Hinglish and "innit"

Wed Nov 8 16:15:48 UTC 2006

On Nov 8, 2006, at 7:41 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> 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).

what are the pronunciations here?  i assume the hindi has [aj], but
does the american tag have this vowel, or [e]?  if the latter, we
could consider an etymology involving either "hey" or "hain't".  does
DARE (or anyone) have a clue about the source of american "haina"?

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org