RAVINDER GARGESH
“South Asian English” (SAE) is a cover term for Englishes in the South Asian region that includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. English language, in all these regions, has a dominating presence due to its widespread functions in significant domains of social life, education, and cross‐cultural communication (Kachru 1997, Hickey 2004). In these countries English is perceived as a language of “power” and of “upward social mobility” (Baumgardner 1996). English, in addition, also functions as a “link language” between groups that do not share the same language. In fact, in a country like India, it has begun to be viewed as a language of the region.
In the South Asian region, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are contiguous entities and are members of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation). They comprise over 12% of the Asian continent or over 3.6% of the world's land surface area. They account for about 40.9% of Asia’s population or over 24.3% of the world’s population. The official language of SAARC is English. It is home to speakers of several hundred languages that belong to Indo‐Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto‐Burman, and Austro‐Asiatic language families, and many of these languages are spoken across different countries, such as Hindi/Urdu (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal), Bengali and Assamese (Bangladesh and India), Punjabi (Pakistan and India), Nepali (Nepal and India), Pashto (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Tamil (India and Sri Lanka), Maldivian/Divehi/Dhivehi (Maldives and Sri Lanka), and so on.
South Asia has been defined as a “linguistic area” (Emeneau 1956; Masica 1976; Krishnamurti 1980), and according to Hock (1986: 494‐512), there is substantial linguistic convergence in the subcontinent due to shared cultural and political history and literary and folk traditions as well. The region is multilingual and has also had chronologically common substrata of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. In the process of spread and nativization of English, it is natural to have many of the shared characteristics transferred to SAE, which makes the variety distinct from other New Englishes (Kachru 1994: 498, 500). SAE, perhaps, is an excellent manifestation of the South Asian linguistic area.
The South Asian region is essentially multilingual and has a tradition of acculturation and nativization of nonnative languages. It should be kept in mind that before the advent of English, the Persian language, introduced by the Muslim kings, had also been nativized and institutionalized in the subcontinent the way English is being done today (Abidi & Gargesh 2008).
Braj Kachru (1985) views the growing assertion of “new Englishes” in sociolinguistic terms as varieties that have thrown off the colonial baggage and are in the process of asserting their local identities. He has conceptualized the vast spread of such varieties around the globe in his “concentric circles” model, where English in South Asia is perceived as a second language belonging to the Outer Circle countries and is distinct from the English of the Inner Circle countries such as UK, US, Canada etc., and from that of the Expanding Circle countries like China, Japan, Korea etc. According to him, “the introduction of English into the language policies of the region has primarily gone through four stages. First, exploration; second, implementation; third, diffusion, and finally, institutionalization” (Kachru 2005: 33). He has also shown that English has more speakers as second language and foreign language than the total number of speakers as native speakers. Moag (1982: 270), in a diachronic perspective, has mentioned “transportation, indigenization, expansion in use and function and institutionalization” as the path that enables a foreign transported language to become nativized and institutionalized in another land. Schneider (2003, 2007) has refined this process further in terms of five phases: foundation, exonormative stabilization, nativization, endonormative stabilization, and differentiation. According to Schneider all countries of South Asia have had English transported from the UK or US. Initially, rules of the foreign variety (exonormative norms) were upheld, and then came the phase of nativization of language followed by its institutionalization, which has led to the recognition of local (endocentric) norms. The final phase of differentiation, that is, recognizing newer dialects as distinct nativized varieties, has not yet taken place in South Asia.
Though work has been done on Indian English (IndE), Pakistani English (PakE), and Sri Lankan English (SLE), Mukherjee (2007) has looked at IndE through Schneider’s “dynamic model” and has viewed in some detail the conflicting tendencies of exonormative orientation (that is, conservative tendencies of following the models of the colonizers’ language) and endonormative (progressive) stabilization. For him, IndE is “marked by…a steady state between conservative and progressive forces” (2007: 173), and “the most important progressive force is the innovation of new forms and structures by Indian users of English” (2007: 174). Due to these conflicting tendencies, Mukherjee terms the steady state of IndE as a “semiautonomous” variety which includes to a large extent the common core of the standard native varieties and which simultaneously also manifests the creation of new forms independently as well as the influence of substrate languages. He characterizes IndE as “endonormatively stabilized” though “showing some aspects of ongoing nativization” (2007: 182) as well, and it is believed to be at a stage between Schneider’s phases 3 and 4. Balasubramanian’s (2009) analysis, too, points out that IndE has progressed through Schneider’s Phase 3 into Phases 4 and 5. Schilk (2011: 9–11), from a study of collocations and verbal complementation in IndE and BrE, shows IndE to have Schneider’s features of phases 3 and 4, that is, nativization and endonormative stabilization. The common view is that IndE is an institutionalized stable variety and has much in common with other SAE varieties like PakE and SLE.
The English language did not arrive in all countries of South Asia at the same time nor does it have the same history of its spread in the region. Initially the English language spread in South Asia due to British colonization and later due to global trends relating to scientific and economic growth. In terms of political history Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have all experienced British rule at one time or another while Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal were never a part of it, but Maldives was a “protectorate” of the British government.
India is the most important and the largest segment of this region. The spread of English in South Asia can be viewed by briefly considering the history of the India before 1947 when the three countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh formed a single unit. They have a common colonial history from the beginning of the seventeenth century to their independence from British rule in 1947 CE. Thereafter, the developments in each of the countries occurred separately.
The English language arrived in India with the East India Company at the beginning of the seventeenth century and it spread with its growing influence, from a few trading factories at Surat (1612) to Madras/Chennai (1639–40), Bombay (1674), and Calcutta/Kolkota (1690). English traders were helped by translators who may have been “the earliest users of English in India” (Mehrotra 1982: 3). English also began to be used in the military by Indian recruits (Mehrotra 1982: 3). English‐medium missionary schools began to be founded after 1698 when the charter of the company was renewed and a missionary clause was included (Parashar 1991: 29). This is equivalent to the foundation phase in Schneider’s (2003, 2007) dynamic model in the context of the evolution of new Englishes.
William Pitt’s (1759–1806) India Act, passed in 1784, gave joint responsibility of Indian affairs to the British Crown and the East India Company. The English language at this stage acquired importance particularly for those Indians who were working for the British administration (Krishnaswamy & Burde 1998: 83–87). During this phase “the standards and norms of the English language in general…remained British” (Mukherjee 2007: 165), thus exhibiting “exonormative stabilization” (Schneider 2003: 245).
