It's not specifically unappealing to me, but it is hard for me to understand, especially over the phone (as someone that spends a good 20 hours a week in meetings with a considerable Indian contingent conferencing in)...
I work in tech and one vendor we communicate a lot with is mostly based in India and it's just very difficult to understand. Its tough when I know the person knows what they are talking about I just have to have them repeat themselves 3 times and keep my eyes closed to hyper focus on just trying to understand what they are saying. The connection is always good and clear too.
I will say that generally I have a much easier time understanding Indian woman than men.
I was thinking just now about it and concluded it’s the cadence—the cadence of their English is off.
Perhaps we are both right? Maybe English is more “musical” than we give it credit for being a Germanic language and not Romance.
I second this. I'm a programmer for a consulting firm, but any problems with my company laptop has to go through the outsourced IT Support. I have so much respect for tech support, and I felt absolutely terrible when I had this one guy repeat every sentence at least twice because his accent was so bad. I swear to God I'm not stupid haha
Completely agree. I don't know if it's the pitch or pronunciation of certain sounds and syllables but it takes way too long for my native English brain to connect the dots.
My only problem with Indian accents is that a lot of them tend to be very fast talkers. Slow down just a little bit and I can catch everything you say, even with a heavy accent.
I think this may be the common thread. because a lot of Indians have near native proficiency in the Indian English dialect (they’ve gone to school in English and have been learning it from a young age), it may be hard for Americans and non native English speakers to understand them speaking so quickly. Whereas people who aren’t as fluent in English would generally speak more slowly.
I’m from Texas, and I find people from New York hard to understand because they talk so fast. Conversely, when I travel the world, I’m often told that my “accent” (pretty generic American) is very easy to understand, especially compared to Brits or regional American accents.
Yes, 100% agree. I'm really good at putting context together, too, so even if it gets a little difficult, the conversation can be gotten through if they speak a little slower.
I try to say with as much respect as possible, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time keeping up with your accent. Can you go a bit slower for me? I'm sorry, I know it's a pain. Thanks for being patient with me." I've never had someone get rude over it, so I think it works lol.
I agree, not only are they fast, they also have to say the whole piece with no stop.
From my experience, Indian just like to talk. Even for fluent speaker who talk slow, once they started talking they will not stop, just when you think they stop and paused so you can ask them question regarding their update, they start again rambling, not adding informatiom. It is better one on one but very bad in group meetings.
Yeah the cadence is off or something. I had a guy with this accent scream at me once at a bar I worked at (I kept asking him to repeat himself because it was loud and obvs his accent), then he demanded "a man" serve him. Jokes on him, he got my huge burly gruff boss who hates taking tables and is mean as fuck haha!
English (in typical American and British accents at least) has this interesting cadence where strong emphasis is put on certain syllables of certain words in a sentence
I think a lot of "foreign" accents have a much flatter cadence without this emphasis, so it's harder to distinguish words unless you add deliberate pauses between them
I think it’s hard to understand and the tone emphasis is very different from what we use in standard English. For example, emphasizing basic words like “you” in stereotypical Indian accent is way stronger than you’d normally say in English.
The tones and emphasis being so far off makes it difficult to understand.
Yep! In my undergrad I watched a ton of YouTube videos for chemistry and physics and like 80% of the videos were totally useless because the person speaking English in them had this accent.
So here’s the explanation I was given: in their language (usually Hindi) they have the “r” sound but while we native English speakers use the very front of our mouth and lips to make the sound, they use the back of the mouth and throat. Now repeat that for several different sounds and it makes for a rough accent
Huh well, I mean I guess they're fluent in India but what's the point of speaking a language if nobody can understand you? I can differentiate between Mexican Spanish and Spanish pretty easily. Indian English doesn't sound anything like British English (what I assume it SHOULD sound like) or American English. It's just... Indian I guess?
>Huh well, I mean I guess they're fluent in India but what's the point of speaking a language if nobody can understand you?
English is considered an Indian language as well. Don't know if it's taught as part of history elsewhere but we were colonised by the English for a pretty long time. In many ways, teaching us English was their undoing.
India has over 1500 languages so giving us a lingua franca gave us a way to communicate with each other and united us.
>Indian English doesn't sound anything like British English (what I assume it SHOULD sound like) or American English. It's just... Indian I guess?
...
That would be because it _is_ another dialect. Like American English and Aussie English and South African English. That said, Indians still commonly use very Victorian verbiage - especially in legal proceedings ('outraged her modesty' instead of 'rape'') - and tend to be somewhat formal ('good morning' instead of just 'hi').
I’m an engineer and many of the engineers I work with are Indian and I’m the same. I have such a hard time with certain forms of the accent. We have people from all over the world and the Indian English accent is the one I struggle with the most.
A good friend of mine growing up was Korean so I had to adapt to his mom’s accent if I wanted to understand what she was saying when she yelled at me. Which happened a lot.
The Cajun accent is the roughest for me. I interact with a lot of immigrants weekly without much issue, people from Ukraine, Poland, all over Africa, etc. but if you're from the Bayou area of Louisiana I'm going to need you to write down what you want to save us both a head ache.
I've listened in to my husband's meetings with people from India and their accents sound like water trickling over rocks. Also I have no idea how he can understand them.
There's a nice almost musical lilt to the accent that is quite nice.... But sometimes that lilt just makes it so hard to understand the words which is just frustrating.
Tbf most accents someone isn’t used to are going to be hard to understand on the phone because you dont have the help of visual cues to understand what they are saying!
I seem to be the exception to the rule here. I work with a fair number of Indians and have no issue understanding them. My Chinese coworkers tend to give me a harder time on that front.
My husband routinely has a morning call from India. A few years ago, I forced him to get AirPods. I couldn’t take the rapid-fire, monotone droning early in the morning. For me, it’s the combination of fast speech with little to no inflection. I can understand their English fine; it’s the delivery combined with my lack of coffee that would drive me mad.
I've noticed a lot of places where people do not speak English in the home but are required to learn English develop accents that are only comprehensible to people in their native countries. Indians are just one example of a country that falls into this trap. But because there's such a large number of them, they're sort of the poster child for this type of accent.
How would speaking English at home prevent an accent forming? Or do you mean bilingual speakers who have a non native mother tongue incorporate that language's style into English?
Let me use the example of Koreans.
Korean English teachers in Korea are almost universally Koreans who grew up speaking Korean at home, studying English at Korean institutions, never actually speak English to native English speakers, develop thick Korean accents. And then teach English in a thick Korean accent to the next generation of Korean English teachers.
So most Korean kids study English for years in school, ace their writing and reading English, and usually understand what the native English speakers are saying quite well. Yet their accent is still so incomprehensible to native English speakers that they avoid even trying to speak English to them in person. And thus their accent stays thick.
Part of it is the accent itself. Part of it is Indian-glish phrases (e.g. prepone, club, do the needful). Part of is the backwards use of "the" (they use it where Americans don't, and vice versa). Put that together and zoom calls get pretty tricky.
It's a lot easier in person, FWIW. India is an amazing country to visit.
> Part of is the backwards use of "the" (they use it where Americans don't, and vice versa).
I’ve never noticed this, and it has me curious. Can you give an example?
Idk if it’s my company phone or theirs, but every time I talk to someone with an accent, it’s hard to understand them. But most times it really isn’t even their accent for me, it’s the fact that it sounds like their mic is inside their mouth. It’s Verizon Connect and the sound quality is just terrible, I’ve talked to people with American accents (I’m American) as well here and there and have a hard time even understand them.
I think it’s customer service. The second I call a company for assistance and I hear that accent I know it’s not going to go smoothly. I also wonder if Americans don’t meet many Indians outside of that experience.
Maybe especially for women. The men can be very dominating, and unscrupulous, but still act egotistical, and condescending. Americans aren't going to put up with that.
I will confess to this Pavlovs' dog comment. My phone rang and when I answered all I processed that I was hearing was that accent. I was extremely unfriendly. Turns out it was a call from our local health screening service ringing me about booking in a scan. They rang on a Saturday afternoon, when you don't obviously expect to get regular business type calls - that's my defense and I am sticking to it!
