MovieChat Forums > Black (2005) Discussion > Mix of Hindi/English dialogue

Mix of Hindi/English dialogue

posted 16 years ago by b1lskirnir
2 replies | jump to latest

I was just curious if anyone knew why the characters switched back and forth between Hindi and dialogue, sometimes in mid-sentence. One of my Indian friends told me it's somewhat of a trend for Bollywood producers/directors to have their actors speak English as it is considered a sign of intelligence and/or international appeal. Is/was this just common in this part of India or was it the director's choice and why?

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[–] vammie 15 years ago

The family of McNellys are Anglo Indians who usually tend to speak in English but they are very much mixed with Indian culture. So they keep switching between the languages. As per the other characters in the movie, I guess, since they are either teachers or professors they tend to speak more of English and less of Hindi.

Interestingly when I started watching the movie, I got the same doubt. I thought Ms. Nair is from South India (going by her name) and Debraj Sahai is from north. It is very common that we find more English in a conversation between north and south Indians.

I would like to remind one more thing here. This movie is set in the period of 1930s, something like that. Since the British were still ruling India during that time, there was more English in Indian conversations at that time, than now. No wonder it surprises people from today's India.

[–] IAmGisele 10 years ago

They do this in every Bollywood or Hindi) film I've seen.