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Government will now prefer ‘hinglish’ words over Hindi translation

Dec 5, 2011

New Delhi: In a bid to overcome problems posed by difficult Hindi words, Government has asked section officers to use their ” hinglish” replacements for easy understanding and better promotion of the language.

The order issued by the Rajbhasha unit of Ministry of Home Affairs was recently re-circulated in various offices after it was officially mentioned that such puritan use of Hindi generates disinterest among masses.

Image from Wikipedia

The circular recommended that difficult Hindi words can be replaced with English alternatives in Devanagari script for official work.

Citing examples, Department of Official Language at Home Ministry said ‘misil’ can be replaced with file, ‘pratyabhuti’ with guarantee, ‘kunjipatal’ with keyboard and ‘sanganak’ with omnipresent ‘computer’.

It also advocated use of popular Hindi words and English alternatives to make the language more attractive and popular in offices and masses.

“Whenever, during the official work, Hindi is used as translating language, it becomes difficult and complex. There is an urgent need to make changes in the process of English to Hindi translations. Translations should carry expression of the original text rather than word-by-word Hindi substitute,” the circular said.

It said use of popular words of Urdu, English, and other regional languages should be promoted in official correspondence. Pure Hindi should be for literary purposes while practical ‘mixed’ version for work purposes.

It said it is better to use English terms in Devnagri script than to translate them in pure Hindi.

PTI

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