The rise and rise of Hinglish in India.

English is widely acknowledged as the world’s most successful language. It has developed over the 20th century into a global lingua franca, the most widely used language on the internet, and the clear leader in education and research. But new competitors are emerging to displace English, especially in rich multilingual contexts such as India.

The language Hinglish involves a hybrid mixing of Hindi and English within conversations, individual sentences and even words. An example: “She was bhunno-ing the masala-s jub phone ki ghuntee bugee.” Translation: “She was frying the spices when the phone rang.” It is gaining popularity as a way of speaking that demonstrates you are modern, yet locally grounded.

New research by my colleagues and I has found that while the hybrid language is not likely to replace English or Hindi in India, more people are fluent in Hinglish than they are in English.