I was told the other day that most Indians speak at least three languages: English and Hindi are considered to be universal throughout the country (although this person tells me that only about 50-60% can speak Hindi) ... and the third is the "local language." Apparently there is a wide variety of local languages. Each of them different. They are not at all like a dialect, but are indeed completely different languages with their own grammer, vocabulary and syntax.
The fun part is apparently the ease with which Indians will slip between these languages ... sometimes even in a single sentence. So, I will often hear things like:
[incomprehensible .... ] helmet [more incomprehensible ... ]
The point, I was told, is that Indians can so easily and quickly move from one language to another that they just use words that come to their minds to best express what they want. So, a sentence could have a mixture of all three languages all wrapped together.
Now that is something quite amazing.
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