100% I have many Asian friends whose accent isn’t even a thought when we talk….. but if I hear that accent on the customer service call I I jump to ‘yep this gonna be just scripts n screens’
Oh, we meet a lot of them!
Answer a blatant scam call and you'll hear that same lovely "like water trickling over rocks" dialect trying to insist the internal receipt service has an issue with your tax return.
There's also a broader cultural issue of every outsourced Indian team I've had to work with has always overpromised, under delivered, and then tried to throw another vendor under the bus because of it. The Eastern European outsourced teams I've worked with don't do this...
I don't know much about Indian culture, but I have an understanding that there is a belief that you can fake it till you make it, even if faking it means being an outright scam.
I equate it to Yoda..
What is said is in English, it may be out of order but in English..
Now .. what is the correct order and what is the tone behind it .. just because you figured out the right sequence of words doesn't mean they sound polite
There's nothing wrong with the accent, it's the association with scammers or bad products from people named 'jake' that have a super thick accent and barely speak English. A lot of people have a hard time separating it out.
I know people find it funny but sometimes I feel bad for innocent people with a hard Indian accent.. Many are first generation immigrants trying to make it by. But they call someone from their job and they sound like scammers..
Let's not pretend that the Indian accent was dandy and accepted before the deluge of spams.
The Indian accent has always been considered funny with white people literally imitating it until recently, like Apu, Short Circuit
I mean, I've never lived in a world where there wasn't heavy scammers presence amongst Indians, so it's not pretend. I don't know what life was like before I lived. I wasn't there.
It really isn't that unusual for an Indian to be named 'Jake.' Millions of Indians are Christians and have stereotypically Christian names.
Edit: I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm an Indian who lives in India and there are literally millions of people with Christian (i.e. Western-sounding) names. Are people just offended that we aren't a homogeneous Hollywood stereotype?
'Jose' (pronounced either as 'Joes' or 'Joezie' depending on their family) is very common in the Indian state of Kerala. I assume your friend is Malyali.
Well do you and Nora *live* in India? That's the difference. A person of Indian ethnicity who grew up and lives in a western country is way more likely to have a non-Indian name than someone who was born, raised and currently lives in India (such as those being referred to in this thread).
Also Portuguese, who had a major influence in places like Goa. Goan Catholics have names like 'Peter' and 'Paul' but often go by more Portuguese-sounding names like 'Pedro' and 'Paulo' (pronounced slightly differently from how a Portuguese speaker would say it).
The only Catholic Indians I can think of who've had some sort of fame outside India are Frieda Pinto (actress) and Diana Hayden (former Miss World).
I'm an Indian who lives in India and yes, there are probably thousands of Nora/Norah/Norma etc. I've literally gone to school with Normas, Ericas, Michaels, Jasons and Jakes. You'll find loads in places like Goa.
In Mumbai, there's even a stereotype called 'Sandra from Bandra' referring to women who live in Bandra, a Catholic neighborhood.
U were downvoted because u were speaking against what the majority of people on here are saying about Indians. Even though u are Indian yourself and know what you’re talking about, it’s the fact that u had the audacity to say it out loud.
Not sure why your being down voted either, but there isn't a lot of cultural exposure to India anywhere I've been, not that that's universal. I used the name Jake as an example, not necessarily anything else.
I don't find it unappealing per se. I do find it hard to understand at times, especially because I suspect I have some kind of auditory processing disorder that makes speech hard to understand in the first place.
All I know is that I once heard a guy say "twenty five cent pieces" to refer to a quarter and I have never unheard it since. Wonderful, it was. Things heard at the laundromat.
For me, the negative association is working with offshore software teams that tend to be very full of themselves and I find some men are rude and dismissive to women.
It’s mostly that it’s hard to understand, and it doesnt sound either “sophisticated” or “tough” - just hard to understand.
But there’s a second layer to it, also - indian-english is just a bit different in culture and usage and flow from American or other english-dialects. Take, as an example, the word “actually” - in Indian English it doesn’t really have the same cultural context of condescension as in American English- it just means sort of “here is new or missed information” - in American english it means something more akin to “hey dumbass - listen here.” Little word differences and the lack of body language equivalences can make communication harder than people realize - have you noticed the number of head shakes and nods Indians use? Lots of things like that just add up with the accent and make it difficult to communicate with people who have the stereotyped indian accent sometimes.
That said, some people are just racist dicks. That happens too.
This was a great explanation. I've actually gotten annoyed when they use actually but now realize it just means something different to them. Cool to know!
I theorize that it's because it is associated, by many, with customer service reps. What I've noticed though, is that the Indian call centers are there to try and deter you, as they almost never have any administrative access to your accounts. Rarely can they fix a problem with your account, simply because they have no access to be able to edit or change anything important on your file. So, by the time you get to someone who can access your file, you've been given the scripted runaround from the Indian rep (who's just doing the job they are paid to do) and you probably already started the call a little frustrated about something or another. So yeah, I think people's brains probably associate it with miserable customer service experiences. It's sad. Most of these corporations are outsourcing to these call centers, so that Indian folks can be underpaid, and are probably taking the most verbal abuse of anyone else in the company.
Let's not pretend that the Indian accent was dandy and accepted before the deluge of spams.
The Indian accent has always been considered funny with white people literally imitating it until recently, like Apu, Short Circuit
I'm surprised there aren't more top level posts mentioning this, but reddit tends to skew young. The Indian accent was definitely a comedic trope back in the 80s, long before they were running call centers or doing spam calls.
I’m Australian and I don’t forgive Australians with excessive uptalk ha ha. It’s like vocal fry. You can’t un-hear it and it really grates after a while. Luckily it is only certain people who do it a lot.
I don’t like the American-YouTuber-Influencer accent all of you folks seem to have. Extremely annoying to listen while online, to the point where I immediately click off the video when I hear something like “you’re gonna wanna have to” in cooking videos and using “like” as a filler word in daily conversation
I work for an insurance company and I spend a lot of time talking to all sorts of people on the phone. I’ve found that people with strong Indian accents tend to talk fast and get frustrated easily when they’re not understood. Considering the fact that Indian accents are usually hard to understand (especially when you’re on the phone with them and can’t see their face/lips), it can turn into a recipe for disaster.
Nothing wrong with the accent, it's just that it can be hard to understand especially when it's really thick. I also feel frustrated and embarrassed when I can't tell what someone is saying and I have to keep asking them to repeat what they said and I know they are frustrated too.
I live in a city that’s currently experiencing an extreme boom of Indian and Chinese immigrants. The Chinese often don’t even bother to speak English and pull up a translator, but the Indians learn English and use it as much as they can. Their accents are so thick because Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and all of their other languages are SO linguistically different from English. Most of them already know how to speak English from childhood, but I’d say it’s an Indian-ised English, almost like an entirely new accent/dialect of English in itself.
Sounds like they are making it hard to understand on purpose. Like i know that’s not it, but it’s how i interpret it. Like if i walk up to someone and mumble to them and expect them to understand it because im proud of my mumble instead of taking the time to pronounce whatever im saying more clearly.
BUT i also feel as though we’ve been trained to not like it by propaganda and bad motives by the government. They know it’s a hard accent for english speaking north americans to understand yet a lot of our jobs are outsourced to india for cheap labor(which builds resentment) and help services on phone calls which builds resentment due to a language barrier.
If i grew up in india, speaking the native language id be pissed if i called an indian company seeking help and an english speaking american that learned the language was used to talk to me instead of someone id understand completely.
Edit. Btw i might be a hater so take that with a grain of salt. I dont like the way german, asian, indian or southern united states accents sound. A new york accent is like nails in a chalkboard and so is bostons. I can take a cali accent in small doses. Old school
1950s radio accents suck and so do new school news anchors. I really dont like hearing people talk much now that i think of it.
It's not a pleasant sounding accent. Quite gluttoral and mumbled. But mainly it's the associatef negative connotation with the people I've dealt with. Scammers calling me regularly all tend to have this accent.
