South Asian English is the English accent of South Asia, inherited from British English dialect. Also known as British-Indian English in the British Raj, the English language was introduced to the Indian subcontinent in the early 17th century and reinforced by the long rule of the British Empire. Today it is spoken as a second language by about 350 million people, 20% of the total population.[1]
Although it is fairly homogeneous across the region, sharing "linguistic features and tendencies at virtually all linguistic levels", there are also differences based on various factors.[2]
South Asian English is sometimes called "Indian English", as British India included most of the region, but today, the varieties of English are officially divided according to the modern states:
- Bangladeshi English
- Bhutanese English
- Indian English
- Maldivian English
- Nepali English
- Pakistani English
- Sri Lankan English
Notes
- ^ Baumgardner, p. 1
- ^ Marco Schilk, Tobias Bernaisch, Joybrato Mukherjee, "Mapping unity and diversity in South Asian English lexicogrammar: Verb-complementational preferences across varieties", in Marianne Hundt, Ulrike Gut, Mapping Unity and Diversity World-Wide: Corpus-Based Studies of New Englishes, 2012, ISBN 9027274940, p. 140f
References
- Robert J. Baumgardner, ed. (1996). South Asian English: Structure, Use, and Users. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252064933..
- Braj Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, Cecil Nelson, The Handbook of World Englishes, 2009, ISBN 1405188316.
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