A Comparison of Machine Learning and Transformer Approaches for Sentiment Analysis in Hinglish

Spending just minutes scrolling through Indian social platforms reveals something fast. Pure Hindi? Rare. Pure English? Not really. Words bounce between the two without warning, often mid-sentence. This blend slips out so easily, many folks never notice they're doing it. That mix goes by Hinglish. Smooth for conversation. Rough for machines trying to keep up. This study started with one basic thought: do various NLP systems manage emotional tone in text any better than others? Instead of just assuming, we compared classic machine learning methods with modern ones built on transformers, checking their scores side by side. Honestly, once you see what each model pays attention to, the outcome makes sense — yet how far ahead the new ones were felt a bit unreal at first. Victory went to transformers every single time.