Indian English

Indian English is any of the forms of English characteristic of the Indian subcontinent.[1] English has slowly become one of the lingua francas of the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka), and is the language of their cultural and political elites, offering significant economic, political, and social advantage to fluent speakers.[2]

Though English is one of the two official languages of the Union Government of India, only a few hundred thousand Indians have English as their first language.[3][4][5][6][7] According to the 2005 India Human Development Survey, of the 41,554 surveyed households reported that 72 percent of men (29,918) did not speak any English, 28 percent (11,635) spoke at least some English, and 5 percent (2,077, roughly 17.9% of those who spoke at least some English) spoke fluent English. Among women, the corresponding percentages were 83 percent (34,489) speaking no English, 17 percent (7,064) speaking at least some English, and 3 percent (1,246, roughly 17.6% of those who spoke at least some English) speaking English fluently.[8] According to statistics of District Information System for Education (DISE) of National University of Educational Planning and Administration under Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, enrollment in English-medium schools increased by 50% between 2008–09 and 2013-14. The number of English-medium school students in India increased from over 1.5 crore (15 million) in 2008-09 to 2.9 crore (29 million) by 2013-14.[9] In December 2015, the Supreme Court of India ruled that English is the only court language.[10]

Indian English generally uses the Indian numbering system. Idiomatic forms derived from Indian literary languages and vernaculars have been absorbed into Indian English. Nevertheless, there remains general homogeneity in phonetics, vocabulary, and phraseology between variants of the Indian English dialect.[11][12][13][14]

History

English language public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the East India Company (India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the world[15]). In 1837, English replaced Persian as the official language of the Company. Lord Macaulay played a major role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers.[16] Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, primary- middle- and high schools were opened in many districts of British India, with most high schools offering English language instruction in some subjects. In 1857, just before the end of Company rule, universities modelled on the University of London and using English as the medium of instruction were established in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. During subsequent Crown Rule in India, or the British Raj, lasting from 1858 to 1947, English language penetration increased throughout India. This was driven in part by the gradually increasing hiring of Indians in the civil services. At the time of India's independence in 1947, English was the only functional lingua franca in the country.

After Indian Independence in 1947, Hindi was declared the first official language, and attempts were made to declare Hindi the sole national language of India. Due to protests from Tamil Nadu and other non-Hindi-speaking states, it was decided to temporarily retain English for official purposes until at least 1965. By the end of this period, however, opposition from non-Hindi states was still too strong to have Hindi declared the sole language. With this in mind, the English Language Amendment Bill declared English to be an associate language "until such time as all non-Hindi States had agreed to its being dropped." This hasn't yet occurred, and it is still widely used. For instance, it is the only reliable means of day-to-day communication between the central government and the non-Hindi states.

The spread of the English language in India has led it to become adapted to suit the local dialects. Due to the large diversity in Indian languages and cultures, there can be instances where the same English word can mean different things to different people in different parts of India.There are three different stages of English Language in India i.e. Cultivated, closely approximating Received Pronunciation and associated with younger generation of urban and sub-urban regions of metropolitan cities of the country; Standard, a social indicator of the higher education, and Regional, associated with the general population, and closely approximating the second-language Vernacular-English variety.

While there is an assumption that English is readily available in India, available studies show that its usage is actually restricted to an elite, because of inadequate education to large parts of the Indian population. The use of outdated teaching methods and the poor grasp of English exhibited by the authors of many guidebooks, disadvantage students who rely on these books.[17]

Phonology

Indian accents vary greatly. Most Indians lean toward a more 'vernacular', native-tinted, accent for their English speech; while few others speak English with an accent very close to a Standard British (Received Pronunciation) accent.

