As someone who's bilingual myself, I can tell you that usually you use a widely spoken language at the start. For example in Europe a lot of people start off speaking in English and work from there. Hindi is really just the same for India. Most of the states have their own languages, with Hindi being a second language that the majority speak. OP probably speaks 3 languages at least (assuming they speak a state language too), but used Hindi as it is the most widespread.

@11 Or you just ask "do you speak this language?" And go from there.

As an Indian American, what we generally do is start off in English and if we find out they're from the same state, then we speak in the state language. But this is only generally for people who are close. It is considered awkward to just randomly speak in Hindi unless its obvious that a) you know the person or b) that there is no doubt whatsoever the he speaks your language

Yea 38, that's true. I'm Nigerian (born there but raised in America) and my parents are Nigerian (born and raised in Nigeria). We do have a pretty large Nigerian community here in my town so we do meet other Nigerians. Anyway, usually whenever I'm with my parents ( and they meet someone who looks Nigerian) they usually speak English. You know, just be on the safe side. But one time, when my dad was driving, we were stopped at a red light and my dad happened to notice a woman another car that looked exactly like this other one Nigerian woman. I was like "Dad? That's not her..." But my dad rolled down the window anyway and said, "Aga Madame! Eh kedu!" and waved. The lady rolled down her window slowly and gave us this EXTREMELY confused look lol. She was like "...Uh..I'm sorry?"And then he not noticing said it again lol but then was like "Oh! I'm sorry!" and then rolled up the window and looked ahead, laughing to himself. Lol I noticed she was still looking at us and shaking her head. She kept looking back at us for the duration of the time we were stuck at that damn light! As soon as it turned green my dad like pressed the gas and we hurled out lol. It was SO AWKWARD.

yes #22, but you would still have to pick a language to do that in. Which is likely to be a widely used language (like English).

EDIT: posted twice. Mod please delete this one

Lol, that's hilarious! Dads... :)

If you assume, it usually makes an ASS of U and ME.

Pleonasm, king of puns.

In his defence, I'd say the odds had been more or lassi-n his favour.

Well when you assume people are Native Indian like that at an Indian restaurant, you get what you deserve: Instant Korma.

You, sir are awesome :)

You can probably say that the owner was tikka'd off.

You could say that your language skills didn't curry his favour.

#34 tell him something he doesn't know

You shouldn't have assumed that he could Chaat with you in Hindi.

It's possible that the restaurant owner might speak Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, or any of the other 21 languages of India besides Hindi. Plus you can have authentic Indian food without speaking an Indian language.

If he spoke one of those languages, I doubt he would have not recognized the fact that OP was speaking Hindu and told him to speak English.... He was way more likely to be American.

Hindu is a religion, not a language.

Hindi= language Hindu= religion

It wasn't a random person, it was the supposed owner of an Indian restaurant.

Obviously not everyone speaks Hindi.

That's like going up to some kid in Chinatown and speaking Chinese to them.Hell,that's like going to a German beer garden in Cincinnati and ordering a beer in German...

Or going anywhere in Texas and speaking English...

Lol

I read it in a Glasgow accent for some reason.

lol i did too. i had to check the location afterwards. are you british too?