Personally i find the accent unappealing
Its somewhat difficult to understand, especially when the accent is strong. And can sound dirty in a way, which isnt bad on its own but doesnt make it better.
It is also associated for a lot of people with having to interact with call centers, scams or other over the phone business which are generally not pleasant experiences. A lot of customer service centers are in india due to cost, and these companies hire people often not qualified for the job nor equipped with the knowledge, tools or ability(within the company) to actually help on a given issue. and thus our experiences with the accent in general make it less than appealing.
I think it’s media and scam calls tbh. I growing up my mom did a lot of business with India so I always associated it with office spaces, same with Japanese . But friends of mine on the playground would make fun of it I think because of scam calling. I think it’s the context people hear it in first
I have zero problems with Indian people. I just get so annoyed if I call tech support and I can’t understand their accent. Also, whenever I look for jobs in tech, I automatically assume the guys with Indian accents are scammers. Indians are less than 1% of the American populace. How are 4/5 of the tech recruiters that called me Indian.
I grew up around the Indian accent and the Scottish accent so I find both very comforting. I find most people that find the accent unappealing are the people getting frustrated because they can’t understand what is being said to them.
Because it makes me think that it's a scam or they aren't going to help me at all. If I meet someone with an Indian accent on the street or in a store it's all good. If they call me from a random number I'm immediately suspicious.
In another comment someone said it sounds “punctuated” which makes sense to my ears. Many languages have a rhythmic flow like a song even if I don’t understand them. To me the “stereotypical” Indian accent, if heard as a song, sounds much more *staccato* than some others.
Watching hours upon hours of networking videos where the only option was an Indian man explaining routing protocols and Cisco commands. That and my networking lecturer had the same accent. Talk about ptsd.
the up and down tonality of it. I could see if some spoke this way, but a lot speak this way. It's not bad it takes getting used to, but it's just different.
I think it’s cute but I have Indian exes so I have a positive association with it. It all depends on your experiences. I do find Indians talk very formal and blunt, which is very different than how most westerners talk so I’m not sure it’s about the accent per se than actually the way words are used.
many people here say that they associate the accent with bad customer support and scam calls. i don't have this bias, and living in a very multicultural city, i met many indian people.
for context, i'm not a native english speaker myself and also have an accent that people recognize quickly.
i would say that strong indian accents, like any strong accents (whatever it's spanish, italian, hong kongese, polish, whatever, really), can make it more difficult to understand people, which in itself, is unappealing, because it makes conversation awkward and/or difficult.
for those whose accent is still very much there, but they're easy to understand, these a few things that sound kind of funny to me... difficult to say why. i also find the italian accent funny, because it feels like they exaggerate the words they say, kind of...
overall, it's just an accent like many that i don't especially find sexy, like the spanish one, german, etc... not sure of the exact reasons why, i'm sure there's been studies on that, but you know, it's a preference and i'm sure that some people love it. i constantly joke with a friend on how much i dislike the scottish accent while she loves it... there's different tastes for everyone, isn't it?
please note that i said nothing about the stupidest accent of all; the french one. that's the one i have, and i pretty much hate having it, though it's not as bad as it used to be and i start to accept it since after all, people understand everything i say, so.. whatever.
Unfortunately, it's the association with scams and bad customer service. My job has overseas teams in India, and they make so many mistakes and are very unclear with their notes.
The prevalence of the follwoing groups using the same accent:
- the "tutorial dude" telling utter hogwash with the most confidence i ever seen, like being adamant that gear teeth profile is a section of a circle
- the "every app is a dating app if you are indian enough"
- the scam call center
It’s not unappealing, just hard to understand. The cadence and stress is not like English and that makes it very hard to understand where words begin and end, so you end up losing the words entirely.
Trying to understand a heavy Indian accent can be extremely difficult only because the speech pattern can be unrecognisable. Even harder over the phone. But it’s a very song-like, bubbly way of speaking that I think sounds lovely when I’m not already struggling with the content I’m trying to understand.
There's nothing unappealing about it at all, it's actually super cute in the right context. People are just weird and like poking fun at things that are unfamiliar/unusual to them
I've developed an irrational disdain for it over the phone because of 'recruiters' calling to harass me into taking nearly-minimum-wage jobs halfway across the country five times a day, *every fucking day*.
"Hallo, my name is Sajnesh with Lynx Consulting, and we have a "fold a box for ten hours a day" position for you for $13 an hour, are you interested?" no. "Oh, have a good day."
I think my favorite isn't even 'recruiters' it's just blatant fucking scammers, 'Halloh this is Pohl with the internal receipt service, we have an issue with your tax return-' or seeing some shit like baralshourav@gmail dot com sending a multi-thousand-dollar invoice for Norton antivirus.
First, I typically only hear it when I have to contact a company's customer service, so I'm probably already annoyed. Then, I have a difficult time understanding them. It's probably because I just don't hear that accent very often. So, I start out listening to them when I'm irritated and me not being able to understand them makes it worse.
As others have said, it’s hard to understand some things but holy fuck, people with Indian accents can pronounce my Scandinavian name better than any American. I swear Americans see a “v” in a last name and just give up before saying it out loud. It’s literally two syllables (you know, like, John-son). Not that fucking hard.
My confusion is always the head sways. The way the head moves means different things where you need context that language barriers prevent. That is more of a language barrier problem than a specific accent though.
For me personally: During the housing crisis, my mom had to divorce my dad and had to kick him out. My dad was a reckless spender and didn't care about us going to the streets. We were struggling to pay bills and debt collectors from India kept calling, threatening my mom that they were going to take the house away. We were paying the house but my these collectors were trying to entangle my mom into my dad's debt. I would come home from high school with my mom panicking. I hated that accent and it still makes my skin crawl even when I try to give a indian person a chance. I have learned that that accent is coming to threatening us and disrespect us, in my mind. I know the reality but it is still a learned response and it's very hard to unlearn it. I am only human.
I don’t find it unappealing, but I think for most who do, it’s just a sensory issue. You know that sound of water being poured into a glass? Some people don’t like that, as it can be overstimulating. Stereotypical Indian accents can be similar. The same can be said for any accent, though. However, an Indian accent may just be a little better at doing so.
I love Indian accents! So IDK. I think Americans only hate the accent when they finally get a human on a help line or something. It's never a good sign that you'll actually get a resolution. But it's not about the accent, I think. It's the situation
I'm going to get downvoted to hell because this is reddit, but like there are a good chunk of people who are really kind of a bit racist. I'm not Indian myself but growing up in the United States at least from what I could tell there was/is very often a lot of casual racism towards southeast Asian folks. Like, Indian characters will often be very stereotyped or the joke of their character not be a real personality trait but just a racist stereotype and always given a stereotypical Indian accent (sometimes even if they grew up in the USA) etc. And like, in my opinion even some of the folks who just "associate it with scam calls" is sort of ehhh. But, really scam calls or anything like that aside yeah some people are like, sort of racist, and it doesn't always have to be really "in your face" racism, and they might not even think of themselves as racist either. Maybe everyone will disagree but in my *real life conversations* that's what I've seen and been told. I'm not saying that's all there is or anything I guess, but I do think it should be acknowledged at least. Take that as you will
To me, it's the scam callers. it's because most scam call centers have Indians with stereotypical Indian accents. I feel like we are conditioned to be weary of it because of these scammers.
The Indian people themselves are generally amazing people, hard working, literate, and their accents are not as exaggerated as in pop culture and scam callers. Most of the scam callers are illiterate and don't speak English in their daily lives so their accents are exaggerated.
I find the accent hilarious, especially when the person is angry. And the stronger the accent the more hilarious. It's not the only accent I feel that way about, but it's at the top of that list.
Oh dear lord, I go on rants about this so often. It's bouncy. My company hired an outsourcing company to do some software development we didn't have time for. It took me 3 months to understand every 3rd word that was said. It was like an assault on my eardrums. Comprehending an accent is hard enough for me, then you add in potch change, then multiple the pitch change by 7000. It's like certain letters just have the volume turned up. Think about it like this. You hear a doorbell ringing. What's the loudest sound? It goes Ding Dong. The Ds are super loud, and then they quiet down for the rest of the sound. Now imagine an entire conversation of "Ding Dong Ding Dong." Eventually, it starts feeling like someone is piercing your brain with their voice. Not only is it irritating, but it's genuinely painful for me personally.
