A bit of a khichdi: How Hinglish evolved

Is Hinglish older than we think? Take a look at how colonialism, the quest to speak English, and early ’90s television shaped this unusual tongue.

Hinglish goes back centuries, says Karthik Venkatesh, executive editor at Penguin Random House India. “And it’s all around us too. So many of us speak it every day without even realising it.”

In his new book, 10 Indian Languages and How They Came to Be, Venkatesh traces Hinglish verse to the 19th century. There was the English poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, who wrote, in his Ode: From the Persian of Hafiz:

Without thy dreams, dear opium,

Without a single