'The Queen's Hinglish' gains in India

"I believe this happy blend of Hindi and English will become a globally accepted form of English in 20 years or so," John said. "More and more people will use it without fear of being laughed at. We are not afraid of speaking in the way that we want to anymore. There is no longer any fear of grammatical puritans coming and telling us it should not be like that."

In "The Queen's Hinglish," another recent book on the theme, Baljinder K. Mahal writes that more people speak English in South Asia than in Britain and North America combined, with India alone accounting for more than 350 million English speakers.

"Although the practice was previously frowned upon by purists, people there are becoming more and more comfortable with mixing words from languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi with English," she writes. "This means that Hinglish, as this modern blend of standard English, Indian English and South Asian languages is popularly known, could soon become the most widely spoken form of English on earth."

She predicts that words like prepone (the opposite of postpone, to bring forward), or airdash (to travel by plane at short notice) or eve-teasing (for sexual harassment) could spread internationally.

"The purists - as they always do - have lost the battle," she writes. "Hinglish, once seen as the lingo of the uneducated masses, is now trendy - the language of the movers and shakers."

Vaishna Narang, a professor of linguistics at Delhi's JNU University, said the shift was noticeable.

"People used to attach a snob value to British English and received pronunciation. Today no one bothers about that. We are much more concerned about a functional English," she said.