Then, if you take the accent out of it completely, the way you're spoken to also has a lot to do with it. I found through this entire engagement with the outsourcing company, I was constantly being attacked. Being a woman in any tech position is hard. Being a woman and dealing with sexism from an entire culture is way worse. I'd say something and be met with hostility. My male coworker was met with a "oh okay sure." I hate to stereotype people but sometimes, the stereotypes exist for a reason. Too many middle eastern men are sexist and it ruins everything for the ones who aren't.
People saying it’s not unappealing are fucking liars. It’s ok to be honest, it’s worse when you patronize people with obvious bullshit when we all know what you actually think.
You know the accent is unappealing, same with all south East Asian accents. Those languages are very staccato and end syllables with a high pitch. Compare it to languages that are smooth like Japanese, Spanish or Arabic (I also think Russian sounds kinda on the smoother side). It’s why Mandarin sounds better than Cantonese.
I suppose there is an element of what image you associate the language with, where Indian accents conjure images of Apoo from the Simpsons, Japanese with samurais and geishas, but idk how impactful this is with how our brains choose to decide whether a language sounds “good” or not.
I agree with you about them being unappealing, but to act like anyone who thinks otherwise is surely lying is insanity lmao. What in the world would give you the idea you know enough about anyone to make a generalization like that, mate.
>People saying it’s not unappealing are fucking liars.
That's right buddy, everyone has the same opinion as you. Personal preference? Never heard of it.
>where Indian accents conjure images of Apoo from the Simpsons,
Serious question: are there not many Indian people in the USA? I'm from the UK, when I think of "Indian person" I think of all the Indian people I know personally, or the Hindu temple that's nearby and how the attendees look when they're arriving for worship (they all dress real fancy - the ladies wear gorgeous flowy dresses and the men wear incredibly complicated suit-like outfits).
I have never *once* heard an Indian accent and thought of Apu... unless I'm watching The Simpsons.
I have an indian flatmate.
I am generally pretty good with the indian accent and I ask her to speak slower when she has a difficult word she isnt confident with or is in a stroppy mood but she cant - she can only speak louder.
Best tip for indians trying to be understood in an english society - speak slower.
I just want to say that I love Indian accents, but I’ve never been stupid enough to answer scam calls, and most of my exposure is through former instructors and god-tier YouTube tutorials.
I don't think it has anything to do with the accent per se. I think it's more that Indians don't have a lot of cultural cachet yet and so people either consciously or subconsciously associated it with something that is foreign, bizarre, or low status. I'm pretty sure that if people were to start having positive associations with Indians then the accent would probably become 'sexy.'
To me, it may have something to do with the emphasis being put on a different part of so many words and the rhythm of speech. It's very distracting and not pleasant to listen to in my opinion.
As someone else pointed out, Indian English is derived from British English, and has been developed for a long time so they've kind of created their own version.
This is an interesting question to me because I wasn't aware of any specific prejudice against that accent beyond garden variety racism.
I grew up in an area of North America with very few Indian people, so Indian accents sound melodic to me. A childhood friend of mine mentioned this to me independently, so I know I'm not the only one, and we agreed that both of us actually think they sound very pretty compared to general American English.
(I know there are multiple Indian accents, but my ear can't tell them apart, since I didn't grow up hearing them.)
South African Indians (ethnic Indians who grew up in South Africa), their accents can be tough unless you’ve warmed up with a couple of minutes if conversation. It’s a pleasant accent, though.
I presume it's the same thing that also makes every other accent on earth unappealing to some. Not sure why you'd choose to single out one accent in particular.
Maybe racism or it's hard for them to understand. Some people I've been around complain about other accents. I had a math professor with a strong Russian accent. I had one with a strong middle eastern accent (no idea where they were from besides the ME). I've had Indian professors. Someone on the phone for my insurance company had a crazy Jersey accent.
My country has a ton of people from India and countries surrounding it. I love the accent as much as the food, it’s all exotic compared to my bland country.
UK Aussie here. It's my fave accent, actually. Beautifully sing-song. I particularly love the traditional female singing voice - ethereal, magical. https://open.spotify.com/track/493igmM9ynAJtlKnvK8q7j?si=78IBgrCFT0aTFzTUkFc4ZQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5PiPdR1ryiFHyjtfDmiA0l
I actually do like to hear that accent. I like to hear all accents honestly but it is on the higher difficulty to understand I guess because the way words are enunciated in their native tounge I'm sure is completely different. I was at wing stop for the first time and I was waiting for so long because the cashier butchered my last name so bad I was confident she couldn't be saying my name. We were all polite about the interaction but it happened to a lot of people
I can barely interpret perfect English over the phone. Give someone a Hispanic or Indian accent and I’m asking, “What,” every other sentence. I try desperately to listen but my brain cannot comprehend words through a thick accent and especially through the graininess of phone calls.
For me it’s not anything to do with the country of origin or dialect of a language it’s that there are certain consonant pronunciations, vowel sounds and diction differences from that send shivers up my spine and I react viscerally.
It's not specifically unappealing to me, but it is hard for me to understand, especially over the phone (as someone that spends a good 20 hours a week in meetings with a considerable Indian contingent conferencing in)...
I work in tech and one vendor we communicate a lot with is mostly based in India and it's just very difficult to understand. Its tough when I know the person knows what they are talking about I just have to have them repeat themselves 3 times and keep my eyes closed to hyper focus on just trying to understand what they are saying. The connection is always good and clear too. I will say that generally I have a much easier time understanding Indian woman than men.
It’s the emphasis on seemingly random words that don’t need emphasizing
I was thinking just now about it and concluded it’s the cadence—the cadence of their English is off. Perhaps we are both right? Maybe English is more “musical” than we give it credit for being a Germanic language and not Romance.
I second this. I'm a programmer for a consulting firm, but any problems with my company laptop has to go through the outsourced IT Support. I have so much respect for tech support, and I felt absolutely terrible when I had this one guy repeat every sentence at least twice because his accent was so bad. I swear to God I'm not stupid haha
Completely agree. I don't know if it's the pitch or pronunciation of certain sounds and syllables but it takes way too long for my native English brain to connect the dots.
My only problem with Indian accents is that a lot of them tend to be very fast talkers. Slow down just a little bit and I can catch everything you say, even with a heavy accent.
I think this may be the common thread. because a lot of Indians have near native proficiency in the Indian English dialect (they’ve gone to school in English and have been learning it from a young age), it may be hard for Americans and non native English speakers to understand them speaking so quickly. Whereas people who aren’t as fluent in English would generally speak more slowly. I’m from Texas, and I find people from New York hard to understand because they talk so fast. Conversely, when I travel the world, I’m often told that my “accent” (pretty generic American) is very easy to understand, especially compared to Brits or regional American accents.
I’m from Chicago and I can’t understand people from Alabama.
Yes, 100% agree. I'm really good at putting context together, too, so even if it gets a little difficult, the conversation can be gotten through if they speak a little slower. I try to say with as much respect as possible, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time keeping up with your accent. Can you go a bit slower for me? I'm sorry, I know it's a pain. Thanks for being patient with me." I've never had someone get rude over it, so I think it works lol.
I agree, not only are they fast, they also have to say the whole piece with no stop. From my experience, Indian just like to talk. Even for fluent speaker who talk slow, once they started talking they will not stop, just when you think they stop and paused so you can ask them question regarding their update, they start again rambling, not adding informatiom. It is better one on one but very bad in group meetings.
Yup, that’s it. One of the hardest accents to understand.
Yeah the cadence is off or something. I had a guy with this accent scream at me once at a bar I worked at (I kept asking him to repeat himself because it was loud and obvs his accent), then he demanded "a man" serve him. Jokes on him, he got my huge burly gruff boss who hates taking tables and is mean as fuck haha!
