Subcontinent raises its voiceWith an English-speaking population now likely to have surpassed that of Britain and the US, India,with its dynamic variety of English, is set to become a linguistic superpower, argues David CrystalIndia currently has a special place inthe English language record books- as the country with the largestEnglish-speaking population in theworld. Ten years ago that record washeld by the US. Not any more.

The population of India passeda billion a couple of years ago, andis increasing at the rate of 3% perannum. In 1997 an India Today sur­vey suggested that about a third ofthe population had the ability tocarry on a conversation in English.This was an amazing increase overthe estimates of the 1980s, when onlyabout 4%-5% of the population werethought to use the language. Andgiven the steady increase in Englishlearning since 1997 in schools andamong the upwardly mobile, wemust today be talking about at least350 million. This is more than thecombined English-speaking popu­lations of Britain and the US.

All ofthese speakers - bar a lakh(hundred thousand) or so - havelearned English as a second lan­guage. English has special regionalstatus in India, and is an importantunifying medium between the Indo­European north and the Dravidiansouth. Special status means muchmore than having a place in the pub­lic institutions of the country - inparliament, the law courts, broad­casting, the press, and the education

system. It means that the languagepermeates daily life. You cannotavoid it, especially in the cities.

My wife and I have just returnedfrom a two-week lecturing tourof India, sponsored by the BritishCouncil. We visited Chennai, Delhi,Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai, andfound ourselves surrounded by Eng­lish everywhere. The roads into thecity centres from the airports wouldpass through some very poor areas,but even the smallest shops andstalls would have an English sign orposter nearby.

Outside the Red Fort in Delhi, aHindi-speaking teacher was mar­shalling a class of 30 Hindi-speakingteenagers, and giving them instruc­tions about where to meet and when

their bus would leave - in English.Outside St Thomas' Cathedral inChennai we met a group of primary­school Tamil children coming out ofthe local school. As soon as they sawus they waved excitedly - we werethe only fair-skinned people to beseen - and we received a chorus of

Many peoplestill see BritishEnglish as the only'proper' English

"hello", "hi", "how are you?" ... "Finethanks, how are you?" we replied."We're fine too," they said. Seven­year-olds, we marvelled, on a confi­dent career-track towards English.

Towards Indian English, of course.India has had a longer exposure toEnglish than any other country thatuses it as a second language, and itsdistinctive words, idioms, grammar,rhetoric and rhythms are numerousand pervasive. Don't confuse IndianEnglish with what is sometimescalled "Hinglish" - a vague phrasethat can refer. to a use of English con­taining occasional Hindi words or toa much more fundamental mixingof the two languages, unintelligibleto a monolingual English speaker,and heard daily on FM radio. IndianEnglish is a much broader notion,applicable to the whole of India,including those regions where otherlanguages are used. There we findPunglish (Punjabi), Tamlish (Tamil),and many more.

Collections of Indian Englishvocabulary have been around formore than a century. Hobson-Jobsonwas the first, published in 1886. It islargely of historical interest now, andthere have been attempts to super­cede it, such as Hanklin-Janklin(compiled by Nigel Hanklin, BanyanBooks, 2004). But no dictionary hasyet catalogued the extraordinary

stylistic range and regional diversityof Indian English. We encounteredhundreds of distinctive usages onour travels, such as pre-owned cars(used cars), near and dear numbers(for phoning friends and family) andkitchen platform (work-surface).Words are broken in different ways.Outside the University in Mumbaiis the greeting "wel-come". A road­side warning reads ''land slide pronearea". Another says "over-size vehicleskeep left".

The historical background ofIndia is never far away from every­day usage. "What do you think you'redoing? Cutting grass?" says a bossto a worker lazing about. How cancutting grass be equivalent to doingnothing? Because grass-cutting wasdone by servants. But this history alsopromotes correspondences. In par­ticular there is a remarkable sharingof linguistic humour between Indiaand Britain. Both countries havethe same penchant for word-play.'!Austensibly, it's about Jane" reads areview headline about a critical bookon that author. "Be Ecofriendly" saysa sign in Delhi - but it spells thesecond word "Ecofriendelhi".

