WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Texas A&M University-Commerce
The article discusses patterns of word-formation which are specifically characteristic of Pakistani English, providing ample documentation from a variety of indigenous sources. In particular, attention is paid to compounding, affixation, conversion, back-formation, clipping, abbreviation/acronyms, and blends. Also, results of
an acceptability test of select word-formations are reported.
1.
Introduction
The present paper examines the linguistic processes of word-formation in
Pakistani English (PakE), a "non-native" variety of South Asian English
(SAE)-(for SAE see Kachru 1982 and Baumgardner, ed. 1996; for PakE see
Talaat 1988, Rahman 1990 and Baumgardner, ed. 1993).1 This paper will
concentrate on "institutionalized" PakE usages, i.e. those forms which have
become part of the PakE lexicon and hence occur with regularity in both the
speech and writing of educated Pakistani users of English; ephemeral, playful
1) The present paper is a much-expanded version of the paper "Creativity in Pakistani
newspaper English" co-authored with Audrey E. H. Kennedy and presented at the 22nd Annual
TESOL Meeting, Chicago, 1988. I would like to thank specifically the following people for
their invaluable input to this work: Audrey E. H. Kennedy, Braj B. Kachru, M. Amin Butt,
Ahmed Afzal, Gauher Rashid Gauher, Alamgir Hashmi, and Mohammad Pervaiz. I would also
like to thank countless Pakistani students and colleagues with whom I discussed much of the
data presented in this work. Finally, thanks also go to "word-formation-walla" Manfred Gorlach
for advice and much encouragement in the completion of this paper. All inaccuracies are, of
course, my own.
English World-Wide 19:2 (1998), 205-246. DOI 10.1075/eww.l9.2.04bau
ISSN 0172-8865 / E-ISSN 1569-9730 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
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ROBERT J. B A U M G A R D N E R
usages will be touched upon only peripherally.2 Because PakE is a secondlanguage, non-native variety of English and functions within a multilingual
context in Pakistan, any discussion of word-formation in this variety must
also include an analysis of processes which extend beyond the internal wordformation resources of the English language. Therefore, also included here
is a discussion of established hybrid word-formations, which have resulted
from the contact of English with Pakistani languages, principally Urdu. It is
hence hoped that the present paper will serve not only as an analysis of the
word-formation processes of the PakE lexicon but will also serve to a limited
extent as a partial record of the lexicon itself.
Data for my analysis is based upon English-language daily and weekly
newspapers published in the Pakistani cities of Islamabad (Punjab), Karachi
(Sind), Lahore (Punjab), Peshawar (North Western Frontier Province), and
Quetta (Balochistan) for a seven-year period (1986-1992).3 The data in
Section 2 will be analyzed utilizing the terminology found in the outline of
English word-formation by Bauer (1983:201-40); for clarification of specific
points, reference will also sometimes be made to other frameworks. Word-
2) No claim is made that the examples are exclusive to Pakistan; in fact, some go back to
British India and are found in word-lists of Indian English as well. For example some of the
lexemes in this paper also appear in Nihalani, Tongue and Hosali (1979), e.g. externment,
free ship, rewardee, and upgradation; the scope of that seminal work was, however, much wider
than word-formation.
3) Data in this paper is taken from the following daily, weekly, and monthly publications:
BT=(Balochistan Times, Quetta); D=(Dawn, Karachi [Dak Edition]); D/L=(Dawn, Lahore);
DE=(The Democrat, Islamabad [defunct]); DN=(Daily News, Karachi); FP=(The Frontier Post,
Peshawar); FP/L=(The Frontier Post, Lahore); FR=(Friday Review, Lahore [The Nation]);
H=(Herald, Karachi); HO=(Horizons, Lahore [The Frontier Post]; KM= (Khyber Mail,
Peshawar [defunct]); M=(The Muslim, Islamabad); MA=(Midasia, Islamabad [defunct]);
MAG=(Mag, Karachi); MC=(Men's Club, Karachi); MN=(Morning News, Karachi [defunct]);
N=(The Nation, Lahore); N/I=(The Nation, Islamabad); NL=(Newsline, Karachi); NT=(Nation
Today, Karachi); NS/K=(The News, Karachi); NS/L=(The News, Lahore); FO=(Pakistan
Observer, Islamabad); PT=(The Pakistan Times, Lahore); S=(The Star, Karachi); T=(The
Tribune, Karachi [defunct]); FT=(The Friday Times, Lahore); TR=(Tuesday Review, Lahore
[Dawn]); V=(Viewpoint, Lahore [defunct]); WE=(Weekend Magazine, Lahore [The News]);
WP=(WeekendPost, Lahore [The Frontier Post]); Y=(You, Lahore [The News]). Citations dated
1986, 1987, and through August 1988 are from newspapers purchased in Quetta; citations after
August 1988 are from newspapers purchased in Lahore. Citations of words in Appendixes 1-2
sometimes differ from in-text citations.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
207
formation processes discussed include: compounding (2.1), affixation (2.2),
conversion (2.3), back-formation (2.4), clipping (2.5), abbreviation/acronyms
(2.6), and blends (2.7). Comprehensive lists of data (Appendixes 1 and 2)
accompany discussions of compounds (2.1) and affixation (2.2); however,
because of length considerations, I will discuss only representative data from
these lists. Forms containing Urdu in the appendixes and throughout the
paper have been glossed for readers' convenience. In Section 3 of the paper,
I report on the results of a questionnaire on the grammaticality of select
word-formations as well as discuss what light PakE can shed on wordformation in general and where it fits into the ENL:ESL:EFL distinction
(Gorlach 1989). Section 4 of the paper contains concluding remarks.
2.
Analysis
2.1. Compounding
Compound forms are words made up of two or more free elements. As
Bauer (1983: 201-2) points out, compounds are normally classified according
to the function (noun, adjective, adverb, etc.) that they perform in a sentence.
Sub-classification of each type, however, can be either structural (Bauer
1983) or semantic (Marchand 1969), while some linguists use a combination
of both (Adams 1973). In an endocentric noun compound — the prototypical
type — the first element can vary (noun, adjective, adverb, particle, etc.), but
the second element is always a noun; an adjective compound therefore is one
in which the first element again may vary, but the second is invariably an
adjective. Appendix 1 contains a select group of PakE noun (two- and threeitem), pronoun, verb and adjective compounds, both English forms as well
as hybrid English-Urdu and Urdu-English forms.
As in other varieties of English, noun compounds in PakE by far
outnumber other types of compounds. While some of the English noun
compounds in Appendix 1 may be comprehensible to speakers of other
varieties of English, many will be transparent only to native PakE users or
those familiar with the variety. Non-transparent forms may include: camel
kid, a young boy sent to the Middle East for use as jockeys in camel races,
apparently because they are light and more importantly their shrill cries of
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
terror during the races make the camels run faster: "19,000 camel kids
smuggled to Arab Emirates" (PO 8 Jul 92:1/1); chocolate hero, a boyishly
attractive film hero; heavy amount, a large amount of money: "After deliberations in the Cabinet meeting, he formulated a policy to return first amounts
of small depositors and then holders of heavy amounts gradually" (N 9 Sep
91:14/2); loot sale, large sale of surplus goods; Muslim shower, a hose and
nozzle which provides water in toilets in Muslim countries; shpotingball, a
game in which balls are fired from a gun at a figure target; side-hero/
heroine, a supporting actor/actress; soft-corner ('soft spot), a caique from
Urdu narm goshaa: "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has shown a soft corner
for one of his ministers who resigned early this week from the Ministry of
Youth Affairs" (FP/L 10 Aug 91:1/2), and wheelcup, a hub-cap: "The
opposition is so suspicious towards us that they blame the government even
if they lose the wheelcups of their cars" (PT 19 Aug 91:11/4).
Two lexemes from Appendix 1 — childlifter and rickshaw-wallah —
are representative of two very productive compounding patterns in PakE. A
"lifter" is a thief: "A child lifter, Abdul Karim, made an attempt to kidnap
two minor children at Kambar Mohalla, Tando Bago" (D 28 Feb 88:5/3).
Other "lifters" include: autorickshaw lifters (FP 4 Jan 86:2/3), bicycle lifters
(N 12 Jul 88:3/7), baby lifters (PT 23 Dec 90:4/8), book lifters (N 13 Mar
92:3/3), camel lifters (FP/L 20 Sep 89:3/7), car lifters (D/L 9 Aug 90:1/4),
goat lifters (D/L 9 Aug 90:1/4), luggage lifters (D/L 13 Nov 89:4/8),
motorcycle lifters (D/L 24 Dec 90:3/8), shoe lifters (FP/L 1 Aug 92:5/4), taxi
lifters (S 20 Feb 88:2/3), vehicle lifters (D 9 Feb 88:8/7), wagon-lifters (N 21
Feb 88:3/3) and wire lifters (NS/L 13 Sep 91:3/1). It is possible that these
formations are modeled after cattle-lifter (N 23 Jan 89:3/1), which is cited
(1860) in the Oxford English Dictionary (Simpson and Weiner, eds. 1989,2:
994). The only other "lifter" compounds in BrE and AmE are bottle-cap
lifter and shop-lifter (Lehnert 1971), both semantically different from the
cattle-lifter type in which the first noun in the compound is the item being
stolen or lifted.
The OED (19:852) cites wallah (also spelled walla, wala, and walah
and also used in the feminine form wall) as Anglo-Indian and deriving from
the Hindi adjective suffix -wala meaning 'pertaining to or connected with'.
In its substantive usage, wallah is attached to nouns and indicates 'one who
does sth.'; hence, a rickshaw-wallah is one who drives a rickshaw and a
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
209
balloonwalla is one who sells balloons: "This baloonwalla has chosen an
ideal place to prepare the stuff' (DE 5 June 1990: 2/3). Wallah, like -lifter,
is found in a wide range of contexts: "The 'Censorship Walas' were just
obeying the orders of those who have decided to reform the society of 'see
no evil, hear no evil, say no evil'" (N 22 Aug 91:7/6). Other attested wallas
include: boxwalla (N 16 Jul 90:11/1); coachwallas (N Midweek 7 Aug
91:8/2); competition walla (N 16 Jul 90:11/1); donkey-cart-walla (T 6 July
1989:6/1); exam centre walla (MAG 14 Sep 89:9/1); film industry wallah
(WP 10 Apr 92:4/2); law-and-order-walla (N 27 Aug 91:7/4); pushcartwallah (D/L 25 Jun 89:4/5); soda-water-bottle-opener-wallah (MAG 2 Apr
92:21/5); and walkie-talkie wallah (N 11 Aug 89:6/5). Wallah is also very
productive in Urdu, and Urdu wallah formations are often used in PakE; a
gawala is one who tends cows (gao) and a paniwala is one who sells water
(pani): "The paniwalla is the preferred source of delivering the booti
[answers] to the candidates" (N 1 Sept 91:1/4).
Within compounds Bauer (1983:203) further distinguishes the subcategory
"appositional compound". In one productive type of appositional compound in
BrE and AmE "the first element marks the sex of the person" (ibid.), for example
boy-friend, manservant or woman doctor. In PakE the last pattern is very
common, except that the lexeme "lady" is used in place of "woman": "According
to details a police party raided the notorious narcotic den in Mohallah Bakhri and
arrested alleged drug traffickers, Sakina and her daughter, Aasia, former lady
teachers and lady telephone operators" (MN 13 Jan 91:3/8). A Pakistan
Times headline in December of 1988 read "Lady Drug Trafficker Held in
City" (PT 14 Dec 88:10/7). Other instances include: lady ad-hoc lecturers
(PT 25 May 89:5/7); lady complainant (M 24 Apr 91:5/6); lady councillor
(NS/L 4 Aug 91:2/4); lady doctor (PT 3 Jul 91:5/2); lady entrepreneurs (PT
4 Sep 88:10/7); lady medical officers (M 5 Jun 91:9/6); lady newscaster
(MAG 28 Nov 91:5/3); lady passers-by (FP/L 13 Aug 91:3/5); lady police
(FP/L 29 Jul 91:5/2); lady reporter (PT 28 Jun 91:1/3); lady telephone
operator (D/L 16 Nov 90:6/1); and ex-lady MPA [Member of the Punjab
Assembly] (DE 8 Aug 90:3/6). Two fixed "lady" compounds in PakE are
lady wife and house lady. "Lady wives" are wives of military personnel and
a "house lady" is a housewife: "An attempt to rob a family was foiled here
the other day due to the presence of mind of a house lady and the culprits
were overpowered and handed over to the police" (N 25 Oct 87:3/6).