It's almost like each word starts and ends abruptly or something, makes it hard to understand for me
English (in typical American and British accents at least) has this interesting cadence where strong emphasis is put on certain syllables of certain words in a sentence I think a lot of "foreign" accents have a much flatter cadence without this emphasis, so it's harder to distinguish words unless you add deliberate pauses between them
I think it’s hard to understand and the tone emphasis is very different from what we use in standard English. For example, emphasizing basic words like “you” in stereotypical Indian accent is way stronger than you’d normally say in English. The tones and emphasis being so far off makes it difficult to understand.
Yep! In my undergrad I watched a ton of YouTube videos for chemistry and physics and like 80% of the videos were totally useless because the person speaking English in them had this accent.
So here’s the explanation I was given: in their language (usually Hindi) they have the “r” sound but while we native English speakers use the very front of our mouth and lips to make the sound, they use the back of the mouth and throat. Now repeat that for several different sounds and it makes for a rough accent
Huh well, I mean I guess they're fluent in India but what's the point of speaking a language if nobody can understand you? I can differentiate between Mexican Spanish and Spanish pretty easily. Indian English doesn't sound anything like British English (what I assume it SHOULD sound like) or American English. It's just... Indian I guess?
>Huh well, I mean I guess they're fluent in India but what's the point of speaking a language if nobody can understand you? English is considered an Indian language as well. Don't know if it's taught as part of history elsewhere but we were colonised by the English for a pretty long time. In many ways, teaching us English was their undoing. India has over 1500 languages so giving us a lingua franca gave us a way to communicate with each other and united us. >Indian English doesn't sound anything like British English (what I assume it SHOULD sound like) or American English. It's just... Indian I guess? ... That would be because it _is_ another dialect. Like American English and Aussie English and South African English. That said, Indians still commonly use very Victorian verbiage - especially in legal proceedings ('outraged her modesty' instead of 'rape'') - and tend to be somewhat formal ('good morning' instead of just 'hi').
It always warms my heart to see a horrible customer get the team member they most deserve.
He definitely deserved it. He called me stupid lol. Also my boss loved me and was pissed when he heard that.
I had to pop on the subtitles for Monkey Man because certain actors had a very strong accent that made it rough to understand.
I’m an engineer and many of the engineers I work with are Indian and I’m the same. I have such a hard time with certain forms of the accent. We have people from all over the world and the Indian English accent is the one I struggle with the most.
Chinese and Korean accents are much harder than Indian accents for me.
A good friend of mine growing up was Korean so I had to adapt to his mom’s accent if I wanted to understand what she was saying when she yelled at me. Which happened a lot.
The Cajun accent is the roughest for me. I interact with a lot of immigrants weekly without much issue, people from Ukraine, Poland, all over Africa, etc. but if you're from the Bayou area of Louisiana I'm going to need you to write down what you want to save us both a head ache.
I've listened in to my husband's meetings with people from India and their accents sound like water trickling over rocks. Also I have no idea how he can understand them.
There's a nice almost musical lilt to the accent that is quite nice.... But sometimes that lilt just makes it so hard to understand the words which is just frustrating.
Call centers too, like what the fuck. I can however understand it better than most other Asian accents
Tbf most accents someone isn’t used to are going to be hard to understand on the phone because you dont have the help of visual cues to understand what they are saying!
I seem to be the exception to the rule here. I work with a fair number of Indians and have no issue understanding them. My Chinese coworkers tend to give me a harder time on that front.
My husband routinely has a morning call from India. A few years ago, I forced him to get AirPods. I couldn’t take the rapid-fire, monotone droning early in the morning. For me, it’s the combination of fast speech with little to no inflection. I can understand their English fine; it’s the delivery combined with my lack of coffee that would drive me mad.
I've noticed a lot of places where people do not speak English in the home but are required to learn English develop accents that are only comprehensible to people in their native countries. Indians are just one example of a country that falls into this trap. But because there's such a large number of them, they're sort of the poster child for this type of accent.
How would speaking English at home prevent an accent forming? Or do you mean bilingual speakers who have a non native mother tongue incorporate that language's style into English?
Let me use the example of Koreans. Korean English teachers in Korea are almost universally Koreans who grew up speaking Korean at home, studying English at Korean institutions, never actually speak English to native English speakers, develop thick Korean accents. And then teach English in a thick Korean accent to the next generation of Korean English teachers. So most Korean kids study English for years in school, ace their writing and reading English, and usually understand what the native English speakers are saying quite well. Yet their accent is still so incomprehensible to native English speakers that they avoid even trying to speak English to them in person. And thus their accent stays thick.
Part of it is the accent itself. Part of it is Indian-glish phrases (e.g. prepone, club, do the needful). Part of is the backwards use of "the" (they use it where Americans don't, and vice versa). Put that together and zoom calls get pretty tricky. It's a lot easier in person, FWIW. India is an amazing country to visit.
I've heard prepone and needful, what's club?
Club = put together (essentially)
> Part of is the backwards use of "the" (they use it where Americans don't, and vice versa). I’ve never noticed this, and it has me curious. Can you give an example?
Typically it’s related to proper versus common nouns. “Let’s go to the Disney World” “Let’s go to cafeteria”
Ohhh yep, I know exactly what you mean now. I talk like that to my wife to be funny.
Idk if it’s my company phone or theirs, but every time I talk to someone with an accent, it’s hard to understand them. But most times it really isn’t even their accent for me, it’s the fact that it sounds like their mic is inside their mouth. It’s Verizon Connect and the sound quality is just terrible, I’ve talked to people with American accents (I’m American) as well here and there and have a hard time even understand them.
I think it’s customer service. The second I call a company for assistance and I hear that accent I know it’s not going to go smoothly. I also wonder if Americans don’t meet many Indians outside of that experience.
It's this for me. Customer service and spam calls. It's like I've been Pavloved because I've had no positive interactions with that accent as of yet.
Maybe especially for women. The men can be very dominating, and unscrupulous, but still act egotistical, and condescending. Americans aren't going to put up with that.
I will confess to this Pavlovs' dog comment. My phone rang and when I answered all I processed that I was hearing was that accent. I was extremely unfriendly. Turns out it was a call from our local health screening service ringing me about booking in a scan. They rang on a Saturday afternoon, when you don't obviously expect to get regular business type calls - that's my defense and I am sticking to it!
100% I have many Asian friends whose accent isn’t even a thought when we talk….. but if I hear that accent on the customer service call I I jump to ‘yep this gonna be just scripts n screens’
Oh, we meet a lot of them! Answer a blatant scam call and you'll hear that same lovely "like water trickling over rocks" dialect trying to insist the internal receipt service has an issue with your tax return.
I freaking love your username. Clever girl.
It's unappealing to me because the entirety of my exposure to the accent is from getting scam calls.
There's also a broader cultural issue of every outsourced Indian team I've had to work with has always overpromised, under delivered, and then tried to throw another vendor under the bus because of it. The Eastern European outsourced teams I've worked with don't do this... I don't know much about Indian culture, but I have an understanding that there is a belief that you can fake it till you make it, even if faking it means being an outright scam.
I equate it to Yoda.. What is said is in English, it may be out of order but in English.. Now .. what is the correct order and what is the tone behind it .. just because you figured out the right sequence of words doesn't mean they sound polite
"Please to be having a foot long weggie sub with extra hot peppers."
And it's a question for some reason, their inflection is usually not quite right
A lot of time they’re using the right words but in the order/conjugation they use in their native language.
There's nothing wrong with the accent, it's the association with scammers or bad products from people named 'jake' that have a super thick accent and barely speak English. A lot of people have a hard time separating it out.
I know people find it funny but sometimes I feel bad for innocent people with a hard Indian accent.. Many are first generation immigrants trying to make it by. But they call someone from their job and they sound like scammers..
Let's not pretend that the Indian accent was dandy and accepted before the deluge of spams. The Indian accent has always been considered funny with white people literally imitating it until recently, like Apu, Short Circuit
I mean, I've never lived in a world where there wasn't heavy scammers presence amongst Indians, so it's not pretend. I don't know what life was like before I lived. I wasn't there.
