Language

Style of language

Gautam Malkani’s short story “Paki” uses very specific language to offer insight into the gang’s culture. The street lingo that the boys use relies heavily on non-standard grammar and spelling similar to the texting style of the early 2000s, urban slang, and words and phrases that mix English and Indian languages. 

In terms of spelling, the story uses shortened words such as “u” or “b” instead of “you” or “be”. Sometimes, words are spelled in a way that reflects the characters’ accents such as “bredren” for “bretheren”, “dat” for “that” or “cut’chyu up” instead of “cut you up”, or by dropping the final g from most verbs ending with –ing or the final d from the word “and”. 

Examples of urban slang include words such as “blud”, “gimp”, “safe”, or “Beemer”. Regional words and expressions such as “innit” also show the character’s backgrounds and offer credibility to the setting. At the same time, it could also point to the gang’s need to imitate such speech. As most of them seem to come from wealthy families, it is likely that they were not exposed to this kind of lingo as often as they want people to believe.

Similarly, the use of Punjabi words such as “gora”, “sala”, or “kuta” helps to highlight the characters’ South Asian...