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Bauer (1983:204) likewise includes in appositional compounds formations like jazz-rock. In PakE compounds of this type include tractor-trolley
("The two years old son of a fruit vendor was crushed under the wheels of
a tractor-trolley near Shahdara on Monday" [N 6 Feb 92:2/5]) and the group
coat-trousers, knicker-shirt and pant-shirt. The latter three compounds are
Western dress terms fashioned after the Urdu word shalwar-khamis, the
Pakistani national dress: "The gun-slinging young men wearing pant-shirts
arrived at the Clinic" (D 18 Feb 88:8/5). Suited-booted is a PakE (and Urdu)
appositional adjective compound: "Nusrat Ali Shah, one of the "suitedbooted" (as people in three-piece suits are called in Urdu) members of the
former assembly, was less keen on talking politics" (M 20 Sep 89:3/4). A
final type of PakE appositional compound is bed sheet (Nihalani, Tongue and
Hosali 1979), where one of the elements in the compound is semantically
redundant (in this case bed): "As a result patients were lying on beds
exposed to severe risk of getting some infectious diseases because of the
dirty bed sheets" (FP/L 8 Jun 92:2/3). Hybrid appositional compounds, in
which the second noun is either an English or Urdu translation of the first,
can also be pleonastic, e.g. challan ticket, (challan 'ticket'), and fruit mandi
market, (mandi 'market'): "They will bring me a number which I shall bring
back to him after which he will issue me a challan ticket" (N 12 Dec 91:7/2).
As can be seen from Appendix 1, the majority of PakE noun compounds are of the Noun+Noun and Adjective+Noun type. Other types include
rank reduction (Kachru 1983:136), which can be regarded as postmodifications with of derived from two-item compounds, e.g. PakE cattle head, 'head
of cattle', baggage piece, 'piece of baggage', matchbox, 'box of matches'
and perfume bottle, 'bottle of perfume'. "The district police launched a
vigorous drive against cattle-lifting and recovered stolen cattle heads worth
about Rs. 2.5 lakh and arrested 24 members of the gangs" (PT 24 Oct
86:9/6). Goodself is a PakE compound pronoun and serves as a polite form:
"THE PUNJAB HEALTH DEPARTMENT requests the pleasure of the
company of your goodself alongwith your young children at the nearest
vaccination centres for immunization against fatal diseases..." (M 15 May
86:1/7). Some common PakE three-item compounds and collocations include
fair price shop, government price-controlled shops in which items of daily use
[staples] can be bought, fixed-spot hawkers, and chaddar-laying ceremony, a
ceremony in which an embellished cover (chaddar) is placed over a coffin.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
211
There is also the pen-down strike and the tool-down strike, where workers go
to work but do not work, and the wheel-jam strike in which transport comes
to a complete halt: "Earlier, a five-hour wheel-jam strike on Thursday night
disturbed the whole train schedule" (FP/L 18 May 1992: 3/2). Multiple-word
compounds are also frequently formed using the Latin preposition cum
('with') — the type is widespread in International English, but seems to be
particularly frequent in South Asian English both in Pakistan and in India:
"Dacoits-cum-rapists still at large" (FP/L 27 Mar 92:3/1); driver-cumsalesman (D 27 Jun 88:4/3); hired assassin-cum-dacoit (MN 28 Jan 87:3/1);
kidnapping-cum-robbery (M 18 Apr 90:1/6); palmist-cum-quack (N 20 Mar
89:4/3); and "Gul Muhammad starts work at 5 in the morning, at a small
workshop-cum-factory where they make marble tiles or chips or something.
He works as their odd-job man-cum-assistant-cum-peon-cum-chowkidar
[watchman]" (N 27 Oct 90:5/2).
Typical PakE compound verbs include:4 to airdash 'to depart quickly
by air', to head-carry 'to carry on the head' and to love-marry: "A youth,
who was taunted repeatedly by his kins for having love-married his girlfriend, shot and injured his aunt, uncle and two cousins at his house in Misri
Shah here on Friday" (D/L 30 Mar 91:2,4/4). Compound adjectives include:
country-made 'locally made', riba [interest] free, over-clever 'smart-alecky':
"When challenged by the young polling agent, the SHO [Station House
Officer] told her not to be over-clever and threatened to turn her out of the
station" (FP/L 26 Oct 90:3/4), and soft-cornered: "There are also reports that
some 'soft-cornered' Senators may also be inducted in the cabinet" (PO 26
Jun 90:12/2).5
4) For comparison, it may be noteworthy that in BrE the N+V type exists only as backformations (typewrite < typewriter).
5) There is a group of common hybridized PakE noun compounds (not included in Appendix
1) whose etymology is not always entirely clear. These include kochwan, kundiman, numberdar~lumbardar, and malgodown. A kochwan in PakE is the driver of a tonga, a horse-drawn
buggy: "It was, however, passers-by, cyclists, motorcyclists, scooterists, rickshaw walas, tonga
kochwans and wagon drivers who mainly responded to Edhi's clarion call" (N 27 Sep 91:5/8).
Qureshi (1989) labels kochwan (and alternate form kochban) as English and translates it as
'coach-driver'; Singh (1895/1983) translates the word as 'coachman' and calls it a corruption
of the English word. A kundiman in PakE is a person who cleans gutters; they are also known
as gutterwallas (N Eid Special 5 Apr 92:3/8): "Meanwhile, sewer cleaning work was carried
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
2.2. Affixation
2.2.1 Suffixation
Suffixation is a very productive category of word-formation in PakE.
Appendix 2 contains a select list of common PakE words formed through
suffixation. The list identifies words formed with English as the base word
as well as words with Urdu (or in a few cases a regional language) as the
base to which an English suffix is added.
English-based formations are in most instances unremarkable, in the
sense that they follow established rules of word-formation and could hence
be found in any variety of English. Some of the words, in fact, are cited by
the OED as rare or obsolete or forms used in British regional varieties of
English, e.g. evictee, collegianer ("a collegianer, was standing..." FP/L 19
Mar 92:16/6), oftenly, weighment, cowardness, and lecturership. It is
difficult to determine if words such as these are cases of colonial lag or new
formations, since historical information on PakE is lacking. The majority of
out through machines and kundimen thereby easing the problem of overflowing gutters in these
localities ..." (D 17 Jan 88:2/8). Kundiman is a combination of the Urdu word for hook
[kaanTaa], presumably after the hook on the end of the sticks with which sewermen clean, plus
the English morpheme -man. The OED defines the Anglo-Indian word lambardar as the
registered headman of an Indian village, formed from the English word number plus the
Urdu/Persian suffix -dar meaning 'possessor of. Whitworth (1885/1981) terms lumberdar a
corrupt form of numberdar. In Pakistan, both forms of the word are still in use and refer to
either a low-level government official or a prisoner in the so-called lumbedari system: "One
cannot expect a banker in the private sector to allocate loans on the recommendation of a
lumberdar, a low level government official" (N 5 Apr 92:6/1) and "Juvenile prisoners have
provided harrowing details of crimes committed either by or at the behest of lumberdars, the
so-called 'responsible' people appointed from among inmates to share the burden of administration" (N 27 Mar 91:6/1). Like many Urdu borrowings in PakE, numberdar can be pluralized
either with an English or an Urdu (Persian) -an plural: "Political gatherings like the convocation of numberdaran was held a couple of months back which ushered in thousands of
numberdars and their supporters" (NS/L 5 Apr 91:7/7) — see Baumgardner, Kennedy and
Shamim (1993) for a detailed discussion of the grammatical aspects of Urdu borrowings in
PakE. Finally, the PakE word malgodown means a warehouse or store for goods: "They were
standing on the bye-pass road near Railway malgodown when Muhammad Zahid reappeared on
a motorcycle along with two others" (PT 29 Jul 90:2/6). The word is composed of the Urdu
word mal 'goods' plus the word godown, which the OED and Yule and Burnell (1886/1985)
cite as probably coming from Malay gadang via Telugu and/or Tamil; earlier gadangs were
often subterranean, hence the folk etymology godown.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
213
the English-based forms in Appendix 2 do not appear in the OED or in
major AmE dictionaries; in some instances, however, related forms are
attested — technicalize, for example, is cited in the OED, while technicalisation is not. In the following discussion of suffixation, I shall concentrate
on those words which have taken on special significance in the Pakistani context.
As can be seen from Appendix 2, the -ee suffix is very productive in
PakE. According to Marchand (1969:267), it originated in Anglo-Norman
law terminology, but it is now found in legal, quasi-legal as well as in
whimsical contexts (Bauer 1983: 244). A number of the PakE -ee words are
legalistic in tone and are associated with the "law and order situation" —
abscondee, affectee, afflictee, convictee, remandee, rewardee, and shiftee.
Others are found in the quasi-legal context of the "world of work": awardee,
recommendee, recruitee and promotee, while adultree is a whimsical usage.
Affectee is by far the most common PakE -ee formation, cf. blast affectees
(PT 13 Apr 88:1/1), canal breach affectees (M 17 Aug 90:6/3), earthquake
affectees (N 26 Jun 90:8/4), erosion affectees (FP/L 20 Aug 91:6/3), famine
affectees (MN 1 Jan 88:1/2), fire affectees (NS/L 2 Apr 91:8/6), flood
affectees (D/L 4 May 91:2,3/2), hail affectees (KM 8 Apr 87:3/1), investment
affectees (N 23 May 90:3/4), and riot affectees (MN 30 Aug 89:5/5), etc. A
special type of "riot affectees" are shiftees, or those affectees who must be
relocated to another area because of civil unrest: "Speaking on the occasion,
Mr Shahid Aziz, Commissioner Karachi, said that all the affectees would be
paid compensation. Each shiftee would get copies of the challan [order]
when they reach the new site and take possession of the plot" (D 26 Apr
87:1/7). The Gulf War also produced affectees: "Ejazul Haq Federal Minister
for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis has assured the Kuwait
affectees of Pakistan that government was taking adequate steps for their
speedy return to Kuwait to facilitate their reappointments on the jobs they
were on before the Gulf war" (NS/L 3 Aug 91:8/3). As Pakistani journalist
Nasir Abbas Mirza has noted about the proliferation of this word: "Other
countries have people or populations; we have only affectees. There isn't
one among us who is not an affectee of sorts. Those who are too poor to
attract the wiles of fellow men are done in by nature" (N/I 22 Sep 92:6/2).
Within the context of the Pakistani Civil Service, a promotee is someone with less education (e.g. a diploma holder) who is first appointed in a
lower grade and is then promoted to a gazetted grade (17 or above) as
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
opposed to a person (e.g. a university graduate) who is appointed directly in
Grade 17 as an officer. Hence, promotee does not mean someone who is
simply promoted, e.g. from grade 6 to 7, or 17 to 18; it is a negative social
label which indicates that the promotee is not qualified for the position,
which he/she received on the basis of sifaarish or "influence". The Urdubased -ee formation sifarashee is similar in meaning; as the editorial of The
Nation (Lahore) of 28 May 1988 wrote: "That surplus workers have been
recruited is indicative of the excesses of political pressure or sifarish. In a
number of cases new posts were created to accommodate sifarishees". The
PakE word recommendee also carries the idea of political patronage (see also
related compounds shoulder promotee and sifaarishi promotee in Appendix 1).
With respect to the three basic types of -ee formations structurally
distinguished by Marchand (1969:267-8) (expressing a direct object,
prepositional object, and subject relationship, respectively) the PakE -ee data
shows that the majority of -ee formations are of the direct object type, but
there is a significant number of subject formations as well (viz. abscondee,
defectee, indulgee and optee). One of the limitations on the base of words
suffixed with -ee is that the base must be a verb (Bauer 1983:245). All of
the PakE -ee data in Appendix 2 meet this criterion except for one notable
exception — ad hocee, which is formed with an adjective base: "Ad hocees
[a part-time or temporary employee] for regularisation" (FP/L 23 Jul 89:4/8).6
Aronoff (1976:43) has noted that if a word already exists in a language, it is unlikely that another word with the same meaning will be
formed, a principle he calls "blocking". It is interesting to note that six of the
-ee formations discussed above were not "blocked" in spite of already
existing words: convertee (convert), convictee (convict), recruitee (recruit),
defectee (defector), abscondee (absconder) and indulgee (indulger). However, only two of these items — abscondee and defectee — occur with great
frequency in my database and could therefore be considered "institutionalized"
6) Bauer (1983:244) notes that absentee may have been derived from an adjective. I do not
have ad hoc used as a verb in my data base, but Simpson and Weiner (eds. 1989,1:153) cite it
as a nonce word in BrE. The adjective ad hoc is, in fact, quite prolific in PakE. There are ad
hoc teachers, ad hoc lecturers, ad hoc doctors, ad hoc lady medical officers, all the result of,
according to not a few Pakistanis, the ad hocracy (N 20 Sep 89:3/3) and the ad hocism (FP/L
24 Dec 90:2/3) of their government. The OED's (1989,1:153) first citation for ad hocism (1968)
is from a South Asian source.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
215
(cf. Bauer 1983: 87-8). It is noteworthy that the proliferation of institutionalized PakE -ee words like affectee, afflictee, evictee, promotee, recommendee
and shifee has not gone unnoticed by Pakistanis themselves. Muslim (Islamabad) journalist N. A. Bhatti went so far as to suggest even more additions
to the ever-growing PakE -ee word stock: "As the law and order situation in
the country is the burning topic of the day, it occurred to me that we must
not miss the opportunity of introducing words such as bombee, swindlee,
tear-gassee and lathi-chargee" (Bhatti 1991:7). The fact that some of these
lexemes duplicate existing BrE words may be taken to illustrate the predicament of ESL writers who, not having the full lexicon available, may coin
words on occasion (Gorlach 1989:297-8).