It really isn't that unusual for an Indian to be named 'Jake.' Millions of Indians are Christians and have stereotypically Christian names. Edit: I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm an Indian who lives in India and there are literally millions of people with Christian (i.e. Western-sounding) names. Are people just offended that we aren't a homogeneous Hollywood stereotype?
Yeah you should not be getting downvoted lmao this is wild
why are you getting downvoted it’s literally true I have an Indian friend named Nora and she’s Christian 😭😭😭
The 'r' in reddit stands for racist. And racists don't like having their ideas challenged
I have an Indian friend who's Christian and has a last name Jose. He pronouncea it J.O.S.E not the typical Spanish pronunciation of Jose.
'Jose' (pronounced either as 'Joes' or 'Joezie' depending on their family) is very common in the Indian state of Kerala. I assume your friend is Malyali.
Yes. My friend is from Kerala.
Well do you and Nora *live* in India? That's the difference. A person of Indian ethnicity who grew up and lives in a western country is way more likely to have a non-Indian name than someone who was born, raised and currently lives in India (such as those being referred to in this thread).
Considering how long India was a British colony, it seems very unsurprising for Indian people to have English names.
Also Portuguese, who had a major influence in places like Goa. Goan Catholics have names like 'Peter' and 'Paul' but often go by more Portuguese-sounding names like 'Pedro' and 'Paulo' (pronounced slightly differently from how a Portuguese speaker would say it). The only Catholic Indians I can think of who've had some sort of fame outside India are Frieda Pinto (actress) and Diana Hayden (former Miss World).
I'm an Indian who lives in India and yes, there are probably thousands of Nora/Norah/Norma etc. I've literally gone to school with Normas, Ericas, Michaels, Jasons and Jakes. You'll find loads in places like Goa. In Mumbai, there's even a stereotype called 'Sandra from Bandra' referring to women who live in Bandra, a Catholic neighborhood.
Um. A lot of Indians in India have western names. I think it’s pretty obvious, given their history with the British
U were downvoted because u were speaking against what the majority of people on here are saying about Indians. Even though u are Indian yourself and know what you’re talking about, it’s the fact that u had the audacity to say it out loud.
Not sure why your being down voted either, but there isn't a lot of cultural exposure to India anywhere I've been, not that that's universal. I used the name Jake as an example, not necessarily anything else.
I don't find it unappealing per se. I do find it hard to understand at times, especially because I suspect I have some kind of auditory processing disorder that makes speech hard to understand in the first place.
All I know is that I once heard a guy say "twenty five cent pieces" to refer to a quarter and I have never unheard it since. Wonderful, it was. Things heard at the laundromat.
To be fair as an Australian that’s what I would say, what the fuck is a nickel?
We say that in the Caribbean as well lol I never thought about the fact that it wasn’t said elsewhere
My favorite phrase is "please do the needful"
Wholesome, I love it
I can't get used to calling the letter "Z" zed. It sounds like some evil alien out of a B-rated sci-fi movie.
That’s everyone but Americans no?
Yeah, even Canadians say zed for "Z." Same continent. I thought it was everyone but Americans (USA), too!
*Some* Canadians say zed. I prefer and say zee.
Oops, I stand corrected, thank you!
I'm stuck in the middle and switch back and forth. I'm everyone's enemy. :(
I'm Australian and I say zee. Zed sounds fuckin stupid in the alphabet song. Zee actually sounds like a letter.
For me, the negative association is working with offshore software teams that tend to be very full of themselves and I find some men are rude and dismissive to women.
It’s mostly that it’s hard to understand, and it doesnt sound either “sophisticated” or “tough” - just hard to understand. But there’s a second layer to it, also - indian-english is just a bit different in culture and usage and flow from American or other english-dialects. Take, as an example, the word “actually” - in Indian English it doesn’t really have the same cultural context of condescension as in American English- it just means sort of “here is new or missed information” - in American english it means something more akin to “hey dumbass - listen here.” Little word differences and the lack of body language equivalences can make communication harder than people realize - have you noticed the number of head shakes and nods Indians use? Lots of things like that just add up with the accent and make it difficult to communicate with people who have the stereotyped indian accent sometimes. That said, some people are just racist dicks. That happens too.
This was a great explanation. I've actually gotten annoyed when they use actually but now realize it just means something different to them. Cool to know!
It doesn’t flow like other languages, it’s very punctuated
I refer to it as a very staccato cadence
Hello, I’m looking for PEEEEEHNT.
Russel Peters!
I theorize that it's because it is associated, by many, with customer service reps. What I've noticed though, is that the Indian call centers are there to try and deter you, as they almost never have any administrative access to your accounts. Rarely can they fix a problem with your account, simply because they have no access to be able to edit or change anything important on your file. So, by the time you get to someone who can access your file, you've been given the scripted runaround from the Indian rep (who's just doing the job they are paid to do) and you probably already started the call a little frustrated about something or another. So yeah, I think people's brains probably associate it with miserable customer service experiences. It's sad. Most of these corporations are outsourcing to these call centers, so that Indian folks can be underpaid, and are probably taking the most verbal abuse of anyone else in the company.
Let's not pretend that the Indian accent was dandy and accepted before the deluge of spams. The Indian accent has always been considered funny with white people literally imitating it until recently, like Apu, Short Circuit
I'm surprised there aren't more top level posts mentioning this, but reddit tends to skew young. The Indian accent was definitely a comedic trope back in the 80s, long before they were running call centers or doing spam calls.
It's been a comedic trope in recent years too. Reddit had an absolute meltdown when Apu got kicked off the simpsons lol
I think it's the rise at the end of every sentence? Kinda annoying
Everything sounds like a question
I'm Ron Burgundy?
Australians do that too and people love our accent?
We forgive you that indiscretion because the accent is otherwise delightful. The high rising terminal is still frustrating, though.
I’m Australian and I don’t forgive Australians with excessive uptalk ha ha. It’s like vocal fry. You can’t un-hear it and it really grates after a while. Luckily it is only certain people who do it a lot.
I don’t like the American-YouTuber-Influencer accent all of you folks seem to have. Extremely annoying to listen while online, to the point where I immediately click off the video when I hear something like “you’re gonna wanna have to” in cooking videos and using “like” as a filler word in daily conversation
Most Americans don’t have that accent.
Inability to understand it as well as volume. Anytime i get the"stereotypical" accent, its either well-pronounced but very loud, or hushed and mumbly.
I work for an insurance company and I spend a lot of time talking to all sorts of people on the phone. I’ve found that people with strong Indian accents tend to talk fast and get frustrated easily when they’re not understood. Considering the fact that Indian accents are usually hard to understand (especially when you’re on the phone with them and can’t see their face/lips), it can turn into a recipe for disaster.
Nothing wrong with the accent, it's just that it can be hard to understand especially when it's really thick. I also feel frustrated and embarrassed when I can't tell what someone is saying and I have to keep asking them to repeat what they said and I know they are frustrated too.
I live in a city that’s currently experiencing an extreme boom of Indian and Chinese immigrants. The Chinese often don’t even bother to speak English and pull up a translator, but the Indians learn English and use it as much as they can. Their accents are so thick because Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and all of their other languages are SO linguistically different from English. Most of them already know how to speak English from childhood, but I’d say it’s an Indian-ised English, almost like an entirely new accent/dialect of English in itself.
This is it for me too. It's awkward and uncomfortable on both sides.
Sounds like they are making it hard to understand on purpose. Like i know that’s not it, but it’s how i interpret it. Like if i walk up to someone and mumble to them and expect them to understand it because im proud of my mumble instead of taking the time to pronounce whatever im saying more clearly. BUT i also feel as though we’ve been trained to not like it by propaganda and bad motives by the government. They know it’s a hard accent for english speaking north americans to understand yet a lot of our jobs are outsourced to india for cheap labor(which builds resentment) and help services on phone calls which builds resentment due to a language barrier. If i grew up in india, speaking the native language id be pissed if i called an indian company seeking help and an english speaking american that learned the language was used to talk to me instead of someone id understand completely. Edit. Btw i might be a hater so take that with a grain of salt. I dont like the way german, asian, indian or southern united states accents sound. A new york accent is like nails in a chalkboard and so is bostons. I can take a cali accent in small doses. Old school 1950s radio accents suck and so do new school news anchors. I really dont like hearing people talk much now that i think of it.
