• Lord Macaulay's Minute (Feb. 2, 1835). "a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and intellect." – the mission of the British Raj. • More than one and a half centuries later English has overcome its status as merely the language of the colonial power and has become an integral part of the Indian linguistic mosaic English Language in India Became one of the official languages of the nation and thus continues to enjoy the patronage of the Indian elite. Used extensively in education, law, government, media, science, and technology Has undergone significant changes locally to carry much of the communicative burden of Indian society Indian expression makes Indian English different from either American or British English They are “innovations” enriching English in terms of creating its global appeal. Indian attitude towards Indian English Very positive They consider their English as the “correct” English best suited to the Indian setting Indians prefer to use and learn Indian English. They consider their English as “good” and “proper.” empirical evidence shows that in North America, Indian English is more readily understood than even the BBC or British varieties. Features of Indian English 1. Mother Tongue Influence
Certain sounds, pronunciation and syllable stress
patterns which are dominant in the vernacular languages continue to exist when Indians speak in English. E.g. harsh consonant sounds like pa, ba and da, vowel sound generalizations like e and a (message, communication, continue) 2. Regional Influence-
Certain phrases, statements and pattern of
constructing sentences which are regionally accepted are converted and translated into English. For example, taxi wala, auto wala, sirji. etc have become part of the Indian English 3. Phraseology
Indian English has come up with its own phrases and
popular sentences that are widely accepted and understood in the Indian context. For example, BA failed used in matrimonial ads to describe someone who was admitted to the course but did not pass the examination. 4. Phonetic and Phonological Features of Indian English Lack of aspiration in the word-initial position: Words such as pin and Kanpur (name of city) are pronounced as pin and kanpur; not as phin and khanpur, respectively
Retroflexion. Alveolar consonants: t, and d are replaced by their
corresponding Retroflex consonants (T, D). Therefore, alveolar t and d in the name of the months such as October, September and December are pronounced as OcT ober, SepT ember, and D ecember;
Lack of Interdentals: Words such as thanks and that are
pronounced with corresponding unvoiced and voiced alveolar stops, respectively; 5. Pronunciation
Indian English pronunciation is a relatively close
approximation to the written form.
Generalizations in terms of schwa sound and
clipping of the vowel sounds and non distinction between long and short vowel sounds are prominent in Indian English
Non articulation of vowel sounds is another feature of
Indian English 6. Stress and Intonation System of Indian English Different from British or American English The rhythm of Indian English is based on long and short syllables rather than on stressed syllables Indian English is a ‘Syllable-timed’ language with ‘sing- song’ characteristics. 7. Grammatical Features of Indian English
Reduplication: a small small favor
Countability of Non-Counts: words such as furniture and luggage become furnitures and luggages, respectively Addition of Prepositions/particles: observe the addition of the particle off in: ‘Everyone is dismissing off my proposal Indian Way of Speaking English Directness in presenting the point Very little stylistic ornamentation Emphasis on the information content Code-mix with Indian languages (e.g. Hindi) very frequently. Indian accents vary greatly English is a stress-timed language, but Indians make it syllable-timed. What is my Target? India is undoubtedly an emerging economic giant in the 21st century. Therefore, it is not surprising that Indian English is asserting itself in the area of global communication. Hence comes the slogan “Survival of the Fittest” in the present fast changing & fast progressing world. Develop excellent competency in English communication to survive successfully.