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In working with overseas teams, as well as with reading text written by speakers from India, I notice a strong overusage of the following types of phrases:

  • Please reply with the same.

  • Kindly review the same and let us know of any issue.

  • I am trying to do the same.

I'm curious what construct within the Indian language(s) is responsible for this particular phrase? This usage, while correct, is pretty uncommon among native speakers.

Reopen-request:

The 'duplicate' (Using the expression "the same" for a previously mentioned item) only asks about the grammaticality of this construction, not its origin or history.

alphabet
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eykanal
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    Related: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30000/using-the-expression-the-same-for-a-previously-mentioned-item –  Dec 29 '14 at 15:03
  • @Josh61 - Thanks, good find. "The same" is hard to search for :) I think that explains the English history behind the phrase, so this is a dupe of that... if you want to mark as such go ahead, or else I can just delete this. – eykanal Dec 29 '14 at 15:06
  • There's no harm in having extra pointers to the question (As long as it doesn't happen too often with the same asker). – Andrew Leach Dec 29 '14 at 15:47
  • This involves translation and is a better fit on Linguistics. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 22 '23 at 10:56

1 Answers1

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It is a direct translation from the Hindi:

वही vahee - (with implied "it is") that (with reference to an article previously mentioned or demonstrated), one of those, the same, the identical, a repeat, ditto, etc.

वही वही vahee vahee - reduplicative for emphasis and slightly dismissive of any concern by the listener.

Typical examples:

A: [to shopkeeper]: Which should I buy? This tennis racket or that tennis racket?

Shopk: Meh! Same same.

B: ... but that one's red and has a leather bag...

C: Star Trek is better than Star Wars.

D: Same same - people in space doing things...

E: The BJP spokesman has said that the new law will cure the problem.

F: Same same... they always say that.

Greybeard
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  • In my experience, the OP's first two examples are translated using उसी, not वही (for grammaticality), but neither is truly idiomatic. I'm skeptical that this is simple non-native duplication. – Heartspring Aug 20 '23 at 18:07
  • कवि हूँ प्रायोयगशील https://kavishala.in/sootradhar/gopal-prasad-vyas/kavi-hum-prayoyagasila -- बच्चे शरमाते, बात बकनी बताते जिसे, / वही-वही करतब अधेड़ करता हूँ मैं। / बिना बीज, जल, भूमि पेड़ करता हूँ मैं, / फूंक मार केहरी को भेड़ करता हूँ मैं। – Greybeard Aug 20 '23 at 22:17
  • So that non-speakers of Hindi can understand this, can you give a sample sentence in English where 'the same' is used as a pronoun (or however it is that you see it being used). Of course, the Hindi that is being translated might be also usful to have, but primarily give the full English context. – Mitch Aug 21 '23 at 16:25
  • The quote is from a poem that is somewhat difficult to translate without a lot of context. Basically, it says "Children do this/ वही-वही करतब अधेड़ करता हूँ मैं। = I do [exactly] the same. – Greybeard Aug 22 '23 at 09:53
  • Thanks for the examples. It makes it much clearer. However It looks ike you're answering a different question than posed by the OP. They are asking about 'the same' and not 'same same'. The origin of these two English terms may well be.. um.. the same, but their meanings are not so it isn't clear at all how 'same same' and 'the same' are related. – Mitch Aug 22 '23 at 13:35
  • @Mitch They are asking about 'the same' and not 'same same'. Then remove one... see pp 3 and 4 of the answer. – Greybeard Aug 22 '23 at 20:24
  • @Greybeard I'm not sure what pages you're talking about. Can you edit your answer to clarify? – Mitch Aug 22 '23 at 22:10