The functional domains of English increased in the first half of the nineteenth century when education was added in the Charter of the East India Company in 1813. Subsequently several missionary schools were opened (Kanungo 1962: 11–14). With the use of English growing amongst the urban population (Krishnaswamy & Burde 1998: 89) and an increase in jobs, the demand for English and its popularity grew, and it began to develop as Indian English: “The use of English in the bureaucratic domain was the beginning of Indians’ English. It is not surprising, therefore, that the bureaucratic manner of writing dominated even the non‐bureaucratic writing” at that time (Krishnaswamy & Burde 1998: 89).
The zeal of the missionaries and enthusiasm for education through the English medium amongst some prominent Indians such as Raja Rammohan Rao culminated in the famous Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education on 2 February 1835 (Aggarwal 1993: 2–12). With the acceptance of this minute by Lord William Bentinck, a new educational policy was initiated in India. This led to the spread of bilingual education which also turned English “into a marker of elitist schooling and the key to powerful government jobs and high social status” (T. Rahman 2002: 169). This was the beginning of the institutionalization of English in India.
After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the East India Company was abolished and the Crown directly took up the governance of India. This was the beginning of the British Raj (rule) and now there were greater interactions between the people and the government. The English used in the country during this phase represents the third phase of nativization (Schneider 2003: 247), when universities and colleges and more English‐medium schools began to be opened to meet the demand for educated labor for running the various arms of the government.
During the time leading to independence of the country, English began to be used as a medium of political discourse to oppose the British rule. Gandhi’s call for the use of local languages for education led to the opening of many such schools in the country, and this in turn led to a temporary estrangement with the English‐speaking Indian elite (Mehrotra 1982: 5). Efforts were made even after 1947 to replace English by Hindi in India, by Urdu in Pakistan, by Bengali in Bangladesh, and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; however, Kachru (2005: 32) aptly points out that in these countries “the roots of English are much deeper now than they were in 1947.” Let us look at the developments in the South Asian region after 1947.
India emerged as the largest geographical entity in South Asia even after being partitioned into India and Pakistan (which then included East Pakistan, the larger eastern part of Bengal, now known as Bangladesh). In the postindependence phase the English language gradually became far more entrenched. The Constitution of India came into force in 1950, with Hindi recognized as the official language of the Union, and the role of English limited to that of an associate official language for 15 years only, that is, until January 1965. However, because of fears of disadvantages in administrative services, there was stiff resistance from non‐Hindi‐speaking states of West Bengal and the four South Indian states, particularly Tamil Nadu, against the declaration of Hindi as an official language. They began to support the retention of English, a “neutral” language. This political turmoil led to the enactment of the Official Language (Amendment) Act 1967, which designated English as the “Associate Official Language” of the union with no time limit. Since then the place of English in India has been secure. Now it is the state language of Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura as well as the official language of seven Union Territories: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, and Pondicherry.
In the field of education, this led to the Three Language Formula in the multilingual Indian context (Aggarwal 1993: 175–193). The formula stipulates that the first language to be studied at the primary level must be the mother tongue or the regional standard; that the second language at the upper primary level in Hindi‐speaking states will be a modern Indian language (MIL) or English, and in non‐Hindi‐speaking states, it will be Hindi or English; and that the third language in Hindi‐speaking states will be English or an MIL not studied as the second language, and in non‐Hindi‐speaking states, English or Hindi, whichever has not been studied as the second language. One implication of this formula was that while the teaching of the first language commenced from class I, the teaching of the second language was recommended from class VI, or at a convenient stage. The third language was also recommended to be taught from class VI (for details, see Gargesh 2002: 191–203). By now, because of public demand, English has begun to be taught as a subject from class I onwards in most states. In fact, there is a mushrooming of English‐medium schools all over the country that cater to the demand for better teaching and learning of English. English‐medium education is of the highest importance in higher education, and English is the only medium for studying medicine, computers, science, and technology.
Presently, English is being increasingly recognized as an Indian language, as shown by the demand made in the meeting of CABE (Central Advisory Board of Education) convened in early August 2004.1 Many people like Anita Desai, a prominent Indian novelist, have also begun to subscribe to this opinion.
Pakistan was carved out of British India in 1947. It consisted of West Pakistan in the northwestern side of India and East Pakistan in the eastern part of India. By the time of independence, the English language was used in elitist schools, in higher education, and in prestigious domains of power such as the civil service, the officer corps of the armed forces, the higher judiciary, universities, prestigious newspapers, and other spheres.
Later, the Constitutions of 1962, 1965, and 1973 expressed the desire and need to replace English by Urdu in all domains of life. According to Mahboob (2009: 179), only the religious groups have consistently opposed the continuation of English; otherwise English continues to retain its importance.
There was a brief period in the history of Pakistan when General Zia‐ul‐Haq, through his education policy of 1978, tried to rapidly implement his Islamization and Urduization policies by restricting the role of English in Pakistan. However, some elite English‐medium schools, where children of the “powerful” studied, were exempted from switching to Urdu medium. Due to its unpopularity, Haq’s government revised the Urdu‐only policy in 1987. Hence, the central government, most provincial governments, and institutions of higher education began to use English, in addition to the elitist, private, convent, and public schools (T. Rahman 2002: 288–309).
The advent of English in Bangladesh has the same history as in India till 1947 and as in Pakistan from 1947 to 1971. In 1971 Bangladesh was liberated from Pakistan after a civil war. Bangladesh did not have any language problem since the Bengali language was and is spoken and written by the vast majority of its population.
On attaining independence, due to patriotic fervor, both Urdu and English were displaced by Bengali. The constitution, written in Bengali, does not mention the status of English. According to Muniruzzaman (1979), Bengali language took precedence at all levels of administration, education, and later even in the judiciary. In 1987, the Bangla Procholon Ain (Bengali Implementation Act) was passed in order to prevent the use of English.
In the context of education, English was abolished from the primary stage of education and also withdrawn from the tertiary levels, but it was retained as a subject at the secondary school level, and also some English medium schools continued with surreptitious patronage of an elite minority. According to A. Rahman (2007: 74–75), English survived the phase of Bengali fervor because of the lack of educational materials in Bengali, particularly in science and technology. The rise of English to a position of dominance in education was gradual. In 1986, English was introduced from class 1 to class 12; in 1992, the enactment of The Private University Act led to a proliferation of expensive private universities with English‐medium higher education. In 1994, English was reintroduced in the two‐year BA (which had been dropped in 1972). In 1996, a compulsory English language foundation course was introduced in undergraduate classes; and in 1996, the retirement age of teachers of English was increased by three years to meet the shortage of teachers in the subject.
Today Bangladeshi society desires English language for its functional value, and now it is present in all domains of national life.