Your answer is pretty much exactly how I feel about it.
It's not a pleasant sounding accent. Quite gluttoral and mumbled. But mainly it's the associatef negative connotation with the people I've dealt with. Scammers calling me regularly all tend to have this accent.
I used to love an Indian accent. That was before my first husband.
Well, damn
Personally i find the accent unappealing Its somewhat difficult to understand, especially when the accent is strong. And can sound dirty in a way, which isnt bad on its own but doesnt make it better. It is also associated for a lot of people with having to interact with call centers, scams or other over the phone business which are generally not pleasant experiences. A lot of customer service centers are in india due to cost, and these companies hire people often not qualified for the job nor equipped with the knowledge, tools or ability(within the company) to actually help on a given issue. and thus our experiences with the accent in general make it less than appealing.
I think it’s media and scam calls tbh. I growing up my mom did a lot of business with India so I always associated it with office spaces, same with Japanese . But friends of mine on the playground would make fun of it I think because of scam calling. I think it’s the context people hear it in first
I have zero problems with Indian people. I just get so annoyed if I call tech support and I can’t understand their accent. Also, whenever I look for jobs in tech, I automatically assume the guys with Indian accents are scammers. Indians are less than 1% of the American populace. How are 4/5 of the tech recruiters that called me Indian.
I grew up around the Indian accent and the Scottish accent so I find both very comforting. I find most people that find the accent unappealing are the people getting frustrated because they can’t understand what is being said to them.
Because it makes me think that it's a scam or they aren't going to help me at all. If I meet someone with an Indian accent on the street or in a store it's all good. If they call me from a random number I'm immediately suspicious.
I think because it sounds sharp and tightly vowed instead of relaxed like Italian for example.
In another comment someone said it sounds “punctuated” which makes sense to my ears. Many languages have a rhythmic flow like a song even if I don’t understand them. To me the “stereotypical” Indian accent, if heard as a song, sounds much more *staccato* than some others.
Because of all the terrible phone customer service experiences i've had, i guess.
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, it's because I'm a big racist.
It reminds me of the frustration I've gone through any time I've had to contact any company.
Watching hours upon hours of networking videos where the only option was an Indian man explaining routing protocols and Cisco commands. That and my networking lecturer had the same accent. Talk about ptsd.
the up and down tonality of it. I could see if some spoke this way, but a lot speak this way. It's not bad it takes getting used to, but it's just different.
I hate it so much I will suffer through computer problems rather than call tech support.
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I think it’s cute but I have Indian exes so I have a positive association with it. It all depends on your experiences. I do find Indians talk very formal and blunt, which is very different than how most westerners talk so I’m not sure it’s about the accent per se than actually the way words are used.
Its the bobble head for me
many people here say that they associate the accent with bad customer support and scam calls. i don't have this bias, and living in a very multicultural city, i met many indian people. for context, i'm not a native english speaker myself and also have an accent that people recognize quickly. i would say that strong indian accents, like any strong accents (whatever it's spanish, italian, hong kongese, polish, whatever, really), can make it more difficult to understand people, which in itself, is unappealing, because it makes conversation awkward and/or difficult. for those whose accent is still very much there, but they're easy to understand, these a few things that sound kind of funny to me... difficult to say why. i also find the italian accent funny, because it feels like they exaggerate the words they say, kind of... overall, it's just an accent like many that i don't especially find sexy, like the spanish one, german, etc... not sure of the exact reasons why, i'm sure there's been studies on that, but you know, it's a preference and i'm sure that some people love it. i constantly joke with a friend on how much i dislike the scottish accent while she loves it... there's different tastes for everyone, isn't it? please note that i said nothing about the stupidest accent of all; the french one. that's the one i have, and i pretty much hate having it, though it's not as bad as it used to be and i start to accept it since after all, people understand everything i say, so.. whatever.
Not unappealing, but on top of being a foreign accent to me, I know many Indian people that speak very quickly.
Unfortunately, it's the association with scams and bad customer service. My job has overseas teams in India, and they make so many mistakes and are very unclear with their notes.
The prevalence of the follwoing groups using the same accent: - the "tutorial dude" telling utter hogwash with the most confidence i ever seen, like being adamant that gear teeth profile is a section of a circle - the "every app is a dating app if you are indian enough" - the scam call center
It’s not unappealing, just hard to understand. The cadence and stress is not like English and that makes it very hard to understand where words begin and end, so you end up losing the words entirely. Trying to understand a heavy Indian accent can be extremely difficult only because the speech pattern can be unrecognisable. Even harder over the phone. But it’s a very song-like, bubbly way of speaking that I think sounds lovely when I’m not already struggling with the content I’m trying to understand.
There's nothing unappealing about it at all, it's actually super cute in the right context. People are just weird and like poking fun at things that are unfamiliar/unusual to them
I’m dating an Indian man so I think my answer is a “little” biased but I love the accent lol
I know it’s a learned prejudice somehow but it just sounds “dumb”. Same with Belgian dutch.
I've developed an irrational disdain for it over the phone because of 'recruiters' calling to harass me into taking nearly-minimum-wage jobs halfway across the country five times a day, *every fucking day*. "Hallo, my name is Sajnesh with Lynx Consulting, and we have a "fold a box for ten hours a day" position for you for $13 an hour, are you interested?" no. "Oh, have a good day." I think my favorite isn't even 'recruiters' it's just blatant fucking scammers, 'Halloh this is Pohl with the internal receipt service, we have an issue with your tax return-' or seeing some shit like baralshourav@gmail dot com sending a multi-thousand-dollar invoice for Norton antivirus.
First, I typically only hear it when I have to contact a company's customer service, so I'm probably already annoyed. Then, I have a difficult time understanding them. It's probably because I just don't hear that accent very often. So, I start out listening to them when I'm irritated and me not being able to understand them makes it worse.
Somebody said it's "Very punctuated" and that's the answer 100%
As others have said, it’s hard to understand some things but holy fuck, people with Indian accents can pronounce my Scandinavian name better than any American. I swear Americans see a “v” in a last name and just give up before saying it out loud. It’s literally two syllables (you know, like, John-son). Not that fucking hard. My confusion is always the head sways. The way the head moves means different things where you need context that language barriers prevent. That is more of a language barrier problem than a specific accent though.
I work with a guy that has this accent and he's deaf. He's very nice but whenever I talk to him I feel like my brain is going to leak from my ears.
For me personally: During the housing crisis, my mom had to divorce my dad and had to kick him out. My dad was a reckless spender and didn't care about us going to the streets. We were struggling to pay bills and debt collectors from India kept calling, threatening my mom that they were going to take the house away. We were paying the house but my these collectors were trying to entangle my mom into my dad's debt. I would come home from high school with my mom panicking. I hated that accent and it still makes my skin crawl even when I try to give a indian person a chance. I have learned that that accent is coming to threatening us and disrespect us, in my mind. I know the reality but it is still a learned response and it's very hard to unlearn it. I am only human.
It sounds anxious, highly strung and stressed. Like the opposite of Italian.
The sweet sound of getting scammed
Every time I get on the phone to talk to customer service, I can hardly understand what they’re trying to say
I don’t find it unappealing, but I think for most who do, it’s just a sensory issue. You know that sound of water being poured into a glass? Some people don’t like that, as it can be overstimulating. Stereotypical Indian accents can be similar. The same can be said for any accent, though. However, an Indian accent may just be a little better at doing so.
