Hinglish and "innit"

[Paul Johnston]

"Ai no" is also a Scottish tag (cf. Macafee 1983) w/ a Western
distribution.  I'd guess it's in Ulster Scots too.  No East Indians
in Wilkes/Barre but Pennsilfaanisch and Scots/Ulster Scots were
certainly around in the area in early days.

Paul Johnston
On Nov 8, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Hinglish and "innit"
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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