The major languages in use in Sri Lanka are Sinhalese and Tamil, with English regarded as a “link language” (Raheem & Devendra 2007: 82).
Sri Lanka had first come under Portuguese rule (1505–1656), which was followed by Dutch rule (1656–1796). First, the Portuguese, and later, the Dutch established a number of missionary schools run on a western system of education. The British, after taking over administration from the Dutch, introduced English as the medium of education following the recommendations of the Colebrook‐Cameron Commission of Inquiry (1830–1832), in order to educate “the natives so that they may in time qualify themselves for holding some of the higher appointments” (Raheem & Ratwatte 2004: 93). The main initiatives for the establishment of English as the dominant language of education in Sri Lanka resemble those that had occurred in India around the same time. This European system of education led to a three‐tiered system in which the prestigious English‐medium private schools were at the top, followed by Anglo‐vernacular or bilingual schools providing education to the lower strata of society in a local language and English; at the bottom were the vernacular schools which provided elementary education in the vernacular languages. Around this time, the British brought Tamil‐speaking laborers to Sri Lanka from South India. By the time of independence from Britain in 1948, much of the prestige of English language was lost due to the political projection of Sinhala and Tamil languages. In 1956, with the promulgation of the Official Language Act, Sinhala was recognized as the sole official language of Sri Lanka, and in 1958 the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act introduced Tamil as a language in government offices (Kandiah 1984: 124). Currently, there are two streams of education in Sri Lanka – Sinhala and English and Tamil and English (Lo Bianco 2011). The revival of English has been brought about by the liberalization of the economy (Raheem & Devendra 2007: 195–198), the promulgation of the New Educational Reforms of 1997, and the influence of an entrenched English‐using elite class.
Nepal is a multilingual country situated at the crossroads of India and China, with about 70 mutually unintelligible languages (Malla 1989: 449), most of which belong to the Tibeto‐Burman (e.g., Newari, Tamang, Gurung Sherpa) and Indo‐European (e.g., Nepali, Maithili, Hindi, Urdu) language families.
Eagle (2000: 4–59) provides the background for the advent and spread of English language education in Nepal. According to her, some British and Italian Christian missionaries had come to Nepal around 1745 and had opened some schools but were expelled from Nepal after the Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan united the smaller kingdoms in 1769. This dynasty was overthrown by the Ranas. Jung Bahadur Rana, as Prime Minister, visited England in 1850. In order to remodel the Nepalese army on British lines, an agreement was made with the British for recruiting Nepalese soldiers for the British government, and this led to the formation of the Gurkha Regiment in 1851. The Rana also set up a school to provide western education, including the teaching of English, to his children and to close family members. In 1918 Trichandra College was set up primarily with a western curriculum.
After World War II, many Gurkha soldiers, along with their children, who were all educated by the British, returned to Nepal. Some of them had become officers due to their fluency in English. Eagle (2000: 17) points out that these were the “first commoners to speak English” in Nepal, and this raised the prestige of the English language in Nepal.
After an armed revolution in 1950, a government was formed consisting of members of the Rana family and the Nepali Congress Party. Nepali, the prestigious language, was declared the national language by King Mahendra. Tribhuvan University, the first university in Nepal, was established in 1956 with help from the US. The school system was also strengthened in the 1950s and the 1960s, along with the establishment of many missionary schools. However, in 1970 all schools were nationalized and taken over by the government. The National Education System was established (1970–1976), which enabled English to be introduced from grade IV onwards. The New Education Policy of 1990 recognized English as an international language, and as a result English began to be taught from grade IV through to BA level in the university. Since then many English Language Institutes have also come up in different parts of Nepal including the ones set up by the American Language Center and the British Council. Today, English functions as a second language and is used in more domains of national life than any other language of Nepal (Jha 1989: v).
Bhutan is a multilingual country with 18 languages spoken. Bhutan began its development in 1961 and declared Dzongpa its official language, with Hindi as the second language, which was later replaced by English.
Formerly, education meant monastic education, and literacy was imparted in Dzongkha and Choekey. There were a very small number of primary schools that provided modern education, and for higher education, a limited number of people went to India. Modernization began in earnest in 1961, and an increasing number of civil servants educated through the English medium were appointed.
Formal secular education was introduced into Bhutan with the opening of two schools by the first king, Ugyen Wangchuck (Driem 1994: 95). This number gradually expanded, and by 1959, there were 59 primary schools and 1,500 students in the country. At this time, almost all higher education of Bhutanese students took place in India (Holsti 1982: 28). By 2014 the total number of schools was more than 860. The total school enrolment for the academic year 2014 was 172,393. Now there are 13 tertiary institutions, including one private college, with a total enrolment of 11,089 students, who pursue various degree programs (Policy and Planning Division 2014: ix).
Presently there are three types of education in Bhutan, namely, English medium, Dzongkha medium, and monastic. Of all these, the English‐medium education is the dominant mode and it covers the largest number of schools. Students are taught science, mathematics, English and social studies in all schools through the medium of English (Ueda 2004: 327). The wider scope of jobs for students of English‐medium education has made English more attractive today in Bhutan (Ueda 2004: 343–344).
Maldives, from the mid‐sixteenth century onwards, was dominated by colonial powers: first Portugal, then the Netherlands, and finally by Britain. The islands gained independence from Britain in 1965 and in 1968 became a republic ruled by a president.
The official and most common language is Dhivehi, an Indo‐European language. Since the 1960s, English has become the medium of education in most schools, and the curriculum was reorganized according to the London General Certificate of Education. Presently, English is also spoken widely by the locals of Maldives.
The Maldives College of Higher Education, established in January 1999, was converted to the Maldives National University in 2011. A vision document on education, English in the National Curriculum, was published by the National Institute of Education (NIE) in 2014. Although it was prepared as “key stage 1 (for grades 1, 2, and 3),” the overall twofold vision is relevant. First, the aim of English language in the education system is to strengthen the Islamic faith of the people “by exploring reading materials that incorporate Islamic knowledge, stories of the prophets and contemporary issues in the community,” and second, to develop the English language skills of the students for use in various social contexts (NIE 2014: 3). The curriculum envisaged is one that develops English language abilities that can function across the curriculum (NIE 2014: 6) and for pursuing tertiary education. It is viewed as the medium through which most Maldivians can gain access to information and knowledge around the world as well as improve tourism into the country.
Afghanistan is near the ancient Silk Road. It is multilingual, with Pashto and Dari as official languages. The other dominant languages that have official status in their respective regions are Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi, Nuristani, and Pamiri. These, in addition to Pashto and Dari, function as third official languages in areas where the majority speaks them.
