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Bambaiya Hindi


Bombay Hindi is the variety of Hindi spoken in Mumbai. The dialect incorporates words and pronunciations mainly from Marathi, Hindi and a little from the other languages of India, e.g. Gujarati. Linguistically, the predominant substratum influence on Mumbai is Marathi, reflecting Mumbai's location in a wider Marathi-speaking area.

While many such local dialects have evolved in cosmopolitan cities around the world, Bombay Hindi is widely known throughout India as a result of its frequent use in Bollywood movies. Initially, this dialect was used to represent crooks and uncouth characters as, to quote film critic Shoma A. Chatterji, "Indian films have the unique quality of different characters speaking different varieties of Hindi according to their social status, their caste, communal identity, education, profession, financial status, etc. [...] The villain's goons, speak in a special vulgarised, Bambaiya Hindi concocted specifically to typify such screen characters in Hindi cinema.". Lately, however, Bambaiya Hindi has become popular and prominent, particular with the success of the Munnabhai movies, in which the lead characters - being members of the Mumbai criminal underworld - speak entirely in this dialect.

Despite this increase in popularity, this dialect has its critics, and is sometimes seen as being disrespectful and vulgar.

Among the more prominent neologisms which originated in Bambaiya Hindi but have spread throughout India are the words (from Marathi (Bin + Dhast = Without Fear, meaning 'relaxed'; this word was incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2005) and Gandhigiri (invented in the movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai, a portmanteau of Gandhi and -giri, which is similar to the English 'ism'(as in Gandhi-ism), though slightly more informal).


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