S4 Ep 15: Why I use Hinglish in my marketing (yes you can be yourself)

Cutting Chai Stories: Write copy that feels good

When I speak, when I write, and I’m writing for MYSELF and for Cutting Chai Stories, I write how I speak, and how I speak is peppered with desi slang.

Just the word desi, for instance, which I just used. It means someone who comes from the des, or desh, which in this case means India. So I *could* have said Indian slang, but that’s not the way I speak, and it’s not the way I think.

Those of us who come from non-English speaking countries and cultures that are not the ones we live in, well, we have our own words and our own ways of saying things. I talked about this a little bit in the last episode, when we were talking about words that don’t have exact translations in English, coz they are closely connected to the CULTURE or lifestyle or worldview of the people who speak that language.

Personally, I do this unconsciously. I use the word “desi” in my speech a lot to talk about Indians and so that’s the word that comes to mind. But I also do this CONSCIOUSLY. Because I am not apologizing for who I am and the way I speak and if this means that you have to figure it out as you go along, that’s fine by me. Sometimes I’ll explain what I’m saying, and sometimes I won’t, and sometimes I know that you’ll understand from the context, but what I WON’T do is erase myself and my speech patterns, SHRINK my vocabulary, to fit your understanding. I’d rather EXPAND your language than shrink my own.

And now I’m speaking to all of you who live and work and communicate in a country and language and culture that’s not your own—your language, your customs, your knowledge, they are PART of you and they ENRICH the culture you currently inhabit.

And if you were ever told or admonished to use the PROPER English word—thank god I wasn’t, or if I was, it didn’t make an impression on me—and had to learn to use a word that didn’t feel RIGHT to you, well, this is my permission slip to you to let that go.

If YOU have a word or a phrase that comes from your culture or language that you don’t use when you’re speaking to English speakers, would you write me and tell me what it is and what it means? I’m collecting a list of them and if there are enough of them I might share them later. You can write to me at Jayati AT cuttingchaistories DOT com.