Another suffix which is very productive in PakE is -(i)er with a wide
rank of meanings: denter (FP/L 21 Jul 91:2/5), daily wager (NS/L 14 Feb
92:9/5), eveninger (PO 3 Mar 90:1/5), eve-teaser (M 26 Jun 90:3/4), historysheeter (M 22 Apr 90:1/7), forklifter (MAG 6 Feb 92:14/5), morninger (DN
4 Jun 88:1/4), neighbourer (NS/L 12 Sep 91:3/1), old-ager (D 2 Feb 88:8/6)
and one-dayer (N 25 Sep 91:11/2). A denter is a person who "removes"
dents from a car: "I had to go to my denter to get the car repaired but when
I reached the workshop, it was being closed down" (FP/L 7 Mar 92:7/3). A
denter in AmE is a "bodyman", "metalman", or the more formal "auto body
technician". To dent in PakE has therefore been extended to mean, in
addition to putting dents into something, taking dents out of something:
"Ustad Baba says that he wants Noor's life to be secure, so he pays extra
attention to him while teaching him the art of denting" (FP/L 15 Apr 91:5/6).
Consider also N. A. Bhatti's (1991:7) comments on denting'. "... my car
mechanic's detailed repair and maintenance bill ... had an item 'Denting. Rs
200'. What the hell, a foreigner might think; the chap bashes in your car and
charges you Rs 200 for it! However, if he knew even a smattering of
Penglish [a blend of P(akistani)+English], he would understand that 'denting'
in this country does not mean causing a dent but removing it".
A daily wager is a person who works on a daily-hire basis and an eveteaser a youth who harasses girls (cited by Barnhart 1984:54); a housejobber is a doctor serving an internship (a house job) and an old-ager a
'senior citizen'. A one-dayer is a one-day cricket match, and morningers and
eveningers are newspapers published in the morning and evening, respectively: "After completing 16 months of publication, The Pakistan Observer,
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
hitherto an Eveninger of Islamabad, despite heavy odds, is very shortly
switching over to full-fledged Morninger of standard size with enlarged
editorial set-up and expanded circulation network" (PO 3 Mar 90:1/5). A
history-sheet in PakE is a criminal record (cf. BrE charge-sheet and AmE
rap sheet/yellow sheet); hence a history-sheeter is a person with a criminal
record: "I am told that nearly 10 to 15 per cent of the Members of the
Punjab Assembly are history-sheeters which means that police stations must
have record of their criminal activities" (M 24 Aug 91:4/6). Collegianer,
comperer, forklifter and neighbourer are again formations "which were not
"blocked" (Aronoff 1976:43), since -er-less variants exist (collegian,
compère, forklift and neighbour). The feminine form of the -er suffix is used
with more frequency in PakE than in native varieties of English. In the
following tender notice, gender is in fact marked twice: "Sealed tenders, only
from female contractress, are invited for running canteen at hostel F.J.M.C.
Lahore" (FP/L 18 Jun 90:4/8). Derivations with -ess and "lady" compounds
are often used interchangeably. An article in the Pakistan Times of 4 July
1987 carried the headline "Lady teacher abducted, mother looted in Sialkot";
the article went on to relate: "The accused also allegedly deprived Noor
Jehan, mother of the abducted teachress, of gold ornaments and cash of Rs.
77,000 at gun point" (PT 4 Jul 87:8/1).
The suffixes -ian and -ite are utilized in both English-based as well as
Urdu-based formations primarily to indicate affiliation with an organization,
political party, educational institution, or residence in a particular Pakistani
city. A Pipian or PPPian is a member of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, a
Jhangian is a resident of the city of Jhang, which is located in the Punjab
north of Lahore, and a Formanite is someone affiliated with Forman
Christian College in Lahore. The suffixes -il-y, -ish, -less, -ness, -like, -ly,
and -wise are used in both English- and Urdu-based formations as primarily
descriptive words, hence maliky means 'like a malik, or chief; wheatish
(also in IndE) indicates the color of wheat and is frequently used in matrimonials in the classified section of newspapers to describe skin color:
"UNMARRIED Sunni, 30 years, B.Sc, Urdu speaking, medium height,
wheatish complexion, household master, requires Sunni, independent,
educated and established with complete home address and telephone number" (D 20 Feb 87:12/1); meatless days are those days (previously Tuesdays
and Wednesdays) on which it was illegal to serve red meat; hijablessness is
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
217
the state of being without cover as applied to women in Islam: "Warning
against hijablessness of the face, body and legs, the notice listed eight types
of violation" (D/L 20 Apr 89:10/4); goonda-like is like a goonda, or thug;
and mohalla-wise is something which applies to a neighborhood (mohalla).
The suffixes -dom, -gate, -ise, -isation, -ism, -ist, -istic, -ocracy , and
-ship are often used with lexemes associated with particular political,
philosophical, or religious ideologies. Politics has added many neologisms,
both English- as well as Urdu-based, to the PakE lexicon, and a large
number of these — both English-based as well as Urdu-based — have also
been borrowed into Pakistani Urdu. It is often stated by Pakistani politicians
that there are no "isms" in Pakistan. The data in Appendix 2 contradict this
claim; every -ism formation has a direct or indirect political meaning:
brotherism and related Urdu-based biradirism refer to clan-dominated
politics, jobism to the practice of giving employment to clan members only,
and chaudryism (<chaudri), khanism (<khan), sardarism (<sardar), and
wadiraism (<wadera) to the rule of feudal lords in the Punjab, North West
Frontier Province, Balochistan, and the Sindh, respectively. The same applies
to the majority of the -ocracy lexemes: plotocracy refers to the practice of
awarding land to political cronies, begumocracy to the rule of a woman
(Benazir Bhutto), and waderacracy to the rule of Sindhi landlords: "The
source of all evils in our country — social, political or economic — is the
feudal system, the so-called 'Waderacracy' as opposed to democracy" (M 23
Jun 90:4/6). A number of the -ship lexemes also have political significance:
caretakership (as in "caretaker government"), headmanship, kingmakership,
Pathanship, and PM-ship (the abbreviation of "Prime Minister" + -ship). The
term upliftment (cited in the OED as chiefly subcontinental corresponding to
BrE/AmE uplifting) occurs with regularity in the phraseology of Pakistani
politics ("Tree plantation plays a vital role in the upliftment of the national
economy" [MN 20 Aug 87:3/2]) as does the term externment {to extern, or
expel, + -ment): "The Opposition in NWFP Assembly Wednesday strongly
criticised the PPP-led coalition government for serving externment orders on
IJI leader Senator Asif Fasihuddin Vardeg" (M 22 Jun 89:1:2).7 The related
"law and order situation" has also spawned a number of characteristic terms:
agitationist, hooliganist, kidnapocracy, kalashnikovisation, and the hybrid
7) See also the section on "Conversion" for other forms with extern.
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
dakoocracy (dakoo, Sindhi 'bandit'): "True Muslim society cannot come into
being without putting an end to feudalism, nor does the country need the
'dakoocracy' of a few over the masses" (NS/L 8 Aug 91:12/6). A related
example is the lexeme pointation (formed after the Urdu feminine noun
nishaan dehii 'pointing out, identification'). It is used to indicate that
someone furnishes the information which leads to the arrest of a suspected
person: "During investigation the accused disclosed that he along with his
other accomplices had committed many thefts in various parts of the city. On
his pointation police conducted raid and arrested Nadeem Khalid while their third
accomplice Mohammad Nawaz, a driver, managed to escape" (N 9 Jan 88:3/6).8
Finally, a substantial number of formations based on the word mullah,
or Islamic priest, all indicate the political influence of the mullah in Pakistan:
mullahdom, Mullahgate (after the Watergate scandal), mullahism, and mullacracry: "If Pakistan had an irreverent tabloid press, the scandal now
gripping Islamabad would have headline writers hopping with delight.
'Mullahgate', they could trumpet" (NS/L 13 Nov 91:12/2). The inclusion of
Islamic laws (the Sharia) in the civil code is another issue in the Pakistani
political context; the editorial of Dawn (Lahore) of 4 August 1990 thus
opined: "The enactment of an all-embracing Shariat Bill — 'Shariatisation'
as it is sometimes called — [is not] a simple matter". Shariatisation would,
according to many Pakistanis, lead to chaddarism, or the state in which
women must wear a chaddar 'cover'. Two related -ocracy terms are Allahcracy and shooracracy, the latter coined by the late Pakistani President Ziaul-Haq "to characterize his regime and give it a democratic veneer" (Lemay,
Lerner and Taylor 1988:81). Urdu shoora (from Arabic) means 'advice,
consent or council': "Foiling General Zia's attempt at imposing shooracracy
in the country is a significant achievement of MRD [Movement for the
Restoration of Democracy]" (N 9 Jan 88:l/5). 9
2.2.2. Prefixation
Prefixes in PakE are used most productively with Urdu bases. Again, as in
the cases of Urdu bases plus English suffixes, many of these word-formations have also been borrowed into Pakistani Urdu. Productive prefixes
8) See Kennedy (1993) for a full discussion of the PakE "law and order" lexis.
9) See Baumgardner (1996) for a further discussion of innovation in PakE political lexis.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
219
include: anti-, as in anti-awami, or anti-people — both occur with regularity
in the rhetoric of the party out of power in Pakistan to describe the actions
of the party in power: "This objective could only be achieved if we make the
federation more strong and foil the conspiracies being hatched by the antiawami elements" (PT 30 Apr 89:1/4), anti-mullah (MAG 14 May 92:9/2)
and anti-Shariat ("He said that this decision was anti-shariat in spirit" [FP/L
23 Apr 91:12:4/5]); counter-, as in counter-fatwa: "Mufti Naeemi and a
number of Mullahs are embroiled in a strange controversy, bringing poor
Diana [the Princess of Wales] under the cross fire of fatwas and counterfatwas" (N 3 Oct 91:5/1); non-, as in non-Karachiite ("The Sindh government is maintaining the theory that Karachi police must be run by a nonKarachiite, having no experience of service in Karachi" [MAG 28 Sep
89:13/5]); and super-, as in super-chamcha (chamcha, literally 'spoon', also
means a 'sycophant' — "He also expressed pride in his capability of being
a super-chamcha" [PT Nov 89:10/8]).
The prefix de- is also very productive in PakE, often in instances where
BrE/AmE would use the prefix un-. Attested PakE forms include de-authorise: "The government, of course, could have de-authorised the Shariat Court
only by seeking cooperation from the Opposition in the passage of a pragmatic and unambiguous Bill on the subject" (N 11 Mar 92:6/5); de-block (D
3 Aug 89:4/2); de-confirm: "Sindh inspector general of police has deconfirmed 23 inspectors who were promoted out of turn" (NS/K 18 Dec 91:3/4);
de-friend: "DEAR PERPLEXED, If I were you, I would de-friend her" (Y 24
Sep 91:5/l-advice column); de-load: "List of telephone numbers F-I to be
converted into other numbers due to deloading of F-I exchange" (PT 4 Aug
86:5/5); de-market (N 12 Apr 91:9/1); de-recognise: "He asserted that
substandard institutions would in no way be recognised. Those not maintaining the standard would also be derecognised, he added" (D 29 Apr 87:6/2)
and the headline "Derecognition of IEP [Institute of Engineers of Pakistan]
condemned" (N 23 Jul 88:2/4); and de-shape: "Good News for Woolies! No
more stretching and deshaping of your woolen clothes" (D/L 23 Nov 88:1/1).
Note that de- coinages are also considered to be a hallmark of IndE (cf.
Nihalani, Tongue and Hosali 1979); it would be interesting to see which of
the items are shared.
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
2.3. Conversion
As in other varieties of English, conversion (or zero derivation) is a very
productive word-formation category in PakE. In conversion, one part of
speech changes to another, and according to Bauer (1983:226) for the most
part "conversion is a totally free process [which] any lexeme can undergo".
The majority of PakE conversions are adjective-to-noun. A front-page
headline of The Nation of 22 April 1991 read: "Corrupts to be removed from
PML [Pakistan Muslim League]". The vast majority of the conversions in
my data would not normally be found in either BrE or AmE. The above
headline would most likely read the corrupt in either variety. Other PakE
noun conversions from adjectives which occur with great frequency are
faithfuls'. "The number of those Pakistani faithfuls who will perform Umra
[lesser pilgrimage] in the Holy month of Ramzan will cross the figure of
120,000 this year" (PO 7 Apr 90:1/2); influential: "A gang of students led
by the teenaged son of a Sindhi influential shot dead a classfellow" (NL Feb
92:62/1); poors: "Political and social sectors have demanded the Government
to provide shelter to poors" (N 4 May 87:8/6); and unfaithfuls: "The resolution said that JUP was not the party of unfaithfuls and would stand beside
the Muslim League leadership in the hour of need" (N 11 May 92:1/3).
