Hybridity in Nepalese English

Abstract

With its unprecedented spread globally, English has been diversified, nativized, and hybridized in different countries. In Nepal, English is code-mixed or hybridized as a result of its contact with the local languages, the bilinguals’ creativity, and the nativization by Nepalese English speakers. This qualitative content analysis paper attempts to describe hybridity in Nepalese English by bringing the linguistic examples from two anthologies of stories, two novels, five essays and two articles written in English by Nepalese writers, one news story published in the English newspaper, advertisements/banners, and diary entries, which were sampled purposively. The present study showed that hybridity is found in affixation, reduplication, compounding, blending, neologisms, and calques. Pedagogically, speakers of Nepalese English can utilize linguistic hybridization as a powerful tool to nativize English in the local contexts, exhibit hybrid identities and linguistic co-existence, exercise their bilingual linguistic creativity, reduce their linguistic anxiety, and maximize the linguistic economy.