Hinglish and "innit"

Wed Nov 8 19:08:01 UTC 2006

On Nov 8, 2006, at 10:13 AM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 08:15:48AM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>
>> 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"?
>
> DARE defines it solely by a cross reference to _ainna_, and suggests
> a comparison to _huh not_ (which also has only a single quote, from
> Pennsylvania).
>
> The examples I've heard have all been--forgive me for not remembering
> how ASCII IPA works--"HEY-nuh".

ah, "ainna" gets it close the the pa.-dutch english tag "ai
not?" (pronounced with [e]) of my childhood, a variant of the tag
"ain't?".  "huh not" is new to me.

arnold

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