Adjective-to-noun conversions also occur in the singular; a headline from
The Nation of 7 March 1992 (2/4) read: "Every landless to be given 25
acres". Other attested conversions include: ad hocs (N 27 Feb 92:2/7),
abnormals (M 11 Feb 92:7/6), affluents (M 16 Apr 91:4/4), anti-socials (S
23 Oct 86:16/4), blinds (D/L 9 Jul 89:3/1), deads (N 13 Feb 88:1/7),
decadents (N 13 Feb 88:1/7), destitutes (N 13 Feb 88:1/7), downtroddens
(FP/L 9 May 91:2/4), formers (FP/L 9 May 91:2/4), fraudulents (FP/L 26
Feb 92:5/8), gratefuls (M 24 Aug 89:4/7), injureds (N 13 Nov 87:2/5), mads
(D 7 Feb 88:5/2), nears and dears (NS/L 9 Apr 91:3/2), olds (D 22 Dec
87:2/2), populars (M 24 Oct 88:5/7), respectables (PT 17 Oct 86:1/4),
responsibles (FP/L 10 Mar 92:5/1), rurals (N 11 Jan 91:12/4), slains (FP/L
1 Aug 90:1/3), and well-offs (M 19 Jun 90:3/5).
Sign is a PakE conversion from a verb to a noun. A University of
Balochistan Vehicle Request Form reads: "The user of the above Vehicle is
requested to please sign the log book on the completion of journey immediately, otherwise the indentor will be held responsible for the consequences
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
221
due to non-sign of the log book". A verb-plus-particle-to-noun conversion is
eat-out, an outside eatery: "Yet the administration has gone for bringing an
early end to city life by ordering closure of shops and business concerns at
8 pm. The only exemptions are restaurants, eat-outs, beetle and cigarette
shops and, of course, pharmacies" (FR 12 Jul 91:42). The noun conversion
made-easy comes from the phrase "x made easy" as found in titles of books
such as "Mathematics made easy": "Students bring out publications on
various occasions and collect advertisements from various regular advertisers.
These publications vary from souvenirs on college functions to made-easies
of different subjects" (MAG 14 Sep 89:8/5). Finally, the frequently-occurring noun conversion incharge also comes from a phrase, "in charge": "The
IG [Inspector General] ordered the arrest of the incharge of the Punishment
Cell and suspension of ten others, including security guards" (DE 23 Jun
90:1/3) and "The meeting was attended by all the zonal and sector incharges
and central leaders..." (NS/L 22 Mar 92:5/6).
PakE verb conversions are derived primarily from nouns. To extern from
the BrE noun extern ('outsider, one who does not belong to, reside in') is a
representative example (see also externment above): "The teaching staff of
the university expressed their sense of shock and distress over the fact that
some students externed from the university had forced their way into the Sir
Syed Hall" (PT 6 Jul 87:3/2). A related example is to ouster: "He said
though his decision to ouster NPP was unconstitutional and illegal, but he
would not appeal against the decision and he was very happy with the
decision" (FP/L 20 Mar 92:1/6). Noun-to-verb conversions from the aviation
industry include to aircraft and to airline: "Plans to aircraft the ailing
Khudai Khidmatgar leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, from New Delhi to
Peshawar tomorrow have been deferred in view of the sudden and unexpected improvement in his condition on Monday" (M 4 Aug 87:8/8) and "A new
destination, Khusdar, is being airlined for the first time with Karachi and
Quetta" (N 27 Oct 87:12/4). The "law and order situation" has yielded to
arson from a noun, as in "They questioned the Prime Minister as to how
many terrorist were killing, looting and arsoning the properties of Mohajirs
[immigrants from India] in Jamshoro and other parts of interior Sindh?" (M
2 Jun 90:8/8), as well as to chargesheet from the BrE noun chargesheet: "As
many as 40 employees of engineering branch of Municipal Corporation were
charge sheeted by the Mayor following different charges" (D 28 Feb 88:5/1).
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
When Benazir Bhutto married in 1987, the popular magazine Mag published
an article entitled "Benazir Better Halved" (6 Aug 87:16/1). Other attested
PakE noun-to-verb conversions include: to deadline (FP/L 5 Aug 91:4/1), to
firecracker (WP 4 Jan 91:8/4), to foulmouth (N 1 Dec 91:10/1), to hostage
(N 21 May 91:2/5), to pilferage (NS/L 30 Aug 91:20/6), to pot-shot (WE 28
Jun 91:3/2), to red-carpet (N 21 Feb 92:4/4), and to slogan (N 31 May
89:1/1).
A number of conversions are found in PakE which the OED cites as
archaic, rare, or obsolete usages, e.g. the lexeme aghast as a verb, labeled
"obsolete" (1596 citation). "What actually aghasted and infuriated me was
the fact that the food which could not occupy the stomach was treated in the
most abominable fashion" (MAG 5 Dec 91:46/5). Similarly, the OED cites
to coy as archaic (1828 citation): "There is a powerful lobby in Pakistan
today that says we should detonate a nuclear device and we should not coy
about it" (N 28 Apr 91:1/5), and to scarecrow meaning 'to frighten' (1593
citation) as obsolete: "Here're some more of awe inspiring, hair raising,
blood chilling and flesh creeping examples to scarecrow you away" (M
Magazine 28 Jun 91:7/4). Similar usages include: to creed (FP/L 22 Feb
92:16/2) [OED, 1652, obsolete]; to disrepute (NS/L 22 Mar 92:2/2) [OED,
1697, obsolete]; to influx (N 19 Jan 88) [OED, 1684/1710, obsolete/rare]; to
mischief (N 18 Jan 89:2/2) [OED, 1836, archaic]; to public (N 2 Dec 87:8/2)
[OED, 1570, rare/obsolete]; to sacrilege (FP/L 15 Feb 92:4/2) [OED, 1866,
rare]; to sympathy (PT 4 May 91:1/1) [OED, 1634, obsolete], to threat (NS/L
21 Jul 91:2/5) [OED, 1642, obsolete]; and to true (FP/L 17 Aug 91:16/4)
[OED, 1888, rare/obsolete]. It is unclear, as previously stated regarding PakE
suffixed forms, whether these are examples in PakE of neologistic conversions or colonial lag.
PakE also contains a substantial number of Urdu or bilingual noun-toverb conversions, i.e. Urdu nouns which are shifted to verbs in PakE. The
most well-known example of this process is the PakE verb to gherao, which
means 'to surround in protest': "Later several hundred persons gheraoed
Market Police Station, demanding immediate arrest of the robbers" (D 1 Feb
88:3/4). Gherao comes from the Urdu noun and verb with the same meaning
and is cited in both the OED as well as the Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Current English (Allen, ed. 1990). Another common bilingual conversion is
to challan (see also challanable discussed above). A challan (cited also in
W O R D - F O R M A T I O N IN PAKISTANI E N G L I S H
223
the OED) is a citation: "The traffic police in its campaign challaned 237
drivers for violation of traffic rules and recovered more than Rs 18,000 as
fine" (NS/L 15 May 91:4/5). However, any Urdu noun can undergo the
process. A 1992 headline in Dawn (Lahore) read: "Two-year remission for
convicts who 'hifz' [memorize] Quran"; the article went on to explain: "The
Punjab Government has decided to grant two years special remission to each
prisoner learning the Holy Quran by heart during their confinement in jail
throughout the province" (D/L 28 Mar 92:2,4/5).10
The adjective-to-verb conversion to tantamount occurs frequently in
PakE: "Ms Bhutto too cannot accept such an option as that tantamounts to
an open admission of guilt and fear of punishment which will destroy her
party forever" (M 17 Aug 90:1/3) and "The critical remarks...were denied as
tantamounting to undermine the personality of the said Deputy Mayor" (N 6
Mar 90:2/1). The OED cites tantamount first as a verb (1628), then as a
noun (1637) and subsequently as a predicate adjective (1652), its current use.
Other examples of PakE adjective-to-verb conversion include fast asleep: "A
pir [spiritual guide] stabbed to death one Sajjad Ahmed and his mother in
Mohallah Abbaspura at the time when the deceased were fast asieeping" (NS/L
27 Feb 92:8/1) and roughshod: "Speculation about rough-shoding over the
Army's dissent is a canard spread by interested quarters" (N 12 Mar 92:6/5).
10) A related process is one in which the suffix -fy can be added to the imperative form of
an Urdu verb to produce a hybrid verb, hence jhoomofy is formed from jhoomo, the imperative
of jhoomna 'be enraptured, sway to and fro', plus the suffix -fy: "They all jhoomofy and roll
on the scented gao-takias [round, elongated cushions] in ecstasy" (FP/L 10 Jun 92:7/4).
Compound Urdu verbs can also undergo this process; seedha karnaa is Urdu for 'to correct, set
right, chastise'. The imperative form seedha karo serves as the base for this -fy formation:
"They really need to be seedha karofied too" (FT 4 Apr 91:24/5). To ratafy is formed from the
imperative form {rata) of the Urdu verb ratnaa meaning 'to cram (AmE) or mug up (BrE) for
an examination' plus the suffix -fy: "The paper was very simple. Students used to 'ratafying'
could not do it because one had to use one's brain" (N 13 Feb 90:7/6). Rattalization (rata + l
+ -ization) is the noun form of ratafy: "There is a common saying that 'rattalisation is the best
preparation for the matriculation examination'. If the students start appearing in separate exams
then they are going to forget the learning very soon as the 'ratta' does not last long" (HO 15
Oct 91:13/1). Finally, other suffixes are sometimes added to Urdu nouns in order to create new
formations. The Urdu word for tyrant is hilakoo; during the Persian Gulf War the following
sentence appeared in MAG in reference to Saddam Hussain: "Don't Let Him halaku-ise
Baghdad" (14 Feb 91:10/1). For a full treatment of bilingual conversion and related forms in
PakE, see Baumgardner (1992).
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Urdu adjectives can also be shifted. The adjective sabakdosh in Urdu means
'unburdened, absolved of responsibility', hence the adjective-to-verb form to
sabakdosh: "He has announced that he is more than eager to 'sabakdosh'
himself from the 'farz' [responsibility] of having her well-settled in matrimony" (Y 11 Feb 92:9/2). A PakE adverb-to-verb shift is up-hill: "He maintained that the image of the country had been up-hilled at international level
as a result of recent elections, and Pakistan was being ranked among cultured
countries" (N 20 Jan 89:12/2).
2.4. Back-formation
Back-formation, according to Bauer (1983:64), "is the formation of a new
lexeme by the deletion of a suffix, or supposed suffix, from an apparently
complex form by analogy with other instances where the suffixed and nonsuffixed forms are both lexemes" (cf. Pyles and Algeo 1982:277; Quirk et
al. 1985:1579).
Typical PakE back-formations include: to character-assassinate from
"character assassination": "To character assassinate, demean and belittle the
other seems to be a necessity for our politicians" (WP 4 Jan 91:8/3); to
loadshed (N 16 Jun 91:2/3) from "loadshedding" (the temporary curtailment
of electricity); to metal-detect from "metal detector"; and to thumb-impress
from "thumb impression": "Under the Qanun-e-Shahadat (Law of Evidence),
1984, lady lawyer preparing a document cannot attest it as a complete human
being; she has to call the illiterate peon to thumb-impress the attestation"
(FP/L 12 Aug 89:5/6). Other PakE back-formations, such as to scrute (FP/L
9 Feb 92:16/1) from "to scrutinize" or "scrutinization" and to renunciate
from "renunciation", are attested in the OED as seventeenth, eighteenth and
nineteenth century usages, but cited as now obsolete or rare: "Leaders of the
Minorities Front for equal rights have urged the government to enforce
special law against, as they alleged, current tendency of renunciating their
religion by the Christians for personal gains" (M 8 May 90:3/3). Again, it is
difficult to tell in such cases whether words such as these are instances of
colonial lag or new back-formations. If, however, English literature from
these centuries is still read and "memorized" in PakE classes, as Kennedy
(1993) has pointed out, then it is likely that obsolete words like to renunciate
are older formations. It is such usages, as Husain (1992) has also pointed
out, that give PakE its stilted, archaic style.
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
225
2.5. Clipping
In clipping, part of a word is removed either from the beginning (foreclipping), middle (mid-clipping), or end (hind-clipping); the clipped form
retains both its form class as well as its meaning, although there may be a
change in stylistic level from more to less formal (Bauer 1983: 233). Supple
is an institutionalized hind-clipping meaning 'supplementary examination';
the editorial of The Nation (Lahore) of 1 April 1989 wrote: "Exams in many
universities are in arrears because students (not the studious type because
they don't count) get them postponed. Pakistan has given a new word to the
world of academics: the 'supplees'. A student can be endlessly taking
supplementary exams because of the student power behind him". Other
established PakE compounds with clipping include: admit card <
admitt[ance]: "A large number of parents also visited the college but left in
disappointment, without collecting admit cards of their sons and daughters
for the coming examination" (MN 23 May 1990:5/4); bio-data <
bio[graphical] (FP/L 1 May 91:12/2); Cantt < cant[onment] (MN 23 May
90:5/7); copy < copy[book] (NS/L 28 Mar 92:8/5); gynae hospital/ward/unit
< gynae[cological] (NS/L 16 Oct 91:3/1); homoeo college < homoeo [pathic]
(FP/L 4 Feb 92:8/6); kleshy < Klash[n]i[kov] (WE 7 Jun 91:8/1); and Thanks
God < Thanks [be to] God (MAG 16 Oct 86:41/5). Common Urdu clippings
found in PakE include Pak < Pak[istan] (MN 9 Jun 88:6/3); Pindi < [Rawal]pindi, city near Islamabad (MA 26 Apr 90:4/5); Muj < Muj[ahideen], Afghan
resistance fighters (FT 23 Apr 92:24/6); and naka < naka[bandi] 'cordon,
blockade': "Receiving a tip-off, a raiding party held a naka at 3.30 am 200
yards from the Indian border" (N 16 Jun 90:12/3).
