The Politician and writer, Shashi Tharoor, appeared on a talk show in The Brut, where he talked about how Britishers took various Indian words to their country and made them their own. And one such stolen word is “shampoo”.

 

Shashi Tharoor Explains How Britishers Were Influenced By Indian Words And Used Them In Their Language

As we all know, Tharoor is popular for his posh accent and eloquent English. And the subject, the British looting from India, is one of his favorite subjects. Crazy thing is that the loot word itself belongs to India. Tharoor shared that there are around a thousand words British have looted from India, and they are mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary as well. He doesn’t count some words like English words because they are directly taken from Indian words, and have the same meaning. And some are very common among English people as they don’t even know they are stolen from India.

Words such as Jungle, Bungalow, Yoga, and Guru are currently used across the world. But they come from Indian languages!

Furthermore, he also mentioned that many other words don’t sound or look Indian but they are derived from India. One such word is Shampoo, which came from the British ordering their servants to “champo”, to wash their hair, by rubbing, kneading, and pressing their heads.

It was Sheikh Din Mohammad from Bihar (Bihar was a part of the Bengal presidency), who took this word to Britain to set up his spa and salon, which offered the shampoo. Furthermore, the words like cash, mulligatawny soup (milaku-tanni – hot pepper soup), and “Catamaran” (“kattu-maram” – kattu means cut and maram means wood) came into being from Tamil.

The other posh word “cummerbund” was straight away taken from the Indian words “kamar band”. The Bandanas worn by Mexican revolutionaries on their heads come from Bandhna was a discovery for Tharoor. Even the clothing style called dungaree is taken from a place in Mumbai called Dongri. There is a not-so-popular English expression doolally that comes straight from the Indian words Deolali, which means confusion or a big commotion.

Shashi Tharoor Shares The Most Common Indian English Phrases And Words

Apart from stolen Indian words, Tharoor also wrote about Indianism or Indian English in certain words like “native place”. And some of his favorites are “preponed”, and “history-sheeters” (used for criminals with a long criminal record). Another expression, which says “Kindly adjust” instead of “please adjust” sounds Indian itself. The next expression Tharoor believes is a classic is “we are like this only!”

Tharoor revealed that some words exist neither in the Indian language nor in any other forms of English language. And one such word is Brinjal, which is called eggplant in the western world. What’s more strange is that it is called Begun in Bangla, vazhuthananga in Malayalam, and baingan in Hindi. Many other words are used and exist in Indian English.

Every country or place has its own distinctive English language, such as New Zealander’s English, London English, Yorkshire English, American English, Scotland English, Irish English, and so on. There are so many variations! Thus, as per Tharoor, Indian English also stands a chance to prove its distinctiveness like other variations.

 

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