Razia’s organization Ray of Hope, supported by a small US‐based foundation team, has sponsored and operated the Zabuli Education Center, which provides more than 480 girls with free education as well as uniforms and meals. Razia Jan, in a blog,2 aptly reports the developments in education. She says that public education is a relatively recent concept in Afghanistan. It was only after 1969 that free, mandatory education for children between the ages of 7 and 15 was legislated. Before 1969, schools existed, but attending them was at the discretion of parents. All education above the primary level was provided in Dari. During the Soviet occupation, there were efforts at building up the education system, but all efforts failed, since boys and girls were expected to sit in the same classrooms. After the Soviet withdrawal and during the civil war that followed, the education system fell apart, and Kabul University was closed down. Under the Taliban, secular education did not exist. Boys received religious education, but girls were forbidden education altogether. Parents who wanted their children to be educated had to arrange for private tutoring in informal groups at home. Following the fall of the Taliban, Kabul University was reopened to both male and female students. In 2006, the American University of Afghanistan also began to provide a world‐class English‐language education in a coeducational context. At present, there are approximately 16,000 schools in the country. As of 2013, more than 10 million male and female students were enrolled in schools throughout Afghanistan.
According to the BBC,3 interest in English increased dramatically after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and with the arrival of the United Nations and other international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in developmental work. Hundreds of private English‐language schools have opened that cater to tens of thousands of students all over Afghanistan. The dominance of American culture and the globalization of economy have brought about an unprecedented demand for English language education.
South Asia as a linguistic area manifests common features across languages of the region due to areal contact and considerable linguistic convergence between Indo‐Aryan and Dravidian, Indo‐Aryan and Austro‐Asiatic, and Indo‐Aryan and Tibeto‐Burman languages. This has led to “shared cultural and political history, [and] shared literary and folk traditions,” and these shared features of the South Asian region subsequently were “transferred to South Asian English (SAE) and result in the South Asianness in this variety” (Kachru 2005: 30). Due to substrate influences, however, there are several varieties of English within the South Asian region, including Hindustani English (Pandey 1985), Kannada English (Murthy 1981), Marathi English (Gokhale 1978; Rubdy 1975), Pakistani English (Mahboob & Ahmar 2008; T. Rahman 1991); Punjabi English (Sethi 1976, 1980), Tamil English (Upendran 1980; Vijaykrishnan 1978), and Telugu English (Babu 1974; Ramunny 1976).
The different varieties at the level of society also reflect what Kachru (1969: 393) suggests is a cline of bilingualism with English, having a scale of different degrees of competence in English in India with three measuring points: the Zero point at the bottom point of the cline; the Central point, which indicates adequate competence in English; and the Ambilingual point, for those users who have native‐like competence in English. The cline is able to explain the range of Englishes, from broken English (Butler English) to the highly educated variety. Davydova (2012: 369), on the basis of the study of Hamburg Corpus of Non‐native Varieties of English (HCNVE), views the three measuring points in terms of basilectal, mesolectal, and acrolectal varieties of IndE. The different varieties in the cline have been perceived by Srivastava (1995: 297) and Gargesh (2006: 130) on the basis of the functional types of bilingualism, such as performing auxiliary, supplementary, complementary, or equative functions. The auxiliary function denotes English used for acquiring knowledge, such as a “library language”; the supplementary function refers to English used as a “vehicular language” for restricted needs by guides, taxi drivers, or Indians touring abroad; the complementary function encompasses English used along with a first language, that is as a “link language”; and the equative function refers to English employed as an equal alternate language, such as used by “ambilinguals” (Gargesh 2006: 130). It may be said that the common features along with the totality of variations in the use of English in South Asian region may be termed as South Asian English (SAE).
Two varieties of Englishes arose on the subcontinent after the initial contact between the British and the South Asians. The first was the language of the Eurasians of India and Sri Lanka, and the second, the various pidgin varieties on the subcontinent. The Eurasian community is called the Anglo‐Indian community in India. It is a distinct, small minority community that emerged from mixed British and Indian ancestry during the British Raj, and their native language is English. Members of the Eurasian community, irrespective of their being descended from Portuguese, Dutch, British, or any other Europeans settled in Ceylon/Sri Lanka, are known as the Burgher people or the Burghers. Both the Anglo‐Indians and the Burghers have preserved western culture and the English language. The pidgin varieties of English arose as contact languages in some parts of South Asia. Schuchardt (1980 [1891]: 38) identified five subtypes of pidgin English: Butler English in Madras, Pidgin English in Bombay, Boxwallah English in upper India, Chee Chee English, and Baboo English. Of these five, Chee Chee English does not strictly fall in the same category as the other four pidgins, as it refers to the English used by Anglo‐Indians in undivided India. The Anglo‐Indian/Burgher varieties and the pidgin varieties came up almost side by side along with the educated South Asian variety of English.
The English of the Anglo‐Indian community was initially referred to as Chee Chee English, a label believed to be towing to a “mincing” pronunciation. Yule and Burnell cite an example from Hicky’s Bengal Gazette of 17 March 1781:
Pretty little Looking‐Glasses,
Good and cheap for Chee chee Misses
(Yule & Burnell 1996 [1886]: 140)
Anglo‐Indian English refers more to the stylistic variety of the Anglo‐Indians, with grammar being largely similar. Some examples given by Schuchardt are to blow one’s self which means ‘to hit one’s self’ in Standard British English; to get tossed meaning ‘to be thrown from a horse’, and to roll a bir’ meaning ‘to hit a bird with a stone or pellet’. Some examples of the Anglo‐Indian dialect can be seen in the snippets put together by the Anglo‐Indian Australian film maker Paul Harris on YouTube.4
Meyler, Fernando, and Vanderpoorten (2007: 43) cite from Carl Muller’s The Jam Fruit Tree to show who the Burghers were:
The result was hotch‐potch that was for convenience, classified as Burgher (from the Dutch “burgher” or townsman)…. The Burghers found immense favour with the British because their mother tongue was English…It’s hard to find a “true” Burgher today.
Meyler, Fernando, and Vanderpoorten (2007: 43) also cite from Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy to show the importance of Burghers in British times: “In those days, Burghers thought they were a cut above other Sri Lankans.” Some examples of Burgher English can be heard on YouTube5 in “Last of Sri Lanka’s Burgher Ladies.”
Butler English, also known as “kitchen English,” was recognized by Yule and Burnell in Hobson‐Jobson as a “peculiar” simplified variety of English:
The broken English spoken by native servants in the Madras Presidency…is a singular dialect; the present participle (e.g.) being used for the future indicative, and the preterite indicative being formed by ‘done’; thus I telling = ‘I will tell’; I done tell = ‘I have told; done come = ‘actually arrived’. Peculiar meanings are also attached to words; thus family = ‘wife’.
