Hinglish and "innit"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 10:23:44AM -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> >From a BBC article about _The Queen's Hinglish_, a new book by Baljinder
> >Mahal:
>
> -----
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6122072.stm
> And the dictionary identifies how the ubiquitous "innit" was absorbed
> into British Asian speech via "haina" - a Hindi tag phrase, stuck on
> the sentences and meaning "is no?".
> -----

Interesting--DARE also records (with a single quot.) _haina_
as a tag question; I know some people who regularly use
this. I'd never been aware of the Hindi use (and nor, I'm
sure, have the people I've heard using it).

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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