Vowels

In general, Indian English has fewer peculiarities in its vowel sounds than the consonants, especially as spoken by native speakers of languages like Hindi, the vowel phoneme system having some similarities with that of English. Among the distinctive features of the vowel-sounds employed by some Indian English speakers:

Consonants

Among the most distinctive features of consonants in Indian English are:

Spelling pronunciation

A number of distinctive features of Indian English are due to "the vagaries of English spelling".[24] Most Indian languages, unlike English, have a nearly phonetic spelling, so the spelling of a word is a highly reliable guide to its modern pronunciation. Indians' tendency to pronounce English phonetically as well can cause divergence from Western English. For example, "jewellery" is pronounced /dʒʋeləriː/ and "jewel" as /dʒʋel/ where Western Anglophones might omit the final e, pronouncing them as /dʒʋelriː/ and /dʒʋl/.

Supra-segmental features

English is a stress-timed language, and both syllable stress and word stress, where only certain words in a sentence or phrase are stressed, are important features of Received Pronunciation. Indian native languages are actually syllable-timed languages, like Latin and French. Indian-English speakers usually speak with a syllabic rhythm.[26] Further, in some Indian languages, stress is associated with a low pitch,[27] whereas in most English dialects, stressed syllables are generally pronounced with a higher pitch. Thus, when some Indian speakers speak, they appear to put the stress accents at the wrong syllables, or accentuate all the syllables of a long English word. Certain Indian accents are of a "sing-song" nature, a feature seen in a few English dialects in Britain, such as Scouse and Welsh English.[28]

Numbering system

The Indian numbering system is preferred for digit grouping. When written in words, or when spoken, numbers less than 100,000/100 000 are expressed just as they are in Standard English. Numbers including and beyond 100,000 / 100 000 are expressed in a subset of the Indian numbering system. Thus, the following scale is used:

In digits (International system) In digits (Indian system) In words (long and short scales) In words (Indian system)
10 ten
100 one hundred
1,000 one thousand
10,000 ten thousand
100,000 1,00,000 one hundred thousand one lakh
1,000,000 10,00,000 one million ten lakh
10,000,000 1,00,00,000 ten million one crore

Larger numbers are generally expressed as multiples of the above.[29][30]

Some examples of Indian English usage

Indian English, naturally, has words of Indian vernaculars that have made their way into the English language, such as jungle, tank (water, irrigation), bungalow, and verandah. It has political, sociological, and administrative terms of modern India: dharna, hartal, eve-teasing, vote bank, swaraj, swadeshi, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, NRI; it has words of Anglo-India such as tiffin, hill station, gymkhana; and it has slang. Some examples unique to, or chiefly used in, standard written Indian English include:

Spelling and national differences

Indian English spelling differs from American English spelling, generally using the same spelling as Commonwealth nations such as Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Some common differences between Indian English spelling and American English spelling:

Indian English American English
Labour Labor
Colour Color
Honour Honor
Behaviour Behavior
Organisation Organization
Criticise Criticize
Centre Center
Theatre Theater or Theatre
Traveller Traveler
Aluminium Aluminum
Defence Defense
Cheque Check
Programme Program

Similarly, in common with most of the Commonwealth, the final letter of the alphabet, Z is pronounced zed in contrast with zee in the United States. In addition, the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence is referred to as a "full stop" rather than "period".

See also

Notes

  1. Sedlatschek 2009, p. 1: Today many regional varieties of English, or Englishes, exist around the globe and are slowly but steadily gaining recognition. Indian English (IndE) is one of the oldest.
  2. Aatish Taseer (March 19, 2015). "How English Ruined Indian Literature". The New York Times. Retrieved March 21, 2015. It has created a linguistic line as unbreachable as the color line once was in the United States.
  3. Census of India's Indian Census, Issue 25, 2003, pp 8–10, (Feature: Languages of West Bengal in Census and Surveys, Bilingualism and Trilingualism).
  4. FAMILY-WISE GROUPING OF THE 122 SCHEDULED AND NON-SCHEDULED LANGUAGES2001 Census of India
  5. Tropf, Herbert S. 2005. India and its Languages. Siemens AG, Munich
  6. For the distinction between "English Speakers," and "English Users," please see: TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)], India: World's Second Largest English-Speaking Country. Their article explains the difference between the 350 million number mentioned in a previous version of this Wikipedia article and the current number:
    "Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories – "English Speakers" and "English Users". The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider China's numbers. China has over 200 million that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only a few million are English speakers."
  7. An analysis of the 2001 Census of India, published in 2010, concluded that approximately 86 million Indians reported English as their second language, and another 39 million reported it as their third language. No data was available whether these individuals were English speakers or users.
  8. Desai, Dubey, Joshi, Sen, Sharif, Vanneman (2010). "HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA" (PDF). Oxford University Press.
  9. "Number of children studying in English doubles in 5 years".
  10. "Court language is English, says Supreme Court".
  11. Mukesh Ranjan Verma and Krishna Autar Agrawal: Reflections on Indian English literature (2002), page 163: "Some of the words in American English have spelling pronunciation and also pronunciation spelling. These are also characteristic features of Indian English as well. The novels of Mulk Raj Anand, in particular, are full of examples of ..."
  12. Pingali Sailaja: Indian English (2009), page 116: "So what was Cauvery is now Kaveri. Some residual spellings left by the British do exist such as the use of ee for /i:/ as in Mukherjee. Also, some place names such as Cuddapah and Punjab"
  13. Edward Carney: Survey of English Spelling (2012), page 56: "Not all distributional differences, however, have important consequences for spelling. For instance, the ... Naturally enough, Indian English is heavily influenced by the native language of the area in which it is spoken."
  14. Indian English Literature (2002), page 300: "The use of Indian words with English spellings: e.g. 'Mundus,' 'raksha'; 'Ed Cherukka,' 'Chacko Saar Vannu'"
  15. Lalmalsawma, David (7 September 2013), India speaks 780 languages, 220 lost in last 50 years – survey, Reuters
  16. John MacKenzie, "A family empire," BBC History Magazine (Jan 2013)
  17. Chelliah, Shobhana L. (July 2001). "Constructs of Indian English in language ‘guidebooks’". World Englishes 20 (2): 161–178. doi:10.1111/1467-971X.00207.
  18. Wells, p. 627
  19. Wells, pp. 627-628
  20. 1 2 3 4 Wells, p. 628
  21. Ball & Muller 2014: The comments on retroflex consonants also apply to southern Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam. and Kannada. Speakers of these languages tend to use their own retroflex consonants in place of English alveolar It, d, n/. Although these languages do have nonretroflex stops, these are dental, and it seems that English alveolar stops are perceived as closer to the retroflex stops than to the dental ones.
  22. Ball & Muller 2014, p. 289b: This use of retroflex consonants is very characteristic of Indian English, and the retroflex resonance is very pervasive ...
  23. Sailaja 2007, p. 252: 1.4 Indian (Telugu) English: All the adults who participated in this study spoke a Telugu variety of Indian English. Telugu pronunciation of English is heavily influenced by the spelling. Two identical letters in a word are articulated as geminates. The articulation is also mostly rhotic ... In place of the alveolar stops, retroflex sounds are used. Some speakers would also use a retroflex nasal in place of the alveolar nasal, and a retroflex lateral in place of the alveolar lateral.
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 Wells, p. 629
  25. Wells, p. 630
  26. Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 1995), page 360
  27. Archived 1 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
  28. Varshney, R.L., "An Introductory Textbook of Linguistics and Phonetics", 15th Ed. (2005), Student Store, Bareilly.
  29. "Investors lose Rs 4.4 lakh crore in four days | Business Standard". Bsl.co.in. 2010-11-27. Retrieved 2013-11-07.
  30. "Corporate chiefs getting crores in salaries: 100 and counting! - The Smart Investor". Smartinvestor.in. Retrieved 2013-11-07.
  31. academic (noun), 6, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, December 2011
  32. accomplish (verb, transitive, 3a', Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, December 2011
  33. airdash (in air, Compounds, C2) (verb, transitive, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, December 2008
  34. English-knowing (adj). Compound, C2, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, December 2008
  35. freeship, 4., Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, March 2008
  36. matrimonial (noun) B. 3b., Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, March 2001
  37. press (noun), Compound, Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, March 2007
  38. redressal (noun), Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, September 2009
  39. upgradation (noun), Oxford English Dictionary, 1993

References

Further reading

External links

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