(Yule & Burnell 1996 [1886]: 133‐134)
Important morpho‐syntactic features have been discussed in Hosali (2008: 536–577). She believes that Butler English can be heard sometimes even now in the interactions between an illiterate Indian domestic servant and his/her English‐speaking foreign employer. Hosali (2008: 564–565) considers this variety to be stable and still observable, as it is manifested in the speech of 20 illiterate subjects she had interviewed and who were working in 1980–1982 in environments that required some communication in English.
Baboo or Babu English is described by Yule and Burnell as follows:
among Anglo‐Indians, it is often used with a slight savour of disparagement, as characterizing a superficially cultivated, but too often effeminate, Bengali. And from the extensive employment of the class, to which the term was applied as a title, in the capacity of clerks in English offices, the word has come often to signify “a native clerk who writes English.”
(Yule & Burnell 1996 [1886]: 44)
A good example of Babu English is a historic letter written by a railway passenger Okhil Chandra Sen to the Sahibganj divisional railway office in 19096:
I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station and my belly is too much swelling with jackfruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doing the nuisance that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with “lotah” in one hand and “dhoti” in the next when I am fall over and expose all my shocking to man and female women on plateform. I am got leaved at Ahmedpur station. This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung that dam guard not wait train five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine on that guard for public sake. Otherwise I am making big report to papers.
This letter is on display at the Railway Museum in New Delhi. Its historical value is that it led to the introduction of toilets on trains in India.
Broken English spoken by Bombay servants who were half‐Portuguese is known as Pidgin English of Bombay. Incidentally, the name Bombay given to the town by the British is derived from the Portuguese ‘bom bahia’ (‘good bay’).
Another variety, termed Box‐wallah English by Schuchardt, referred to the variety used by itinerant peddlers who carried boxes of wares to the houses of foreigners and affluent Indians. The wares varied from antiques to papier‐mâché, wood carving, silk, and jewelry. Their English was a trade language, highly restricted in vocabulary and grammar. Some examples of this variety cited in Kachru (2005: 42) are This good, fresh sixpence ‘This is good and fresh, it’s only sixpence’; He thief me ‘He robs/ robbed me’.
Such varieties of English have often been considered deficient. Faults were found even with the “educated variety,” as Whitworth observed:
I have been struck with the wonderful command which Indians – and not only those who have been to England – have obtained over the English language for all practical purposes. At the same time, I have often felt what a pity it is that men exhibiting this splendid facility should now and then mar their compositions by little errors of idiom which jar upon the ear of the native Englishman.
(Whitworth 2002 [1907]: 5)
Since he was evaluating the variety from the standards of British English, he found numerous “errors” in the uses of lexical items and metaphors.
South Asian Englishes exhibit many common features. These features can be identified at all levels of language organization, phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics/discourse.
SAE phonology can be observed in common features of the major forms of vowels, consonants, phonological processes, and prosodic features (Kachru 1983, 2005; Meyler et al. 2007; Gargesh 2008; Mahboob & Ahmar 2008; T. Rahman 2014.).
It can be surmised from Gargesh (2008: 231–243) and Mahboob and Ahmar (2008: 244–258), both studies based on the same Sheffield word list and the “North Wind” reading passage, that IndE and PakE have the following 19 vowels: 13 monophthongs /ɪ, i:, u, u:, e, e:, ʌ, ə, o:, ɔ, ɔ:, ᴂ, a:/, and 6 diphthongs /ai, au, eə, (j)uə, ɔi, iə/. The consonant sounds of SAE are bilabials /m, p, b/; labiodentals /f, v/; dentals /t, d/; alveolars /n, s, z, l, r/; palatal‐alveolars /ʃ, ʒ/; palatals /j, tʃ, dʒ/; velars /ŋ, k, g/; retroflex /ṭ, ḍ, ṇ/; and glottal /h/ (Kachru 2005; Gargesh 2008; Mahboob & Ahmar 2008; T. Rahman 2014).
The distinctive features of SAE in comparison to BrE are the absence of syllable‐initial aspiration of voiceless stops, as in [pin; kin] rather than [p ͪɪn;k ͪɪn]. The dental sounds /t/ and /d/ of BrE tend to be retroflexed, as in the words aunty [a:ṇṭi:], band [bӕṇḍ]; and the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ are realized as the dentals [tʰ] and [d] as in thin [tʰɪn] and then [den], respectively. In South India, the alveolar stop /t/ is often articulated instead of /θ/, as in thought – [tɔːṭ]. The fricative sounds /s/ and /z/ occur in SAE; however, regional variations, such as [ʃ] for [s] and [dʒ] for [z], can be heard in Bengal, as in [ʃɪp] for sip and [praɪdʒ] for prize. The labiodental [f] is often articulated as [p ͪ], as in freeze [phri:dʒ]. In South India, a “euphonic” /j/ and /w/ are sometimes realized in place of the /h/ as in [jil] for hill, [jəd] for had, and [laɪvliwud] for livelihood.
Among the liquid sounds /l/ is generally clear and /r/ is trilled. The [r] is realized postvocalically, too, as in [ka:r] and [ka:rt] for car and cart, respectively. Also, there is no intrusive /r/ between two vowels, as in the BrE expression the idea is which is articulated as [‘the idear is’]. Among the semivowels, /j/ is distinct, while /w/ overlaps the labiodental fricative /v/, as in [pa:vər] or [pa:wər] for power. The “euphonic” /j/ and /w/ exist in most South Indian varieties, as can be heard in [jeveri] for every and [wonli] for only.
Some specific phonological features of SAE are the breaking up of word‐initial consonant clusters of the type sp‐; st‐, sk‐ and sl‐. While in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar a short high prothetic vowel /ɪ/ is inserted in the word‐initial position, in Punjab (including Pakistan) and Haryana, the low back nontensed vowel /ə/ is inserted between the consonants. Both these processes convert the initial syllable into two syllables, for example, the words speech and school are realized as [ɪspi:tʃ] and [ɪsku:l] in the eastern Hindi belt and in Sri Lanka, and as [səpi:tʃ] and [səku:l] in north India and Pakistan. Rahman (2014) also points out that since Pashto allows these clusters, Pashto speakers do not break up the clusters in their English. In the northeast of India (Nagaland and Manipur), word‐final consonant clusters are simplified by dropping the last consonant, for example, act is realized as [ek] and fruits as [fruṭ].