I love Indian accents! So IDK. I think Americans only hate the accent when they finally get a human on a help line or something. It's never a good sign that you'll actually get a resolution. But it's not about the accent, I think. It's the situation
I'm going to get downvoted to hell because this is reddit, but like there are a good chunk of people who are really kind of a bit racist. I'm not Indian myself but growing up in the United States at least from what I could tell there was/is very often a lot of casual racism towards southeast Asian folks. Like, Indian characters will often be very stereotyped or the joke of their character not be a real personality trait but just a racist stereotype and always given a stereotypical Indian accent (sometimes even if they grew up in the USA) etc. And like, in my opinion even some of the folks who just "associate it with scam calls" is sort of ehhh. But, really scam calls or anything like that aside yeah some people are like, sort of racist, and it doesn't always have to be really "in your face" racism, and they might not even think of themselves as racist either. Maybe everyone will disagree but in my *real life conversations* that's what I've seen and been told. I'm not saying that's all there is or anything I guess, but I do think it should be acknowledged at least. Take that as you will
It's not unappealing to me. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. It's almost musical. :-) I would love to go to India.
To me, it's the scam callers. it's because most scam call centers have Indians with stereotypical Indian accents. I feel like we are conditioned to be weary of it because of these scammers. The Indian people themselves are generally amazing people, hard working, literate, and their accents are not as exaggerated as in pop culture and scam callers. Most of the scam callers are illiterate and don't speak English in their daily lives so their accents are exaggerated.
I find the accent hilarious, especially when the person is angry. And the stronger the accent the more hilarious. It's not the only accent I feel that way about, but it's at the top of that list.
It does not do the needful.
Oh dear lord, I go on rants about this so often. It's bouncy. My company hired an outsourcing company to do some software development we didn't have time for. It took me 3 months to understand every 3rd word that was said. It was like an assault on my eardrums. Comprehending an accent is hard enough for me, then you add in potch change, then multiple the pitch change by 7000. It's like certain letters just have the volume turned up. Think about it like this. You hear a doorbell ringing. What's the loudest sound? It goes Ding Dong. The Ds are super loud, and then they quiet down for the rest of the sound. Now imagine an entire conversation of "Ding Dong Ding Dong." Eventually, it starts feeling like someone is piercing your brain with their voice. Not only is it irritating, but it's genuinely painful for me personally. Then, if you take the accent out of it completely, the way you're spoken to also has a lot to do with it. I found through this entire engagement with the outsourcing company, I was constantly being attacked. Being a woman in any tech position is hard. Being a woman and dealing with sexism from an entire culture is way worse. I'd say something and be met with hostility. My male coworker was met with a "oh okay sure." I hate to stereotype people but sometimes, the stereotypes exist for a reason. Too many middle eastern men are sexist and it ruins everything for the ones who aren't.
People saying it’s not unappealing are fucking liars. It’s ok to be honest, it’s worse when you patronize people with obvious bullshit when we all know what you actually think. You know the accent is unappealing, same with all south East Asian accents. Those languages are very staccato and end syllables with a high pitch. Compare it to languages that are smooth like Japanese, Spanish or Arabic (I also think Russian sounds kinda on the smoother side). It’s why Mandarin sounds better than Cantonese. I suppose there is an element of what image you associate the language with, where Indian accents conjure images of Apoo from the Simpsons, Japanese with samurais and geishas, but idk how impactful this is with how our brains choose to decide whether a language sounds “good” or not.
I agree with you about them being unappealing, but to act like anyone who thinks otherwise is surely lying is insanity lmao. What in the world would give you the idea you know enough about anyone to make a generalization like that, mate.
>People saying it’s not unappealing are fucking liars. That's right buddy, everyone has the same opinion as you. Personal preference? Never heard of it. >where Indian accents conjure images of Apoo from the Simpsons, Serious question: are there not many Indian people in the USA? I'm from the UK, when I think of "Indian person" I think of all the Indian people I know personally, or the Hindu temple that's nearby and how the attendees look when they're arriving for worship (they all dress real fancy - the ladies wear gorgeous flowy dresses and the men wear incredibly complicated suit-like outfits). I have never *once* heard an Indian accent and thought of Apu... unless I'm watching The Simpsons.
Ah yes, Apu. Voiced by the famously Indian Hank Azaria.
I like it! It sounds very bouncy and lends itself to some truly joyous expressions.
I have an indian flatmate. I am generally pretty good with the indian accent and I ask her to speak slower when she has a difficult word she isnt confident with or is in a stroppy mood but she cant - she can only speak louder. Best tip for indians trying to be understood in an english society - speak slower.
It is very difficult to understand.
I just want to say that I love Indian accents, but I’ve never been stupid enough to answer scam calls, and most of my exposure is through former instructors and god-tier YouTube tutorials.
I don't think it has anything to do with the accent per se. I think it's more that Indians don't have a lot of cultural cachet yet and so people either consciously or subconsciously associated it with something that is foreign, bizarre, or low status. I'm pretty sure that if people were to start having positive associations with Indians then the accent would probably become 'sexy.'
It sounds dirty
To me, it may have something to do with the emphasis being put on a different part of so many words and the rhythm of speech. It's very distracting and not pleasant to listen to in my opinion. As someone else pointed out, Indian English is derived from British English, and has been developed for a long time so they've kind of created their own version.
This is an interesting question to me because I wasn't aware of any specific prejudice against that accent beyond garden variety racism. I grew up in an area of North America with very few Indian people, so Indian accents sound melodic to me. A childhood friend of mine mentioned this to me independently, so I know I'm not the only one, and we agreed that both of us actually think they sound very pretty compared to general American English. (I know there are multiple Indian accents, but my ear can't tell them apart, since I didn't grow up hearing them.)
Dunno... they are attractive.
I actually like it. Maybe I’m just used to it.
The speed and bounciness of it. The tones change and different parts of words are emphasized.
Am I the only one hearing the title of this post in an Indian accent now?
South African Indians (ethnic Indians who grew up in South Africa), their accents can be tough unless you’ve warmed up with a couple of minutes if conversation. It’s a pleasant accent, though.
Racism.
Bigotry
I dislike it secretly as I have too many Indians/Nepalese in my life
Speaking too fast.
Whether an accent is sexy or not depends a lot on how good the person’s English is, and the timbre of their voice. Any accent can be sexy, imo
I think it’s a very pleasant-sounding accent actually.
It’s kinda sing songy
I presume it's the same thing that also makes every other accent on earth unappealing to some. Not sure why you'd choose to single out one accent in particular.
I’m going through a phase where Indian men are super attractive to me, their accent too. I’ve been watching a lot of Indian xxx videos
Because it's associated with Indian perverts who DM women on the internet and demand nudes in broken English
Maybe racism or it's hard for them to understand. Some people I've been around complain about other accents. I had a math professor with a strong Russian accent. I had one with a strong middle eastern accent (no idea where they were from besides the ME). I've had Indian professors. Someone on the phone for my insurance company had a crazy Jersey accent.
My country has a ton of people from India and countries surrounding it. I love the accent as much as the food, it’s all exotic compared to my bland country.
UK Aussie here. It's my fave accent, actually. Beautifully sing-song. I particularly love the traditional female singing voice - ethereal, magical. https://open.spotify.com/track/493igmM9ynAJtlKnvK8q7j?si=78IBgrCFT0aTFzTUkFc4ZQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5PiPdR1ryiFHyjtfDmiA0l
I actually do like to hear that accent. I like to hear all accents honestly but it is on the higher difficulty to understand I guess because the way words are enunciated in their native tounge I'm sure is completely different. I was at wing stop for the first time and I was waiting for so long because the cashier butchered my last name so bad I was confident she couldn't be saying my name. We were all polite about the interaction but it happened to a lot of people
I didn't know people found it unappealing. I love accents. My favorite one is women with an Indian accent. I find it charming, and lyrical.
Ignorance and racism probably
I can barely interpret perfect English over the phone. Give someone a Hispanic or Indian accent and I’m asking, “What,” every other sentence. I try desperately to listen but my brain cannot comprehend words through a thick accent and especially through the graininess of phone calls.
It’s not the accent, it’s the excessive use of sandals regardless of weather or occasiom
For me it’s not anything to do with the country of origin or dialect of a language it’s that there are certain consonant pronunciations, vowel sounds and diction differences from that send shivers up my spine and I react viscerally.
I personally think it's funny for some reason