As an Indian, it puts me off when I hear people adding "only" at the end.

Actually, it is an effect of direct translation from Hindi to English.

For example:

Hindi: मैं वहीँ पर ही तो था।  (Main wahin par hi to tha. )

Common translation to English by Indians: I was there only.

Explanation:

In the Hindi sentence, the speaker is stressing the fact that he was present at the location. That is why when it is translated, and "only" is added at the end to stress the fact that it was the "only" situation.

So technically speaking, you can ignore it and still the meaning would be same.

Haha. Well, "itself" sounds more odd to me and that's because I've hardly noticed anyone using it including any Indian. And as Rusty and Som have already mentioned, Indians try to translate things literally and that "only" at the end is the byproduct of that literal translation!:D

Rusty is correct. This is a very common "Indianism" prompted by the essential expressive structure of Indian languages, though it looks remarkably odd in English. Such statements mostly sound rather better if "only" is replaced by "itself", though that too isn't really required.

Su.Ki, I wasn't actually trying to give a natural sounding English expression, just a variant that sounds a tad better than the original. Here itself = specifically here and nowhere else.

Edit: and while I am at it - Myself Som. What is your good name please?

This is an interesting subject. Thanks, Tiger, for bringing it up, and thank you to Rusty and Som for explaining it.

I've found a couple of similar threads on the topic :

Interestingly, another Indian member suggested replacing 'only' with 'itself', just as Som has done. I can't see how 'itself' would make any of those sentences sound natural, but I can see how 'only' could be replaced with a more obvious word: just.

Non-native English speakers are often confused about the difference between 'only' and 'just'. These adverbs are interchangeable in some cases (as in 'only three days' and 'just three days') but not in others. One context where they are not interchangeable is when 'just' is used to mean 'precisely': for example, if you're commenting on the coincidence that someone did exactly the same thing as you, you might say "That's just what I did!" but not "<s>That's only what I did</s>!". (At least, not in standard English).

In other words, you can replace 'just' with 'only' when it means 'merely', but not when it means 'precisely'. Might it be that this was one memo which the Indians didn't get?

For example:

He must be here only. = He must be just here

I gave her that only. = I gave her just that.

I was there only = I was just there

Or, in the example from the thread quoted above:

Q: "Have you printed up my document?"

A: "We are getting that only printed"

The standard English version of the response is not, as one Indian poster claimed, "We are getting that itself printed". (Even weirder to the native speaker ear!) It would be something more like "That's just what we're printing" or "We're doing just that".

Thoughts, anyone?