Stress and intonation patterns in SAE show heavy influence of substrate languages. It has been observed that SAEs are syllable‐timed as opposed to, for example, BrE, which is stress‐timed. In SAE varieties, there is significant correlation between stress and the relative weight of syllables within a word. All monosyllabic words are stressed. In disyllabic words, the primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable if it is not followed by an extra‐heavy syllable (V:C or VCC); otherwise, it falls on the ultimate syllable. In a sequence of two extra‐heavy syllables, the stress falls on the penultimate syllable. In trisyllabic words, the primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable if it is heavy; otherwise, it falls on the antepenultimate syllable (see Singh & Gargesh 1996). Thus, the primary stress in degree [′dɪgri:], gymnast [dʒɪm′na:st], modesty [mo′dɛstɪ], and terrific [′tɛrɪfɪk]. Due to these effects, a shift of stress resulting from grammatical factors may not be observable. Thus, the noun and verb forms often remain the same; for example, permit [′pərmɪt]; and protest [pro′tɛst]. Further, SAE has syllable‐timed rhythmic patterns like those of the indigenous languages, so that syllables are uttered with almost equal lengths. According to Pickering and Wiltshire (2000: 181), the divergence of SAE from RP or AmE is due to the variable assignment of stresses in utterances.
Lexicon is an area where SAE becomes meaningfully quite distinct. Here, words acquire fresh meanings in local contexts. Yule and Burnell (1996 [1886]) were among the first to give a large list of peculiar words and expressions used in British India; Nihalani, Tongue, Hosali, and Crowther (1979, 2004) and Meyler et al. (2007) have also provided lists of IndE and SLE words and expressions.
In his study of Asian Englishes, Kachru (2005: 50–54) provides categories of lexical items which show the amount of intrusion and range of Indian‐language words in SAE. He divides the lexicon affecting SAE into three major classes: (a) single‐word items borrowed into English from local languages; (b) hybridized lexical items which consist of two or more elements from at least two distinct languages; and (c) English lexical items used with extended or restricted meanings. Weinreich (1953: 47), drawing on his study of language contact in a bilingual situation, proposed the categories of “borrowed,” “semantically changed,” and “hybridized” lexicon, which are similar to Kachru’s categories. He also identified “translated” expressions as a fourth category, and reduplicated forms can come under translations. Some examples of these categories are provided in the following discussion.
Many words from regional languages represent names of food items, items of daily life, local sports, words from political discourse, and specifics of culture and religion.
Some examples of borrowed words are almirah ‘cupboard’, dhobi ‘a person who washes clothes’, daal/dhal ‘lentils’, haṛtaal ‘an unofficial strike as a mark of protest’, kabaḍḍi ‘a traditional team game’, laḍḍu ‘a type of sweet distributed on happy occasions’, sadhu ‘a priest or a holy man’, saṛee ‘a garment worn by women’; units of measure like crore ‘10 million’ and lakh ‘100,000’ are used in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Words have also been borrowed from the five main religions of the subcontinent: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Sikhism.
Buddhism is practiced in Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Words like bhikku ‘a Buddhist monk’, dhamma ‘Buddhist doctrine’, dukkha ‘suffering’, nibbana‘nirvana’, sangha ‘an order of Buddhist monks’, shiila ‘ethics or morality’ are well known to SAE users.
Hinduism is practiced mainly in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and also by groups in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Names of numerous gods and goddesses, such as Krishna, Rama, Laxmi, Radha, Sita, and Shiva, are used as personal names by many Hindus. The Hindu festivals of Holi, Vijay Dashami/Dussehra, Chhat, Deepavali, Janamashtmi, Ramnavami, and Mahashivaratri are widely celebrated and reported on in the press in India and Nepal. For example, a news report from Nepal is as follows:
Nepali Congress organised its annual tea reception to share Vijay Dashami, Deepawali, and Chhat festival greetings at its party office in Sanepa, Lalitpur, on Tuesday, October 7, 2014.7
Islam is the major religion of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pakistan, with many adherents in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. T. Rahman (2014: 62) and Mahboob & Ahmar (2008: 175) give examples of Islamic practices, such as namaaz ‘prayers’, khutba ‘a Muslim priest’s ritual sermon at Friday prayer’, jihad ‘holy war’, mujahideen ‘fighters in the way of God’, masjid ‘mosque’, shariat ‘Islamic jurisprudence’, and zakat ‘alms tax’. This is true not only in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
Similarly, there are a number of terms from the Jain religion, such as nirgantha ‘no attachments or aversions’, śraman ‘self‐reliant’, siddha ‘divine consciousness’, Tiirthaŋkaars ‘those who have shown the way to salvation’, and mokṣa ‘salvation’. Many words have entered the English lexicon from Sikhism as well, such as Guru ‘spiritual leader’, Sikh ‘disciple of the Guru’, raagi ‘religious singer’, gurudwara ‘a Sikh temple’, and gurpurab ‘festival of Guru’.
A form that results from the synthesis of two or more elements from two different languages is a hybrid form. The two elements can be lexical items, or one of them can be a nonlexical morpheme. Kachru (2005: 53) distinguishes between a hybrid form “which has no grammatical constraint on the selection of items, and an item which has such constraints.” His examples are lathi charge ‘baton charge’ (IndE, PakE, SLE), bindi mark ‘religious marking on the forehead’, Nikah ceremony ‘marriage contract ceremony’ (IndE, PakE, SLE), and zamindari system ‘system of land ownership and revenue collection’. The other type includes examples such as policewallah ‘a policeman’, goondaism ‘rowdiness’ and netahood ‘leadership’ (IndE).
Another category consists of English lexical items used with extended or restricted meanings, for example, cousin‐brother ‘cousin’ for a male cousin (Kachru 2005: 54; Meyler et al. 2007: 65), cow‐worship ‘worshipping cows’, dining leaf ‘a banana leaf used like a plate for eating’, and a few innovative forms like finger chips for French fries, full‐boiled and half‐boiled egg for hard‐ and soft‐boiled eggs. Innovative compounds are created, such as pen‐down‐strike, tool‐down‐strike ‘coming to the office but not working as a sign of protest’, and driver‐cum‐salesman. In SLE, bottle man refers to a man who collects empty bottles for recycling, and cook woman to a female cook (Meyler et al. 2007: 34, 63). Some other creative expressions are to air dash ‘to rush by air’ and to prepone ‘to advance’ – the opposite of postpone.
Semantic shift can be seen in SAE in words such as four‐twenty, which means ‘a swindler’ (the Indian Penal Code 420 refers to cheats); secular meaning ‘respect for all religions’; communal meaning ‘bigoted’; and trade meaning ‘to exchange’, as in ‘India, Pakistan trade wanted list’ (Gargesh 2006: 150). Semantic extension can be seen in the SAE uses of the words uncle and auntie, which refer not only to relatives but also to elderly people of the same social class as that of the speaker, and before names of people to indicate respect. Increase in semantic range can be seen in an SLE and South Indian word like coconut, which forms many compounds depending on context, such as coconut tree ‘palm tree’, coconut milk ‘liquid made by squeezing grated coconut with water’, coconut husk ‘outer husk of a coconut’, and coconut plucker ‘a person who climbs coconut trees to pick coconuts’ (Meyler et al. 2007: 57–58).
Some expressions are translations of local expressions into English, for example, to keep a fast is a translation of roza rakhna (Muslim) and of vrat rakhna (Hindu). Reduplicated forms also sometimes appear to be translations from SA expressions, for example, hot hot coffee (‘very hot coffee’), small small things (‘many small things’), and Who and who came to the party (‘Who came to the party?’).
Bilingual creativity at the level of syntax was viewed as the production of errors until the 1980s, since the forms were considered deviant in relation to the syntax of “native” varieties such as AmE and BrE. It was mainly after Kachru’s (1983) publication of his sociolinguistic perspective and initiative that the so‐called “errors” began to be perceived as products of a bilingual/multilingual personality in a bilingual/multilingual society. Nonetheless, comparisons of SAE forms with those of AmE and BrE at times become necessary for identifying and studying the forms of non‐Inner Circle varieties of Englishes. The present section addresses some of the major syntactic features in this way.
In BrE, according to Quirk and Widdowson (1985), the stativity of a verb interacts with the aspectual and mood systems. For example, stative verbs do not occur in the progressive form. According to Gokhale (1988: 34–35), the verbs see, hear, know, understand, remember are stative but are used in the progressive in SAE. Other stative verbs, including have and love (which function both as stative and dynamic verbs), are also often used in the progressive. The following types of examples are often heard in personal conversations in many parts South Asia, and such examples have been cited by T. Rahman (1991, 2014) for PakE and by Meyler (2009) and Meyler et al. (2007) for SLE:
This use of progressive forms in SAE can be rationalized on the ground that many languages of the world do not express stative vs. dynamic meanings through verbs, and as Kachru and Nelson (2006: 41) have pointed out, “Outer‐ and Expanding‐Circle varieties of English most often do not make such a distinction.” Hence, sentences such as He is having two cars, I was knowing him then, and She is not recognizing you are grammatical in SAE.
In several South Asian languages, tense, aspect, and mood have complex interactions not exhibited by Inner Circle varieties, so it is common to find definite past‐time adverbs with present perfect tense; for example:
The present simple or progressive with durational adverbials is also used to indicate a period from past to present, which in BrE/AmE would require the present perfect, for example:
The lack of agreement between the subject and verb is also at times noticeable as in this examples below:
This feature was noted by Whitworth in 1907 (2002), and one comes across it even nowadays; for example:
In BrE and AmE, mass nouns are inherently singular. In SAE and many other Englishes, for instance, African Caribbean and South East Asian varieties, noncount/mass nouns also may take the plural marker as in the words furnitures, equipments, luggages (IndE; Kachru 1983), aircrafts, fruits, vegetables, woods (IndE, Trudgill & Hannah 2008: 134; PakE, T. Rahman 2014: 50).
SAEs manifest unsystematic use of articles (Dustoor 1954, 1955; Agnihotri & Khanna 1994; Kachru 1983).
Although there is no subject‐verb inversion in direct questions, such inversion does occur in indirect questions:
Kachru and Nelson (2006: 43) point out that in SAE an answer confirming the assumption of the questioner is always in the positive, for it signals agreement, while a negative answer expresses disagreement. This agreement‐disagreement system is largely followed by SAEs. Some examples are:
| (21) | BrE: | Q: I hope you won’t mind looking after my cat? |
| A: No, I won’t. | ||
| (22) | IndE/PakE: | A: Yes, I won’t. (T. Rahman 2014: 55) |
| (23) | BrE: | Q: You don’t want to stay here? |
| A: Yes, I want to. | ||
| (24) | IndE: | A: No, I want to. |
The function of tags is to request confirmation of assumptions. In BrE and AmE, tags are used with question intonation following statements, as in You are coming to the party, aren’t you? Such tags are formed by changing the subject into an appropriate pronoun form, copying the tense and aspect in an auxiliary, and reversing the polarity of the assertion.
In SAE, as in most Indian languages, tags do not show contrasting polarity. They mostly use the form isn’t it, is it, or no:
Complementation in varieties of SAE has been discussed by various scholars such as Kachru and Nelson (2006), T. Rahman (2014), and Trudgill and Hannah (2008). In SAE, differences in complementation are visible with certain verbs and adjectives in ways briefly shown below:
Adjective complementation with an ‐ing participle clause in BrE is made up of an adjective, an optional preposition, and a participle clause (gerund), for example:
In SAE, however, an adjective is frequently followed by a to‐infinitive:
Adjective complementation by a to‐infinitive in BrE consists of an adjective plus a to‐infinitive; for example: ‘Students are eligible to enter the contest’. In SAE, a preposition plus an ‐ing form is used:
Prepositions and conjunctions may be termed linkers since they denote relations between elements. While prepositions occur before single nouns, pronouns, or noun phrases, conjunctions join words or clauses and can be coordinating (and, or, but) or subordinating (when, because, unless). SAE manifests distinctive uses of these categories as discussed below.
No preposition is used in SAE where BrE uses one, for example to dispense with:
The preposition against may be added in SAE where BrE does not use one, for example in to combat poverty:
A preposition or adverbial particle may be added:
SAE uses a different preposition from BrE, for example, ‘He is good at swimming’; ‘What is the time by your watch?’:
The discourse features of SAEs reveal the use of code‐mixing/switching in communication, as well as the use of regional sociocultural elements.
Code‐mixing/code‐switching: Interpersonal communication in SAE often displays the use of code‐mixed and code‐switched forms. In South Asia, English is generally used on formal occasions, but it is code‐mixed with a local language to express familiarity and/or for focusing. Code‐switching, on the other hand, occurs between English and a local language to indicate strong disagreement or to indicate effort towards bonding in a disharmonious atmosphere. For example:
Ye baat aa gayii hai. [Has it come to this.] If that is your understanding of me as a person as the rest, I have nothing to talk to you.
This is what I’m asking him. … and do you think that I can be put to any pressure? You are talking I don’t know from where. The best pressure that can be put on this animal is yours. You are mistaken. You have not understood this discussion. And don’t talk in this language. I am not used to this.
The above utterances are part of a heated conversation taken from a formal meeting of teachers.8 The entire meeting is in Indian English; however, when it comes to some misunderstanding, the participants resort to Hindi–English code‐mixing and code‐switching for heated arguments. At the end of the exchange, the chairperson resorts to English in order to assert his authority. At the end of the day the rapprochement, too, occurs through code‐mixing/switching. The ensuing formal report, of course, is only in English.
Sociocultural elements: A number of sociocultural features in South Asia have no equivalents in British culture. An example of a matrimonial advertisement, with brief comments, is given below:
SM4 KKB Manglik MBA Working Mumbai Girl, Fair, 36/5'5'. Send BHP On ……@gmail.com/ Call: 0981……
This advertisement for prospective Hindu bridegrooms has, among other things, elements of Hindu culture. A decoding of the advertisement could read like this:
Suitable Match For a Kanya Kubj Brahmin Working Girl who has a Master of Business Administration degree and is 36 years of age with a height of five feet five inches. She is a Manglik, that is, born at time when the Moon is ascendant (a period often considered inauspicious for all those not born under the ascendance of the moon), and they desire that the Bio‐data, Horoscope and Photograph of the prospective groom be forwarded to them by e‐mail.
Politeness in South Asian society is a conventionalized phenomenon and is part of conversational style in SAE. Some examples:
Here the modifier “good” is a way of according respect to the hearer.
The repetition for insistence as a polite form exists in SAE discourse. The guest also expects this insistence; BrE ‘Won’t you have more?’ would sound more or less rude in South Asian contexts.
Kinship terms uncle and auntie are used for politeness in SAE to address people who are considerably older than the speaker. These can be used as a single word if the person is not known, and in case the person is known it can be suffixed to the name of the addressee: Khanna uncle; Sharma auntie (IndE); priya auntie (SLE).
The affixing of the honorific suffix ‐ji to proper names is indicative of respect, hence it becomes a polite form of address, for example Braj‐ji, Nelson‐ji, Yamuna‐ji, Larry‐ji, and even Sir‐ji. The suffix + ji is used largely by Hindus and Sikhs while Muslims mostly use ‐sahib.
Forms of requests are also polite forms. K. Sridhar (1991), in her study of responses obtained from students of three colleges in Bangalore, has shown that indirect requests, such as Can/could/ may I have… are considered the most polite forms, as in SLE Can you come tomorrow? (Meyler 2007 et al.: 47).
Some markers for emphasis or focus. Corpus linguists (Schneider 2007; Sedlatschek 2009; Schilk 2011; Lange 2012) argue that the actual linguistic differences between the “New” or Outer Circle Englishes such as SAE and the “Old” or Inner Circle Englishes are quantitative rather than qualitative, with spoken language naturally allowing for more variation than written registers. Lange (2012: 243) believes that “there is a pan‐Indian syntax of discourse organization’, and IndE has the elements of a pan‐South Asian ‘grammar of culture.” A quantitative as well as context‐sensitive analysis of data from the International Corpus of English (ICE) and from the South Asian varieties of English (SAVE) corpus regarding IndE and SAE reveal that some syntactic features that occur at the interface with pragmatics are the clause‐final adverbial there‐construction, topicalization, left dislocation, and focus particles like itself. A brief discussion of these features follows.
The clause‐final adverbial there is unique to IndE (Lange (2012: 9), and it is closely associated with the concept of South Asian sociolinguistic area (Lange 2012: 121). Some examples:
It appears that SAE speakers consider the clause‐final there as emphatic.
Topicalization refers to the placing of linguistic elements that represent the topic in the sentence‐initial position. Bhatt (2008: 553) and Lange (2012: 122) have noted that any constituent of the clause may be topicalized. The most frequently topicalized constituents are the object noun phrases:
The function of topicalization is to provide focus.
Left dislocation involving resumptive pronouns involves the insertion of a copy‐pronoun of a noun phrase. Examples:
Left dislocation has a discourse function of focusing on the given information.
The focus particle itself is believed to be a legacy of British times (Bernaisch & Lange 2012: 13). On the basis of frequency of occurrence of this focus particle with respect to the data of the countries of South Asia in the SAVE corpus, Bernaisch and Lange conclude that it “is a truly pan‐South Asian English structural feature… [which is] more characteristic of Indian English, Nepalese English and Sri Lankan English as opposed to Bangladeshi English, Pakistani English and Maldivian English” (Bernaisch & Lange 2012: 9). The range of divergence between IndE and SLE leads the writers to conjecture that “we might be dealing with a case of divergence between Indian (and Sri Lankan) English on the one hand and Pakistani and Bangladeshi English on the other, paralleling the deep political rift between India and Pakistan” (Bernaisch & Lange 2012: 14). More studies are needed with regard to other variables to show the convergences and divergences; examples from (Bernaisch & Lange 2012: 8):
Idiomatic expressions in SAE are often literal translations of local idioms:
Idioms, arising either through translation of local expressions or through internal creativity, represent the thinking processes behind SAEs.
Creative writing is another area where a number of instances of SAE expressions in multifarious contexts are available. This topic cannot be attended to in this overview. One may read the works of some famous authors like Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, and others from India; Bapsi Sidhwa, Kamila Shamsie, and Mohsin Hamid from Pakistan; Tehmima Anam, Razia Khan Amin, and Kaiser Haq from Bangladesh; Ameena Hussein, Ann Ranasinghe, and Yasmine Gooneratne from Sri Lanka; Samrat Upadhyaya, Thapa Manjushree, and Laxmi Prasad Devkota from Nepal; Dorji Dhradul and Kunzan Chodden from Bhutan; Ibrahim Waheed from Maldives; Hossein Mohammadi and Azizollah Nahofteh from Afghanistan.
This survey of SAE has attempted to describe the complexities involved in the identification of this dynamic variety. The lack of sufficient data about the structures and functions of English in regions such as Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Maldives has been somewhat of a handicap. Nonetheless, a conceptualization of SAE is made possible by the common historical, linguistic, sociolinguistic, educational, and cultural patterns that exist in the subcontinent. While more common patterns across varieties reveal convergences and delineate SAE, some differences also indicate divergences. The nativized varieties appear to be evolving in many regions of South Asia, but nowhere is communication hampered. Finally, the knowledge drawn from the theory of world Englishes helps in providing prestige to the nativized varieties as well as in developing the pedagogy for teaching it. The term “South Asian English” is rather unsatisfactory as a cover term for all the varieties of Englishes in South Asia. They may, as yet, not be as distinctly individualistic as the Inner Circle varieties, but they are also moving toward asserting their individual identities. It is better to describe them as South Asian Englishes.