2.6.
Abbreviations/acronyms
In the word-formation process of abbreviation, two or more words are
reduced to their initial letters or syllables and are pronounced as individual
letters; acronyms are similar to abbreviations, except that the resulting
letters/sounds are pronounced not as individual segments, but together as a
word (Bauer 1983:237). Some common PakE abbreviations are: CCI <
"Chamber of Commerce and Industry" (MN 13 Jan 91:8/7); d/o < "daughter
o f ("In another incident a young girl Rabia Bibi d/o Karim jumped into
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Lower Jhelum Canal" [D/L 2 Jun 90:4/7]); f/o < "father of (N 3 Nov
90:10/8); FIR < "First Information Report" (FP/L 9 May 91:1/2); m/o <
"mother o f (N 2 Apr 92:3/5); NOC < "No Objection Certificate" (N 10 May
90:6/1); PBUH < "Peace Be Upon Him" (N 28 Sep 91:12/5); PO < "Proclaimed Offender" (NS/L 31 Mar 92:9/4) — a calque from Urdu ishtahari
mujrim; r/o < "resident o f (N 2 Apr 92:2/1); s/o < "son o f (N 24 Apr
91:4/6); SHO < "Station House Officer" (DE 26 May 90:8/3); TA/DA <
"Travel Allowance/Daily Allowance" (N 20 May 91:6/3); SM (and ASM) <
"(Assistant) Station Master" (N 6 Jan 90:1/5); and w/o < "wife o f (D/L 2
Jun 90:4/7). Urdu abbreviations used in PakE include the Arabic expressions
RA < Raziullah Anha 'God is pleased with him' (FP/L 23 Jul 91:3/2) and
SAW(S) < Salalaho alehe wasalam 'Peace be upon him' (N 25 May 90:4/6).
Established PakE acronyms include WAPDA < "Water and Power Development Authority" (FP/L 23 Jul 91:3/2) and WASA < "Water and Sanitation
Agency" (FP/L 23 Jul 91:3/2).
2.7. Blends
A blend, according to Bauer (1983:234), is "a new lexeme formed from
parts of two (or possibly more) other words..."; Marchand (1969:451) for
that reason defines blending as "compounding by means of curtailed words".
Algeo (1980) further classifies blends according to whether they are formed
according to the processes of overlapping and/or clipping. PakE blends
formed by overlapping include bushirt (< bush + shirt), where the sound [ʃ]
in both words overlaps to form the blend: "The prices of cotton shirt (boy)
and cotton bushirt (boy) ...showed lower increases of 5.3 percent and 5.6
percent during 1986-87" (Annual Report 1986-87, State Bank of Pakistan: 126). Another blend is flitterati < flitter + literati — " There was even
a sprinkling of the 'flitterati' people who spend their lives flitting from one
city to the next attending parties" (NS/L 11 Nov 91:2/5).
Cholestratti < cholesterol + glitterati (itself a blend in BrE and AmE <
glitter + literati) is another playful PakE blend with partial overlapping (-er-)
and clipping (hind clipping of cholesterol and fore-clipping of glitterati),
which is attributed to Pakistani humorist Khalid Hasan, who avers that some
Pakistani glitterati should probably be called this because of their eating
habits. Another such established blend is Lollywood < hind-clipping of
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
227
Lahore + fore-clipping of Hollywood. The majority of Pakistani movies are
made in Lahore: "The movie is a refreshing change from the run of the mill
Lollywood melodramas" (Y 10 Sep 91:9/1). Popular Pakistani magazines are
also filled with reports of Bollywood stars (MAG 26 Sep 91:42/5) as they are
known in India where Bombay is the center of Indian film-making. So-called
"sandwich words" are blends in which a word is inserted into another with
partial overlapping. Three socio-political PakE blends of this type include the
Urdu-English blend Islumabad < Urdu Islamabad + inserted English slum
(PO 28 Jan 90:2/1), politricking < politicking and inserted trick (FT 15 Mar
90:1/2), and refraudum < referendum and inserted fraud: "Then the selfrighteous dictator Gen Ziaul Haq was the perpetrator of the biggest rigging
in the referendum, popularly called 'refraudum'" (M 23 Jun 91:5/3).
PakE blends which involve only clipping with no overlap include the
common hybrid blend gymkhana and hydel, an English blend with hindclipping of hydro and electric. "The World Bank is still ready to finance
hydel power projects because of the western bias against atomic energy"
(FP/L 19 Sep 89:6/1). Hawkins (comp. 1984) defines a gymkhana as a sports
meeting or sports club: "The incumbent managing committee of the Lahore
Gymkhana may soon face a move of no confidence because a prominent
political figure was allowed to use the club's facilities without being a
member" (NS/L 20 Jul 91:2/6). Lewis (1991), the OED, Whitworth (comp.
1885/1981) and Yule and Burnell (comps. 1886/1985) all analyze gymkhana
as the possible combination of the hind-clipping of gymnastics (or gymnasium) plus the fore-clipping of the Urdu word gend-khana, or 'ball-house'.
Two political terms involving hind-clipping of the first morpheme and foreclipping of the second are consembly < constituent + assembly ("Call for
New Consembly on Party Basis" [D 9 Dec 87:5/6]) and coup-gemony < coup
d'etat + hegemony, a term coined by the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: "the
greatest threat to the unity and progress of the Third World is from coupgemony" (MAG 6 Jul 89:9/1,4).
In some blends only one morpheme is clipped. PakE blends with hindclipping of the first morpheme include by-polls < by-election + polls (PT 28
Dec 90:5/3); parawise < paragraph + wise (FP/L 6 Aug 91:3/1); photomachinist < photocopy + machinist, the person who makes photocopies in
Pakistani offices and businesses (N 9 Dec 87:2/6); and telemoot < television
+ moot [meeting]. Blends with fore-clipping of the second morpheme include
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
cricketomacy < cricket + diplomacy and freeship <free studentship. Pakistani
and Indian politicians use what the Pakistani press calls cricketomacy when
they attend cricket matches between the two rivals to show that the political
channels between the two countries are open (D/L 6 May 1992: 8/8) The
Handbook of Universities of Pakistan (1987:289) explains a freeship in the
following manner: "The Vice-Chancellor awards each year full or half
freeships to deserving students. A full freeship means total remission of the
tuition fee of Rs. 200 per annum and half freeship means remission of half
of the tuition fee i.e. Rs. 100 per annum". Finally, there is a class of PakE
blends in which a middle element is deleted, for example articleship <
article + of+ apprenticeship, in which both the word o/and the fore-portion
of the second morpheme are clipped; Pakistani firms advertise for employees
with articleships, i.e. a certificate which shows one has fulfilled an apprenticeship (PT 2 Jan 91:3/8). Unikarian (< University of Karachi + -ian) is
another such blend; here the word of plus the hind-portion of the first
morpheme are clipped and the suffix -ian is added: "Unikarians have also
helped their University in building a school for the children of University
employees and in some other projects" (TR 1 Oct 91:11/2). Similarly,
students at King Edward Medical college in Lahore are called Kemcolians <
King Edward Medical College + -ian, in which all but the first letter of the
first three words are hind-clipped + hind-clipped college + -ian. In some wordformation frameworks, these last two words would be classified as acronyms.
3.
Discussion
We have seen from analysis of the above data that PakE conforms for the
most part to established morphological rules in English, i.e. that it follows
what Katamba (1993:72) has termed rule-governed (vs. rule-bending)
creativity. Except for those instances where an Urdu element is involved in
the word-formation process, the vast majority of the lexemes discussed
above could be found in any variety of English. We have, however, seen
some cases of "rule-bending": (i) the creation of certain words was not
blocked (Aronoff 1976:43) by the presence of an already existing word, e.g.
abscondee for "absconder", collegianer for "collegian", defectee for "defector" and neighbourer for "neighbour"; (ii) instances of "rank reduction"
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
229
(Kachru 1983:136), where liquor bottle and matchbox are created from
"bottle of liquor" and "box of matches" in spite of the potential resulting
semantic confusion; and (iii) the use of an adjective as an -ee derivational
base, as in ad-hocee. The data also contains lexemes, which, while they
"accord with the norm" of English word-formation, violate some other
related constraint, for example, (i) the use of a Germanic rather than a
Latinate base in -ism derivations, e.g. brotherism, buddyism, jobism and
unclism, (ii) the occurrence of pleonastic compounds such as bed sheets and
challan ticket and (iii) the extensive use of cum in contexts where "it is the
combination of the particular two elements rather than the pattern that makes
the word unusual" (Gorlach 1989:300). Instances of such "violations" can
also be found in native varieties of English, but not to such a degree. Hence,
it would be accurate to say that Katamba's (1993: 72) rule-bending creativity
applies in only a minority of cases in the PakE data; the vast majority of
words discussed above conform to established patterns of English wordformation.
This is precisely the conclusion drawn in two comparative studies of
word-formation processes in English as a Native Language (ENL), English
as a Second Language (ESL), and English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
varieties. Gorlach (1989) found few differences between the two former
types of Englishes; his later study on emigrant Englishes (Gorlach 1996)
reached a similar conclusion. The author does note, however, that in ESL
varieties [like PakE] there "are frequently more 'exotic' [formations] as a
consequence of a much looser understanding of the underlying word-formation rules" (Gorlach 1996:130). That this is the case is, however, to be
expected in such a language contact setting. English in Pakistan functions in
a multilingual context of use; therefore, any discussion of structural norms in
PakE must also include a consideration of linguistic rules in Urdu and the
other languages of multilingual PakE speakers of English. Take as an
example the propensity in PakE to convert freely adjectives to nouns {the
poors) and nouns to verbs (to firecracker) as discussed in the data above. In
Urdu, nouns can be shifted to a verb by the simple addition of a restricted
set of verbs to the noun; adjective-to-noun conversions are also common in
Urdu, and there are no structural restrictions on their use as there are in
English (Bauer 1983:230). This structural ease is surely a part of the UrduEnglish speaker's bilingual competence. Cook (1992), for example, believes
230
ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
that bilingualism (or multilingualism) is not simply the sum total of two (or
more) linguistic systems. None of the languages of the bi-/multilingual will
be exactly the same as that of monolingual speakers of those languages —
the languages co-exist in a symbiosis where linguistic boundaries can be
extended. What we have here then is a set of structural norms which are the
result of a language contact situation, and studies from Weinreich (1953) to
Gumperz and Wilson (1971) to Kachru (1983) to Milroy and Milroy (1985)
have aptly demonstrated what happens to linguistic systems at all levels in
such contexts. Yet another factor in this symbiotic linguistic relationship
between the two languages is the fact that Urdu is replete with English
borrowings. The majority of the compounds found in the English portion of
Appendix 1, for example, are also used in Urdu, which certainly reinforces
their use in English. It is not inconceivable that some of these as well as
some of the hybrid compounds in fact originated in Urdu.
The acceptability of these PakE lexemes — and the rise of an endonormative standard PakE — will of course ultimately depend upon the
acceptance of educated users of the variety itself. As Greenbaum (1996: 243)
has pointed out:
That English in South Asia has acquired its own characteristics cannot be
disputed. ... What is in dispute is the acceptance of the national characteristics
and their institutionalization. By acceptance I do not mean approval by native
speakers of English. Speakers of English in South Asian countries have to
become sufficiently self-confident and assertive about their own national
varieties. They do not require — and they will not receive — legitimization
by outside bodies.
And regarding the future of emigrant languages in general, Görlach (1996: 137)
further observes:
The stigma of local forms of English will disappear, with New Zealand, South
Africa, and the Caribbean following the lead of the U.S., Canada and Australia where national standards of English are already well-established. This
process will take much more time for, say, India or Nigeria, but there will be
no choice for these countries but to accept national norms at least for internal
communication.
In an earlier study (Baumgardner 1995), I reported on the results of three
questionnaires designed to measure the acceptability of various aspects of
PakE to Pakistani journalists, teachers and students. The results of that study
231
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
Table 1: Questionnaire acceptance rates: Urdu lexis
Lexical item
Total %
Male
Female
Clipping
Pak
Subtotal
.908
.908
.957
.957
.860
.860
Suffixation
goondaism
Ravian
Subtotal
.909
.842
.875
.971
.867
.919
.848
.818
.833
Compounds
lathi-charge
sehri-awakener
rickshaw-walla
police thanna
Subtotal
.948
.864
.858
.775
.861
.985
.898
.869
.800
.888
.912
.831
.848
.750
.835
Bilingual
conversion
to challan
to gherao
Subtotal
.874
.644
.759
.900
.671
.785
.848
.618
.733
Total
.851
.887
.815
showed that while on the one hand speakers of PakE were still to some
extent under the influence of the exonormative "colonial cringe" (Gorlach
1996: 124), a Pakistani norm is also beginning to emerge. One of the three
questionnaires discussed in that article was administered to 150 teachers of
English (80 females and 70 males) in teacher training sessions conducted in
the cities of Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore during the three-year period of
August 1989 to August 1992. That questionnaire contained a total of ninetyfour items, forty-eight of which were related to PakE word-formation. Tables
1 and 2 present the results for individual lexical items in that questionnaire
(only overall category percentages were discussed in the 1995 study).11
Table 1 shows the acceptability of nine Urdu-based formations (compounding, suffixation, conversion, and clipping), and Table 2 presents forty
11) Data in Tables 1 and 2 has been somewhat re-categorized from that in the 1995
publication in order to fit the word-formation framework of the present paper. The exact
wording of the questions which the subjects were asked to respond to was as follows: "In the
sentences below, please indicate by encircling YES or NO whether you consider the underlined
item part of Pakistani English".
232
ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Table 2: Questionnaire acceptance rates: English lexis
Lexical item
Total %
Male
Female
Compounds
guess paper
law and order situation
death anniversary
wheel-jam strike
bed tea
flying coach
pen-down strike
move-over
lady newscaster
soft corner
child lifter
marriage party
Kalashnikov culture
cent percent
eartops
heavy amount
eve-teasing
airdash
Subtotal
.981
.945
.919
.914
.891
.891
.879
.858
.857
.855
.847
.839
.819
.813
.724
.484
.459
.404
.798
1.000
.942
.927
.956
.885
.869
.921
.957
.867
.823
.913
.928
.913
.857
.753
.500
.446
.391
.825
.962
.949
.911
.873
.898
.886
.831
.760
.848
.887
.782
.750
.725
.769
.696
.468
.472
.418
.771
Clipping/
Abbreviation/
Acronyms
Wapda
SHO
admit-card
SM/ASM
CCI
Subtotal
.893
.875
.766
.727
.695
.791
.914
.956
.753
.746
.705
.814
.873
.794
.779
.708
.685
.767
Blends
biodata
bushirt
hydel
Subtotal
.964
.795
.453
.737
.942
.785
.523
.750
.987
.805
.383
.725
Conversion
charge sheet (v.)
undertrial (n.)
faithful (n.)
extern (v.)
tantamount (v.)
Subtotal
.759
.756
.705
.542
.528
.658
.869
.797
.753
.647
.671
.747
.649
.716
.658
.438
.386
.569
233
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
Suffixation
Lexical item
Total %
Male
Female
sweeperess
denter
affectee
history sheeter
de-shape
eveninger
museumize
freeship
pointation
Subtotal
.872
.843
.838
.714
.617
.552
.528
.458
.370
.636
.910
.914
.911
.884
.671
.537
.552
.454
.391
.691
.835
.772
.766
.545
.564
.520
.416
.462
.350
.581
Total
.724
.765
.682
English items, including compounds, suffixation, conversion, clipping,
abbreviations, and acronyms (see Appendix 3 for the list of sentences in
which the items were presented). The last rows of the two tables present the
combined results of the Urdu lexis and English lexis questionnaires respectively.
Tables 1 and 2 are arranged according to the order of acceptance of
word-formation categories. In Table 1, we see that the order of acceptance
(ranging from 91% to 76%) was clipping (91%), hybrid suffixation (88%),
hybrid compounds (86%), and finally bilingual conversions (76%). These are
extremely high percentages of acceptance; there can be no mistake that these
are local Urdu-based innovations. Ironically, the one lexeme {to gherao) which
was accepted the least (64%) is the one found in not only the OED but also in
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Allen, ed. 1990).
In Table 2, the order of acceptance of English-based lexemes (ranging from
80% to 64%) is compounds (80%), abbreviations (79%), blends (74%), conversions (66%) and suffixation (64%). Most noteworthy here is the fact (as seen in
the total values at the ends of the tables) that these English-based forms
received less overall approval (72%) than the Urdu-based forms (85%).
Respondents are more inclined to accept "foreign" borrowed lexemes than
English ones which appear to them to be "unBritish". Overall acceptance of
most individual lexemes, however, is still high — remember too that these
are teachers. Again, as Bauer (1983: 88) has pointed out, the mere creation
of a lexeme is only the first step; what is pivotal is the form's ultimate
acceptance, or institutionalization, by the language community which uses it.
234
4.
ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
Conclusion
John Algeo, in a 1996 review of South Asian English (Baumgardner, ed.
1996), noted that in only one of the ten British and American dictionaries he
had consulted for the review (not the OED) had he found "South Asia"
appropriately defined. Algeo (1996:408) writes:
Despite its obvious usefulness, the term South Asia is entered in few dictionaries and is generally unfamiliar to the linguistic laity. Analogously, the
English of South Asia has received far less attention than it merits on the
basis of the number of its speakers.
While research on this important variety has indeed multiplied in recent
years, Gorlach (1989:298) has nonetheless observed that while
It is to be expected that national differences between India, Pakistan, Bangla
Desh and Sri Lanka will be reflected in the formation of new English words
as they are in pronunciation and [syntax], there has [however] been no
systematic comparison of the English used in the major South Asian nations
on any of these levels,
and more specifically,
SAsE [South Asian English] has not been properly described so far, nor have
its sub varieties been properly delimited: what is the relation between the IndE
and Lankan English contrast... (Gorlach 1988: 188).
The present paper is not the type of comparison for which Gorlach is wisely
calling. It does serve, however, as a limited (and only) record of Pakistani
English word-formation and could therefore serve as the basis of comparison
for future studies of word-formation in "South Asian" English.
A recent article in The Dallas Morning News related the plight of a
Pakistani woman who mocked tradition and married the man she loved
instead of the man her family wanted her to marry. The newspaper reported:
"A young bride who defied tradition and strict Islamic restrictions to marry
the man she loved has disappeared, just two days after a court sanctioned her
'love marriage'" (16 Mar 1997: 18A/1). PakE lexical items like love marriage are disseminated by Pakistani news agencies, picked up and printed in
newspapers in ENL/ESL and EFL countries, and oftentimes collected by
lexicographers — the OED cites among others both adhocism as well as to
gherao; Barnhart (1984) cites eve-teasing; and Lemay, Lerner and Taylor
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
235
(1988) include shooracracy in their list of borrowings and coinages. With the
advent of the Internet, PakE and New Englishes in general of course have
the potential of reaching a much wider audience; most major Pakistani
English-language newspapers are now accessible on the World Wide Web
and hence available to millions of readers outside Pakistan. During a quick
perusal of the electronic edition of a recent edition (27 September 1997) of
Dawn (http://DAWN.COM), I found the following PakE usages: law and
order situation, out-door patient [out patient], proclaimed offender and Urdu
atta [wheat] and the hybrid compound baroni [arid] area — all lexemes
mentioned in this paper. In the Metro (Karachi) section in an article entitled
"Five arrested, arms recovered" the following sentence occurred: "On his
pointation, the RIC officials raided a graveyard, located near City Park in
the limits of Gulzar-e-Hijri police, and recovered two Kalashnikovs buried
there". It of course remains to be seen what effect the Internet will have on
the dissemination of the lexis of transplanted varieties of English like PakE
and what effect these varieties will in turn have on English in general. One
thing, however, is certain: the global English linguistic mosaic will not
remain the same.
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Yule, Henry and Arthur C. Burnell, comps. 1886/1985. Hobson Jobson: A
Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred
Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. Facsimile
reprint. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 2nd ed. published by John
Murray 1903.
Appendix 1: Compounds
I. Nouns
N+N (English+English):
air dash (M 10 Jun 90:1/2); bed tea (FP/L 27 Apr 92:8/6); bed sheet (FP/L 8 Jun 92:2/3);
big city allowance (D/L 22 Jan 89:8/8); blood camp (FP/L 22 Jun 90:4/1); bread earner (FT
29 Jun 89:3/4); camel kid (PO 8 Jul 92:1/1); cash memo (FP/L 30 Apr 92:9/2); cent per cent
(FP/L 31 Aug 91:6/4); childlifter (D 28 Feb 88:5/3); chocolate hero (FP/L 28 May 92:7/4);
cinema house (D 9 Aug 87:1/7); coat-trousers (FP 4 Nov 86:2/2); coolie charges (PT 10 Jul
88:4/7); country liquor (D/L 6 Mar 92:2/4); dandy boy (FP/L 9 Jan 90:2/7); date sheet (NS/L
16 Sep 91:20/1); dearness allowance (PT 28 Jun 88:1/8); death anniversary (NS/L 26 Aug
91:3/4); decoration piece (PT 5 Sep 89:7/1); desert cooler (FP/L 24 May 90:12/2); eartops (D
19 Jan 88:3/7); eve-teasing (M Mag 25 Aug 89:6/5); filth depot (N 19 Nov 91:4/7); guess
paper (N 29 Jun 90:8/1); history sheet (PT 22 Jan 90:3/7); house job (PT 17 Jun 90:7/3); ice
balls (N 11 Aug 89:3/8); ice candy (D 3 Aug 88:10/1); Kalashnikov culture (N 10 Jul 90:2/4);
knicker-shirt (PT 16 Apr 91:7/1); lady newscaster (MAG 28 Nov 91:5/3); lady wife (N 27 Oct
90:4/2); loot sale (N 8 Jul 91:7/2); love marriage (N 18 Nov 90:3/1); marks sheet (M 31 Mar
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI E N G L I S H
239
91:10/4); marriage party (M 23 Dec 90:4/6); medical hall (N 25 Feb 92:14/1); night suit (D/L
22 Sep 89:9/7); pant-shirt (D 18 Feb 88:8/5); paper-setter (N 30 Apr 92:4/4); playback singer
(N 9 May 91:8/6); quarter plate (D/L 6 Feb 92:8/6); question paper (N 31 Mar 89:2/4); result
card (FP/L 14 May 91:3/2); roadside hotel (D/L 2 Feb 89:1/8); sanitary shop (D 31 Oct
86:19/8); ,sex sandwich (FT 26 Mar 92:18/1); shoulder promotion (FP/L 22 Feb 92:1/8);
side-hero/heroine (MAG 1 Aug 91:14/1); sofa set (PT 1 Jun 90:2/4); speed breaker (FP/L 1
Dec 91:8/3); suit-piece (FP/L 14 Jul 90:5/5); sweepers' colony (NS/L 31 Mar 92:8/1); tea stall
(FP/L 6 Apr 91:3/7); tiffin carrier (DE 17 Jun 90:8/5); token tax (N 29 Nov 89:3/3); tractortrolley (FP/L 18 Nov 91:2/6); tubelight (FP/L 2 Jul 92:2/5); 7V lounge (H Nov 91:56/2);
wheelcup (PT 19 Aug 91:11/4); women seats (N 11 Mar 92:3/6).
N+N (English+Urdu):
bus adda (adda 'stand/station'; DE 19 May 90:2/1); fruit chaat (chaat 'spicy fruit and
vegetable salad'; N 14 Nov 90:2/6); fruit mandi (mandi 'market'; N 14 Nov 90:2/6); lorry adda
(adda 'stand/station'; NS/L 29 Mar 91:2/2); milk sabeel (sabeel 'road/path'; PT 5 Aug 90:2/6);
police chowki (chowki 'post'; FT 12 Jul 90:2/3); police muqabla (muqabla 'encounter'; DE 7
Jul 90:1/1); police thana (thana 'station'; DE 9 Aug 90:4/4); rickshaw-wallah {wallah 'one
who'; N 21 Jun 90:4/5).
N+N (Urdu+English):
adda tax (adda 'stand/station'; N 29 Nov 90:12/2); Auqaf Department (auqaf 'trust/
endowment'; FP/L 6 Aug 91:3/6); baba suit (baba 'baby'; S Supplement 11 Apr 91:1/4);
begaar camp (begaar 'forced labor'; FP/L 5 Aug 89:2/1); bara market (Bara 'city in NWFP';
N 27 Sep 91:4/4); booti mafia (booti 'medicinal herb'; N 1 Sep 91:8/1); chati race (chati 'large
clay vessel'; N 24 Dec 90:7/7); chhura group (chhura 'dagger'; FP/L 5 Jul 91:1/1); chithur
parade (chithur 'old footwear'; N 28 Jul 91:6/2); dak edition (dak 'post/mail'; PT 13 Jun
91:1/4); goonda elements (goonda 'thug'; PT 23 Dec 90:3/2); goonda tax (goonda 'thug'; D/L
17 Mar 92:2/3:2); gowala colony (gowala 'cattle'; PT 10 Aug 90:7/5); hathora group (hathora
'hammer'; N 6 Jul 91:4/1); Hadood Ordinance (hadood 'punishment'; M 16 Apr 91:9/7); Iftar
party (iftar 'Ramazan fast breaking meal'; M 14 Mar 91:6/1); Illaqa magistrate (illaqa
'district'; FP/L 12 Sep 91:6/8)', jagga tax (Jagga 'a Punjabi dacoit'; FP/L 8 Jul 91:8/1); jhuggi
dwellers (jhuggi 'straw/cardboard hut'; M 5 Mar 92:6/2); Jehez fund (jehez 'dowry'; PT 16 Aug
90:2/4); Jinnah cap (Mohammad Ali Jinnah; M 12 Sep 91:6/3); Jummah prayers (jummah
'Friday'; M 13 Aug 89:1/1); kharif crops (kharif autumn crop'; M 5 Jun 91:4/1); kharkar camp
(kharkar 'forced labor'; V 26 Oct 89:3/2); Kissan Board (kissan 'farmer'; PT 26 Jun 90:3/3);
lathi-charge (lathi 'baton'; N 31 March 91:3/5); lassi stall (lassi 'yogurt drink'; FT 16 May
91:19/1); mehndi stall (mehndi 'henna'; NS/L 13 Apr 91:5/2); murgha position (murgha
'chicken'; NL Jul 91:16/2); pan shop/stall (paan 'betelnut'; M 3 Jun 91:10/5); pye dog (<pariah
'outsider'; N 10 Dec 88:4/6); parchi fee (parchi 'slip of paper'; N 15 Sep 91:3/1); qabza group
(qabzah 'possession'; N 16 Apr 92:6/6); rabi season (rabi 'spring harvest'; M 3 Nov 90:6/4);
roti plant (roti 'bread'; FP/L 3 Jul 90:2/7); sehri-awakener (sehri 'Ramazan breakfast'; M 23
Dec 90:4/6); shadi hall (shadi 'marriage'; FP/L 3 Jul 90:2/7); shawwal moon (shawwal '10th
month'; M 16 Apr 91:1/5); tika shop (tika 'roasted meat/chicken'; N 4 Oct 91:3/5); tonga stand
240
ROBERT J. B A U M G A R D N E R
(tonga 'horse-drawn carriage'; D 7 Oct 87:10/7); walima reception (walima 'marriage
reception'; N 30 Nov 90:3/4); Zila Council (zila 'administrative district'; N 1 Feb 88:3/3).
