban-than ke……
      Yeh dekh mera suita/Yeh dekh mera boota/Yeh dekh mera comba

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Crystal, D. 1995. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 1997. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. Plymouth: British Council.Google Scholar
John, B. K. 2007. Entry from Backside Only: Hazaar Fundas of Indian English. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
McArthur, T. 2002. The Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar