Bijoy Lal Basu

University of Dhaka

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A network of varietiesVarieties spoken in South Asia range from an

informal ‘pidgin-like’ oral variety to a formal literary variety.

Can you explain?Give examples!

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TaskRead the following extract where a rickshaw-puller

is touting for business in English. What do you think of the syntax?What do you think of its pragmatics?Does every Indian speak English like this?

Hellow sir... I rickshaw driver. Somebody some friend coming here Varanasi I help you...

Based on Mehrootra 2000

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Pidgin Indian EnglishExample: Hellow sir... I rickshaw driver. Somebody

some friend coming here Varanasi I help you...Reduced and simplifiedIt is no one’s mother tongueIts use is restricted to a trade or occupationIs shaped by more than one language

Based on Mehrootra 2000

It clearly represents an informal variety spoken by a poorly educated person. (Kirkpatrick 2007, p.86)

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Butler EnglishExample: ...Money is controlled time. Now rice is at a 1 kilo –

2.50. That time get 1 rupee 8 kilo...

Originates from the variety spoken by native servants when communicating with their English speaking masters.

Still spoken today by domestic and other servants (hotel and club staff, for example)

Classified as ‘pidgin-like’ by Hosali 2005

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Mixed-code teenage varietyExample: ‘Two rival groups are out to have

fun ...you know generally indulge in dhamal and pass time. So, what do they do? Pick on a bechaara bakra who has entered college.’

The teenage love birds have been reported to be on a ‘moun vrat’.

Presence of lexical items from local languages give it its ‘Indian’ flavour

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Mixed code Indian English

Example: ‘And if he says ki I want the matlab dowry sort of thing.’ (Valentine 1991)

Only discourse markers are borrowed from local languages

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Indian English with local formulaic greeting or farewellRead carefully through the excerpt from I Shall Not Hear The

Nightingale by Khushwant Singh‘She bent her head to receive her mother-in-law’s blessing. “Sat

Sri Akal”.“Sat Sri Akal,” replied Sabhrai lightly touching Champak’s

shoulder. “Sat Sri Akal,” said Sher Singh.“Live in plenty, live a long age,” replied Sabhrai taking her son’s

hand and kissing it.“Sleep well”.’Does the entire conversation take place in Hindi or English?Local formulas for greeting and farewell intersperse the

conversation which is in EnglishLocal cultural norms necessitate the use of local formulas

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Formal literary variety...it has kept growing vigorously and now an

organic part of its parent tree, it has spread its probing roots into the brown soil below. Its young leaves rustle energetically ...

Ornate or floweryReplete with ‘phrase-mongering’ (Kachru

1983)

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BackgroundSouth Asian English in general and Indian English

in particular is a ‘network of varieties’, that include regional and occupational varieties as well as standard Indian English (Hosali, 2005: 34).Why?

Mehrotra (1998) describes India as a baffling mosaic of multilingualism.

According to the 1961 census of India, there are 1652 mother tongues in India of which 67 are used as media of instruction in schools (Biswas, 2004).

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backgroundThe Indian constitution lists the following 18

languages as the major languages of India:Assamese, Bengali, Gujerati, Hindi, Kannada,

Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Panjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu

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Status of EnglishHindi is the official language, yet the constitution

is actually written in English, and English is classified as an ‘associate official language’.

It is used by people of all classes, from the poorly educated to the middle and upper class elites...

The policy of favouring English and using it in education was not universally popular...Anglicists versus Orientalists

The Official Language Act of 1967 legalised the use of English and established it as an associate official language to be used with Hindi...

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Three language formulaChildren in Hindi-speaking areas should

learn Hindi, English and one other Indian language at school, while children in non-Hindi-speaking areas should learn their mother tongue, Hindi and English.

Based on Biswas, 2004: 107See Kirkpatrick, 2007: 90

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English in IndiaA major reason why English has retained

its position is that it is the only language in India that is spoken or used across the entire country and it is therefore an obvious choice as a neutral link language or lingua franca. D’Souza goes as far to say that English is, ‘perhaps, along with Hindi, the only true Indian language’ (2001:150)

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Sri LankaThe missionariesFar less complex linguistically than IndiaThere are only two major languages

spoken there: Sinhalese and TamilEnglish operates as a lingua franca

between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority

In 1995 English was proclaimed a national language.

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Sri LankaFew Sinhala speakers know TamilCode mixing is commonA Sri Lankan variety is emergingScholars such as Parakrama (1995) and

Canagarajah (2000) urge for the acceptance of a wider range of norms than those traditionally associated with the educated elite.

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Linguistic features of South Asian EnglishesPhonologyLexisSyntaxCultural conventions (including pragmatics)

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PhonologyIE is generally rhotic (as in ‘poor’, ‘part’)The RP diphthongs are pronounced as

monophthongs (‘day’ pronounced as /de/)The RP central vowels are pronounced as /ə//ɔ:/ as in ‘caught’ is pronounced as /ɒ:/ Both /v/ and /w/ can be pronounced as / υ /Both /t/ and /d/ are pronounced as retroflex

sounds and /θ/ and /ð/ as plosives

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Lexis Some words derive from local languages (e.g.

face-cut, tempo, do the needful)Some English words display a different semantic

range in Indian English.e.g. The students want some important questions from their teacher. (‘important’ meaning ‘relevant’)

Hybridisation – a local word and an English word combine (e.g. Tiffin-career, lathi charge)

Suffixes from local languages can be attached to English words (e.g. policewala)

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Syntax Distinctive use or non-use of articlesReduplication of words‘yes-no confusion’Interrogative word order in indirect questionsInvariant tag questionsOveruse of the present continuous

Task: Can you think of examples of the above cases from Bangladeshi English?

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Cultural conventionsDirect questions and ‘desiderative’ statements

I need...I want...

Request strategies are transferred from local languages

(email requests for recommendation)

A British form in an Indian context may carry a different meaning. (“will you” rude in BrE)

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Task Kirkpatric (2007:95) says that “it would

clearly be unwise to teach British request strategies in Indian contexts, as these might well be culturally inappropriate”. Do you agree? Discuss with your partner.

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Indian Literature in English...English is no more a foreign language but

a part of our psyche. – Ruchira Mukherjee...we the excolonised have subjugated the

language, beaten it on its head and made it ours. – Sidhwa

...there is still a deep-seated resentment in countries such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, perhaps in Africa too ...against English... – Yasmine Gooneratne

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Conclusion Given the range and functions of English,

particularly in India, it can be sensibly argued that many speakers of Indian and Sri Lankan English are native speakers of those varieties and they should therefore determine the norms of those varieties.

The rich output of Indian English literature is firm evidence that English has become a South Asian language. (see Kirkpatrick 2007:98)

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To recap…So what have we learned?

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Bijoy Lal BasuAssistant ProfessorDepartment of EnglishUniversity of DhakaDhaka 1000Bangladesh

Email:bijoybasu@gmail.com

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