Adj+N (English+English):
casual leave (M 2 Oct 88:3/5); closed holiday (PT 23 Aug 88:10/3); gay girl (S 25 Sep
86:8/7); departmental store (FP/L 2 Nov 91:7/4); electrical fan (N 1 Feb 88:3/3); flying coach
(FP/L 6 Aug 91:6/4); half pant (laundry list, Hotel Mehran, Karachi); heavy amount (FP/L 3
Oct 91:16/1); ivory cards (FP/L 10 May 90:6/5); meatless day (D/L 30 Jun 91:2,2/4); medical
store/hall (N 25 Feb 92:14/1); Muslim shower (Lahore rental lease); out-door patient (NS/L 20
Apr 91:5/2); postal stamp (D 27 Mar 87:19/2); proclaimed offender (N 12 Jul 88:3/8); real
brother (N 12 Jul 88:3/8); roving hotel (D/L 21 Jan 89:5/6); shootingbalf (D/L 5 Aug 90:11/8);
sleeping suit (laundry list, Hotel Mehran); standing crops (PT 3 Aug 88:12/1); stepmotherly
treatment (N 27 Mar 89:5/5); sweet dish (FP/L 16 Apr 92:3/4); threadbare discussion (PT 29
May 91:5/4); unfair means (D/L 31 Mar 89:3/3).
Adj+N (English+Urdu):
double roti (roti 'bread'; FP/L 26 Aug 91:7/6); open kuchery (kucheri 'district court'; M
23 Sep 88:6/4); tribal jirga (jirga 'council'; FP/L 23 Jun 91:16/4).
Adj+N (Urdu+English):
awami suit (awami 'of the people'; N 28 Dec 90:6/3); Balochi cap (M 12 Sep 91:6/3);
barani area (barani 'arid'; PT 25 October 1986:2/4); chota peg (chota 'small'; N 16 Jul
90:2/4); desi ghee (desi ghee 'local clarified butter'; KM 23 Jun 88:1/1); khas deposit (khas
'special'; D/L 25 Apr 91:8/8); Seraikibelt (FP/L 29 Dec 90:3/1); Sindhicap (M 12 Sep 91:6/3);
unani medicine (unani 'ayurvedic'; NL Aug 91:26/3).
Rank reduction (Kachru 1983: 136):
baggage piece (D/L 8 Jan 90:4/1); cattle head (N 3 Jul 88:1/2); flour bag/sack (N 22 Apr
91:1/3); liquor bottle (N 12 Jul 91:14/7); matchbox (N 3 Oct 88:9/1); perfume bottle (D 7 Dec
86:8/7); wheat bag (N 22 Apr 91:1/3).
N+particle:
move-over (N 6 Sept 89:3/7).
Particle+N:
over-invoicing (MN 24 Oct 87:1/4); under-invoicing (N 24 Jul 89:5/3); undermatric (FP/L
21 Nov 91:5/3); undertrail(D 29 Dec 87:5/6).
Adverb+particle:
weekly off (D 2 Jun 87:2/2).
Three-item noun compounds (English + English + English):
cutpiece market (PT 6 Dec 86:3/4); fair price shop (PT 30 Apr 89:10/1); fixed-shot
hawker (D 15 Feb 88:11/8); playback singer (N 9 May 91:8/6); wheel-jam strike (FP/L 18 May
92:3/2); bladder blotting stone (FP 19 Oct 86:4/4); coffin-wearing procession (KM 23 May
89:1/5); motor repairing garage (N 3 Jan 90:8/3); tape repairing center (KM 2 Oct 86:1/4);
get-through guide (FP/L 29 Oct 91:8/3); pen-down strike (D 4 Apr 87:1/4); send-up examination (N 17 Dec 87:7/8); tool-down strike (D 25 Jun 87:8/4).
W O R D - F O R M A T I O N IN PAKISTANI E N G L I S H
241
Three-item noun compounds (English + Urdu):
jail bharo movement (bharo 'go'; FP/L 9 Jul 91:4/3); pahiya jam strike (pahiya 'wheel';
NT Aug 91:15/3); retri-bajri truck (retri-bajri 's and-gravel'; MN 15 Dec 90:1/3); chaddar
laying ceremony {chaddar 'embellished cover'; PT 2 Jul 91:5/6).
Noun collocations (English):
boarding and lodging (FP/L 17 Aug 90:3/7); items of daily use (DE 24 Jun 90:3/1); law
and order situation (FP/L 22 Feb 92:1/8); nook and corner (FP/P 16 Apr 87:3/1).
II. Pronouns (English)
goodself(M 15 May 86:1/7).
III. Verbs
N+V (English):
to airdash (D 16 Jun 87:1/8); to air-link (FP/L 14 Feb 90:12/3); to head-carry (PT 20 Jun
88:3/3); to love-marry (D/L 30 Mar 91:2,4/4); to shoulder-promote (NS/L 9 Feb 92:1/4).
V+particle (English):
to move-over (FP/L 31 Oct 91:2/5).
Particle+V (English):
to over-bill (M 5 Apr 92:5/6); to over-invoice (NL Jun 92:99/3).
Verb collocations (English):
to discuss threadbare (MN 13 Jan 91:8/7); to have a soft corner (FP/L WP 5 Apr 91:8/3);
to take out a procession (FP/L 14 Jul 91:2/6).
Verb collocations (English + Urdu):
to offer fateha (fateha 'opening chapter of Quran'; N 30 Aug 91:3/4); to commit zina
(zina 'adultery'; N 1 Dec 91:2/5); to perform ghusal (ghusal 'greater ablution'; N 23 Jul
91:3/3); to perform hajj (hajj 'greater pilgrimage'; PT 28 Dec 90:5/5); to perform umra (umra
'lesser pilgrimage'; M 16 Apr 91:10/4); to recite kalam (kalam 'verse'; FP/L 3 Aug 91:6/7).
IV. Adjectives
N (English) + past participle:
country-made (M 27 Nov 91:2/3); England-returned (N 30 Apr 92:6/6); time-barred (M
8 May 91:4/1); work-charged (FP/L 7 Jul 91:2/8).
N (Urdu) + past participle:
Bara-made {Bara 'city in NWFP'; S 11 Nov 86:1/5); burqa-clad {burqa 'cover'; DE 29
Jun 90:8/6); mullah-dominated {mullah 'priest'; FP/L 18 May 91:6/6).
N (Urdu) + adjective:
ribafree {riba 'interest'; NS/L 3 Mar 92:12/5).
past participle + past participle (English):
suited-booted (M 20 Sep 89:3/4).
242
R O B E R T J. B A U M G A R D N E R
particle + N (English):
under-matric (FP/L 21 Nov 91:5/3); undertrial (D 6 Jan 87:1/4).
particle + adjective (English):
over-clever (FT 21 May 92:28/3).
prepositional phrase (English):
out of syllabus (FP/L 19 Sep 89:6/5).
Appendix 2: Suffixation
-able:
-age:
-al/-ial:
-ance:
-ation:
-dom:
-ee:
-(i)er:
-ess:
English-based: regularisable (D 3 Aug 87:8/5).
Urdu-based: challanable (challan 'traffic ticket'; N 28 May 90:2/3).
English-based: haltage (from an official form).
Urdu-based: maundage (maund '100 lbs troy'; FP/L 9 Jul 91:1/8).
English-based: drawal (MN 23 Jan 88:2/4); over-stayal (M 25 Sep 91:4/7).
English-based: articulance (MAG 16 Oct 86:35/1); endeavourance (MN 25 Oct
87:9/4); forwardance (PT 4 Jul 87:8/3).
English-based: ruinification (FP/L 30 Jul 89:5/1); pointation (N 9 Jan 88:3/6);
upgradation (PT 4 Feb 89:4/1).
Urdu-based: Karachification (Karachi; D/L 26 Jun 92:(2)4/5).
English-based: cronydom (N 10 Jul 90:11/5); dicatatordom (WP 4 Jan 91:2/3);
romancedom (MC Aug 91:91/1).
Urdu-based: mirdom (mir 'title of respect'; FT 10 Aug 89:25/2); mullahdom (mullah
'Islamic priest'; N 28 Jun 91:6/4).
English-based: abscondee (D 26 Sep 88:6/2); ad hocee (M 13 Oct 87:1/1); adultree
(D 4 Jan 88:7/7); affectee (D 26 Apr 87:1/7); afflictee (FP/L 13 Jul 89:6/3); awardee
(N 29 Jun 88:8/3); compellee (N 18 Nov 91:6/4); convertee (FP/L 10 May 91:6/1);
convictee (M 2 Nov 88:1/1); defectee (M 18 Jun 91:14/2); evictee (S 30 Dec 86:1/1);
indulgee (FP 12 Jan 91:6/4); optee (N 29 Nov 89:2/3); promotee (NS/L 5 Aug
91:2/7); recommendee (D 3 Aug 87:6/4); recruitee (WP 10 Apr 91:8/3); remandee
(NS/L 3 Jun 92:3/3); rewardee (N 29 Jun 88:8/3); s/z//tee (D 24 Dec 86:1/5).
Urdu-based: sifarashee (sifarash 'favor'; N 28 May 88:4/1).
English-based: comperer (Y Jun 89:87/3); collegianer (FP/L 19 Mar 92:16/6); daily
wager (PT 27 Jan 89:14/4); denter (FP/L 21 Jul 91:2/5); eveninger (BT 20 Mar
SI:W); forklifter (MAG 6 Feb 92:14/5); history-sheeter (D 14 Feb 88:1/1); hostelier
(D 21 Jul 88:1/3); house jobber (FP/L 11 Mar 92:4/6); kiosker (PT 21 Jul 90:3/4);
morninger (DN 4 Jun 88:1/4); neighbourer (NS/L 12 Sep 91:3/1); old-ager (D 2 Jan
88:8/6); one-dayer (PT 29 Sep 88:8/3).
English-based: contractress (FP/L 18 Jun 90:4/8); sweeperess (MN 5 Aug 88:3/2);
teachress (PT 4 Jul 87:8/1).
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
-fy:
243
Urdu-based: jhoomofy (jhoom, imp. 'sway'; FP/L 10 Jun 92:7/4); seedha karofy
(karnaa, imp. 'do'; FT 4 Apr 91:24/5); ratafy (rata imp. 'mug up, cram'; N 13 Feb
90:7/6).
-gate:
Urdu-based: Mullahgate (mullah 'Islamic priest'; NS/L 13 Nov 91:12/2).
-hood:
Urdu-based: Muslimhood (Muslim; FT 6 Feb 92:1/3); Pakistanihood (Pakistan; H
Sep 91:150/3); saleh-hood (saleh 'pious person'; N 14 May 91:8/3).
-i/-y:
Urdu-based: filumi/filmi (filum < Eng/film'; TH 30 Jul 91:8/1); maliky (malik 'chief,
headman'; FP/L 2 Jan 90:6/2).
-ian:
English-based: Aitchisonian (PT 18 Sep 89:11/5); Anthonian (FP/L 4 Mar 92:1/1);
Crescentarian (PT 16 Dec 88:2/6); Haitian (NS/L 17 Jul 91:3/4); Kemcolian (D/L
27 Oct 89:9/3); Pipian (N 21 Mar 91:8/4); PPPian (D/L 29 Sep 89:7/4); Queen
Marian (N 25 Feb 92:2/6); UETian (FP/L 15 Feb 92:7/1); Unikarian (D/L TR 1 Oct
91:11/2).
