Butler English

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Butler English, also known as Bearer English or Kitchen English, is a dialect of English that first developed as an occupational dialect in the years of the Madras Presidency in India, but that has developed over time and is now associated mainly with social class rather than occupation.^[1] It is still spoken in major metropolitan cities.

The name derives from its origins with butlers, the head servants of British colonial households, and is the English that they used to communicate with their masters.

Butler English persisted into the second half of the 20th century, beyond the independence of India, and was subject to southern influence in its phonology, in particular the substitution of [je] for [e] and [wo] for [o], leading to distinctive pronunciations of words such as "exit" and "only".

Here is an example of Butler English (a butler reporting his being invited to England):

One master call for come India ... eh England. I say not coming. That master very liking me. I not come. That is like for India — that hot and cold. That England for very cold.

— See Hosali and Aitchinson 1986 in Further reading.

Another example, now famous amongst Indian English linguists, is the one given by Schuchardt (see Further reading), which is a nurse, an ayah, describing the butler's practice of secretly taking small amounts of milk for himself from his master's household:

Butler's yevery day taking one ollock for own-self, and giving servants all half half ollock; when I telling that shame for him, he is telling, Master's strictly order all servants for the little milk give it — what can I say ma'am, I poor ayah woman?