"So , at sixteen years and nine months...I found myself at Bombay where
I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the
vernacular sentences <whose meaning I knew not.> Other Indian-born boys have
told me how the same thing happened to them." [Something of Myself, chapter
III : my italics< >]
This suggests that Kipling had to re-learn "the vernacular" on his return to
India- in which case he is likely to have concentrated on whatever was
spoken by the printers there, and to have been helped by his father's
knowledge of the local language, whatever that was.
Incidentally, in my experience most people (including myself) think they
speak other languages better than they really do!
George Engle
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