Urdu-based: Abdalian (Hasan Abdal College; M 16 Jan 89:1/4); Ayubian (Ayub
Khan; N 2 Oct 89:2/2); Benazirian (Benazir Bhutto; WP 11 Oct 91:3/1); Ijian
(Islami Jamhoori Ittehad; D/L 29 Sep 89:7/4); Islamabadian (Islamabad; M 28 Oct
89:3/6); Jhangian (Jhang; FP/L 16 Aug 90:8/1); mullahian (mullah 'Islamic priest';
D/L Mag 13 Sep 91:5/3); Muqomian (Mohajir Quaumi Movement; D 29 Sep
89:7/4); Nishterian (Nishter Medical College; PT 16 Dec 88:3:5); Quranian (Quran
'Koran'; FP/L 10 Mar 92:5/3); Ravian (Ravi River, Govt. College, Lahore; N 2 Feb
89:3/5).
-ise:
English-based: fundamentalize (FP/L 3 Apr 92:9/5); jobize (WP 5 Jun 92:2/6);
museumize (D/L 16 Feb 89:8/8); obscurantise (FP/L 3 Apr 92:9/5); patriotise (MA
18 Nov 90:5/2); pedestalise (N/FR 12 Apr 91:19/1); Red Indianise (H Nov 88:60/2);
Sybartise (WP 5 Jun 92:2/3); Third Worldize (FP/L 14 Jul 89:5/8).
Urdu-based: babuize (babu 'clerk' (derog.); PO 26 May 92:9/4); maulvi-ise (maulvi
'clergyman'; NS/L 17 Apr 92:6/4); Musalmanize (Musalman; DE 10 Jul 90:2/7);
Panjabi-ise (Punjabi; D Mag 10 Apr 92:4/6).
-isation: English-based: apostatisation (FP/P 23 Apr 92:10/1); commoditisation (N 9 May
92:6/5); foreignisation (FP/L 1 Aug 92:5/3); forestrisation (PT 22 Jun 91:3/1);
heroinisation (FP/L 4 Jun 91:2/5); kalashnikovisation (DE 24 Jul 89:3/1); marketisation (N 27 Apr 92:6/3); patriotisation (MA 18 Nov 90:5/1); poly-technicalisation (N
30 Nov 90:7/4); Red-Indianisation (MAG 7 Jun 90:7/1); sermonisation (D 7 Nov
87:1/7); tractorisation (N 17 Jan 89:3/2); vocationalisation (FP/L 28 Dec 90:7/6).
Urdu-based: Pakistanisation (Pakistan; NS/L 15 Sep 91:9/1), rattalisation (rata,
imp.'cram'; HO 15 Oct 91:13/1); Shariatisation (shariat 'Islamic law'; HO 15 Oct
91:13/1).
-ish:
English-based: wheatish (D 20 Feb 87:12/1).
Urdu-based: mullahish (An American Brat, Bapsi Sidhwa); Punjabi-ish (Punjabi; M
29 Oct 90:4/6).
-ism:
English-based: barrenism (MN 20 Mar 88:10/3); blackmailism (FP/L 11 Apr 92:8/7);
brotherism (PT 25 May 90:11/6); buddyism (FP/L 6 May 91:6/6); clientelism (FP/L
WP 30 Aug 91:3/3); credoism (M Mag 10 May 91:1/3); declinism (MA 1 Apr
244
-ist:
-istic:
-iter
-less:
-like:
-ly:
-ment:
R O B E R T J. B A U M G A R D N E R
91:12/1); discreetism (MAG 12 Oct 89:10/3); farcism (FP/L 4 Mar 92:9/4); jobism
(WP 5 Jun 92:2/6); nincompopism (MAG 14 Feb 91:14/5); percentism (H Oct
91:13/1); repressionism (PT 20 Feb 89:1/5); scapegoatism (V 27 Dec 90:6/1); too
lateism (N 8 May 92:5/3); unclism (PT Mag 30 Dec 88:3/3); VIPism (M 15 Sep
89:4/3); white elephantism (MA 3 May 90:13/4).
Urdu-based: Bhuttoism (Benazir/Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; PT 29 Oct 90:1/1); biradirism
(biradari 'clan'; M 8 Nov 86:2/3); chaddarism (chaddar 'female Islamic dress'; FP
1 Apr 92:6/3); Chaudryism (chaudri 'Punjabi title'; FP 8 Jul 89:7/5); goondaism
(goonda 'thug'; N 29 Nov 90:12/2); ilaqaism (ilaqa 'constituency'; FP/L 15 Jun
91:4/7); Khanism (khan 'Pathan title'; FP 8 Jul 89:7/5); Mohajirism (mohajir 'Indian
immigrant'; D/L 15 Jan 89:2/1); mullahism (mullah 'Islamic priest'; D 27 Jun
88:8/6); munafiqism (munafiq 'hypocrisy'; MN 20 Mar 88:10/3); Nawabism (nawab
'Indian nobleman'; FT 8 Mar 90:5/1); Nawaz Sharifism (M. Nawaz Sharif; FP/L WP
19 Jul 91:2/1); Pakistanism (Pakistan; M Mag 23 Aug 91:3/8); Punjabism (Punjab/
Punjabi; M 5 Feb 89:4/6); sahibism (sahib 'title of respect'; D/L Mag 10 Nov
89:2/3); sardarism (sardar 'Balochi title'; FP 8 Jul 89:7/5); wadiraism (wadira
'Sindhi title'; FP 8 Jul 89:7/5); Ziaism (Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq; DE 22 Jul 90:4/1).
English-based: agitationist (M 6 Sep 89:6/5); coupist (FP/L 5 Dec 91:16/5); graffitist
(D 6 Jan 87:1/5); hooliganist (FP/L 18 May 92:6/6); New World Orderist (FT 6 Feb
92:24/6); sloganist (WP 15 Jun 90:3/4); subversionist (D/L 3 Jul 91:2,4/2).
Urdu-based: Kebabist (kebab; name of restaurant in Karachi); Mohajirist (mohajir
'Indian immigrant'; MA 19 Jun 90:6/1); Ziaist (Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq; MAG 4 Jan
90:4/5).
English-based: hooliganistic (N 17 Dec 90:3/7).
Urdu-based: Bhuttoistic (Benazir/Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; N 16 Oct 89:6/3).
English-based: Formanite (D/L 24 Nov 90:3/7); hostelite (H Nov 91:56/1); Kayciite
(D/L 25 Aug 89:5/1).
Urdu-based: Bhuttoite (Benazir/Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; PO 26 Jun 90:12/1); IJlite
(Islami Jamhoori Ittehad Party; FT 13 Jul 89:6/1); Karachiite (Karachi; D/L 15 Sep
89:6/4); Lahorite (Lahore; NS/L 7 Feb 92:3/2); Peshawarite (FP 9 Jul 89:3/5);
Rawalpindite (PO 3 Mar 90:4/4).
English-based: meatless (D/L 30 Jun 91:2,2/4).
Urdu-based: hijabless (hijab 'cover'; D/L 20 Apr 89:10/4); purdahless (purdah
'cover'; D/L 28 February 1990:2/2).
English-based: Pajero-like (M Mag 1 May 92:6/1).
Urdu-based: goonda-like (goonda 'thug'; FP/L 24 Jul 90:6/7); jehad-like (jehad
'Islamic war'; N 2 Apr 91:8/1); mela-like (mela 'fair'; NS/L 29 Aug 91:3/7); maulvilike (maulvi 'Islamic clergyman'; FP/L 12 Jul 90:6/6); Zia-like (Mohammad Zia-ulHaq; FP/L 20 Jul 91:3/3).
English-based: oftenly (PT 3 Oct 92:16/6).
Urdu-based: darvishly (darvish 'dervish'; NS/L 6 Oct 91:6/6) .
English-based: externment (M 22 Jun 89:1/2); upliftment (MN 20 Aug 87:3/2);
weighment (FP/L 10 Jun 92:4/7).
WORD-FORMATION IN PAKISTANI ENGLISH
245
-ness:
English-based: cowardness (NS/L 25 Jul 91:4/3).
Urdu-based: filminess (filmi < Eng. film; D Mag 11 Jan 91:3/5); hijablessness (hijab
'cover'; D/L 20 Apr 89:10/4); Muslimness (Muslim; D/L Mag 6 Mar 92:5/5).
-ocracy: English-based: brutocracy (NS/L 6 Oct 91:6/6); demonocracy (N 13 Nov 91:6/2);
financocracy (N 12 Jun 87: 1/2); friendocracy (FP/L 2 Nov 91:8/7); kidnapocracy (N
30 Oct 89:12/5); militocracy (FT 25 Oct 90:1/1); plotocracy (PT 27 Aug 88:6/3);
skimocracy (FP/L 12 Jul 90:7/5).
Urdu-based: Allahcracy (Allah 'God'; PO 26 May 92:7/8); babucracy (babu 'clerk'
(derog.); DE 12 Jun 90:1/4); begumocracy (begum 'female title'; FP 10 Jan 89:4/3),
bhapuocracy (bhapu 'elderly man'; FP 10 Jan 89:4/6); Bhuttocracy (Benazir/Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto; PT 29 Oct 90:1/1); dakoocracy (dakoo 'bandit'; NS/L 8 Aug 91:12/6);
mullacracy (mullah 'Islamic priest'; PT 22 Aug 89:10/8); shooracracy (shoora
'Islamic council'; N 9 Jan 88:1/5); waderacracy (wadera 'Sindhi landlord'; M 23
Jun 90:4/6).
-ship:
English-based: acumenship (FP 14 Oct 86:3/4); caretakership (N 21 Mar 92:6/2);
contractorship (PO 15 May 92:6/7); co-sharership (PT 26 Apr 89:3/2); headmanship
(FP/L 14 Jul 91:5/5); kingmakership (NS/L 25 Apr 92:6/4); lecturership (NS/L 15
Sep 91:21/3); musclemanship (D/L 27 May 92:2,1/2); PM-ship (N 2 Jun 92:6/2).
Urdu-based: amirship (amir 'leader'; H Sep 91:50/1); Pathanship (Pathan; FP 1 Jul
89:7/4); Quaidship (quaid 'leader'; MA 18 Nov 90:7/3).
-speak: Urdu-based: Mian-speak (mian 'Punjabi title of respect'; MA 18 Nov 90:7/3).
-teria:
Urdu-based: chapperteria (chopper 'seats'; NL Jan 92:118a/l).
-wise:
Urdu-based: mohalla-wise (mohalla 'neighborhood'; M 3 Jul 90:6/5); tehsil-wise
(tehsil 'revenue district'; FP/L 22 Feb 92:5/5); thana-wise (thana 'police station'; M
Mag 11 Jan 91:4/6).
Appendix 3: Questionnaire
(Only those items pertaining to word-formation are included here. The full questionnaire also
included items on borrowing, archaisms, semantic shift, verb collocations, grammar, and
orthography.)
1. The police lathi-charged the demonstrators. 2. The hydel scheme was too expensive
to complete. 3. The culprits were arrested on the pointation of the accused. 4. We have a drugs
and Kalashnikov Culture. 5. The police arrested a notorious history sheeter. 6. Electricity rates
were recently raised by WAPDA. 7. The Pak army is on alert. 8. The minister airdashed to
Karachi. 9. Sehri-awakeners make their rounds to rouse fasters. 10. His action tantamounted
to treason. 11. The girl lost her eartops in the bazaar. 12. We took a flying coach to Islamabad.
13. Goondaism is on the rise in Lahore. 14. She has a soft corner for her uncle. 15. The SHO
was suspended for questionable behavior. 16. The police officer challaned the cyclist. 17. The
MNA was externed from the province. 18. The clerks had been observing a pen-down strike
for one week. 19. A local eveninger first reported the crime. 20. The police arrested three
youths for eveteasing. 21. The Vice-Chancellor was gheraoed by the students. 22. He sent his
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ROBERT J. BAUMGARDNER
biodata to the company. 23. The price of cotton bushirts has gone up. 24. The undertrials
were remanded to police custody. 25. Four notorious child-lifters were arrested from Jinnah
Super Market on Thursday. 26. The culprits were chargesheeted by the police. 27. The
rickshaw-wallah asked for twenty rupees. 28. The flood affectees were shifted to safe grounds.
29. The faithfuls entered the mosque for prayer. 30. The lady newscaster read the news in
detail. 31. The organization called for a wheel-jam strike. 32. Hundreds of students protested
against the non-receipt of admit-cards. 33. The sweeperess did not come to work this morning.
34. In Kalash, the squalor borne of poverty is being museumised in name of culture. 35. The
denter was not able to repair the mudguard. 36. I agree with you cent percent. 37. Washing
will de-shape your woolen garments. 38. The death anniversary was observed with great
solemnity. 39. He bought the guess papers from the Urdu bazaar. 40. We were served bed-tea
in the morning. 41. Cases of dacoity are on the rise in the country. 42. The CCI has not yet
been convened. 43. Many Ravians have achieved successful careers. 44. They had already left
to attend a marriage party. 45. The law and order situation is deteriorating daily. 46. Both the
SM and the ASM were found responsible. 47. The student was awarded a freeship to study
abroad. 48. The dacoits were taken to the police thana.
Robert J. Baumgardner
Department of Literature and Languages
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, Texas 75429
USA
e-mail: Robert_Baumgardner@tamu-commerce.edu