Indian French is a dialect of French spoken by Indians in past colonies of Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Karikal, Mahé and Yanam. In this dialect, there is a considerable influence from Dravidian languages like Tamil (Pondicherry Tamil dialect), Telugu (Yanam Telugu dialect) and Malayalam (Mahe Malayalam dialect).
There are several varieties of Indian French, corresponding to the former French colonies, as follows:
- Tamil people (nearly 60,000 in France, 10,000 people in Pondicherry)
- Telugu people (nearly 10,000 in France, 60 people in Yanam)
- Malayali people (4000-5000 in France)
Read more about Indian French: Examples of Indian French
Famous quotes containing the words indian and/or french:
“Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell me some medicinal use for every plant I could show him ... proving himself as good as his word. According to his account, he had acquired such knowledge in his youth from a wise old Indian with whom he associated, and he lamented that the present generation of Indians “had lost a great deal.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.”
—14th-century French proverb, first recorded in English in A. Barclay, Gringore’s Castle of Labour (1506)