Indian English is changing.Regional dialects of Indian Eng­lish are increasingly apparent - aninevitable consequence of this hugecountry's cultural and linguistic

diversity. There are noticeable differ­ences of accent and dialect, especiallybetween north and south. On the adbillboards, and in Bollywood filmposters, there are now Hindi sloganswritten in the roman alphabet. Youcan see change in the newspaperstoo - in the matrimonial columns,for instance, where families adver­tise for desirable brides or grooms.A generation ago these were full ofsuch terms as "wheatish". Todaythese have largely gone, and we findsuch criteria as "professionally quali­fied" instead - a linguistic reflectionof an important social change.

Three generations after independ­ence, Indian English is still havingtrouble distancing itself from theweight of its British English past.Many people still think of IndianEnglish as inferior, and see BritishEnglish as the only "proper" English.It is an impression still fostered bythe language examining boardsthat dominate teachers' mindsets.At the same time a fresh confidenceis plainly emerging among youngpeople, and it is only a matter of timebefore attitudes change.

It could hardly be otherwise whenwe consider the way Indian writingis increasingly reflecting indigenousvarieties. Gone are the days wheneveryone in a novel, from sahib toservant, spoke standard Page 2 ~

Learning English

19.11.04

David Crystal encounters a new word b,reak in Mumbai

~ Page 1 British English. The samelinguistic diversity is apparent in thefilms - over a thousand each year- produced by Bollywood studios.

What status will this rapidly grow­ing English dialect have in. the eyesof the rest of the world? Linguisticstatus is always a reflection of power- political, technological, economic,cultural, religious - so this is reallya question relating to the future ofIndia as a world player. India is likelyto become an eventual cyber-techno­logical superpower. The call-centrephenomenon has stimulated a hugeexpansion of internet-related activ­ity. The amount of daily text-mes­saging (SMS) exceeds the UK andus. The IT press is always speculat­ing about where future Googles willcome from. One day it will be India.

India has a unique position inthe English-speaking world. It is alinguistic bridge between the majorfirst-language dialects of the world,such as British and American Eng­lish, and the major foreign-languagevarieties, such as those emerging inChina and Japan. China is the clos­est competitor for the English-speak·ing record with some 220 millionspeakers of English, but China does

not have the pervasive English lin­guistic environment encountered in,India; nor does it have the strengthof linguistic tradition that providesmultiple continuities with the rest ofthe English-speaking world.

When Indian operators answeryour call about train times betweenBirmingham and Glasgow, they are

far more likely to be aware of whereyou are travelling than would anyequivalent operators in China.

And it is the Indian presence inBritain that marks the other end ofthis linguistic continuity. Britishpeople are familiar with (British dia­lects of) Indian English as a result ofseveral generations of immigration.

When the TV comedy programmeThe Kumars At Number 42 becamesuccessful in Britain, I heard localEnglish kids using its catchphrasesand copying its speech rhythms, justas they did when Crocodile Dundeemade them play with Australian Eng­lish. There are parallels in the liter­ary world. Suhayl Saadi's new novel,

Psychoraag, is an amazing mixtureof South Asian English (Urdu, in thiscase), Standard English, and Glas­wegian. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

And India is special in one otherrespect. Alongside the spread ofEnglish there is a powerful concernfor the maintenance of indigenouslanguages. I repeatedly heard youngstudents express the need for abalance between an outward-look­ing language of empowerment andan inward-looking language of id en­tity.

"Choose your language for yourpower bill" says one of the Mumbaibillboards, offering Marathi, Hindi,Gujarathi, and English. Many of thesmaller tribal languages are seriouslyendangered, but there is an enviableawareness of the problem that islacking in many western countries.India, it seems, can teach the restof the world some lessons not onlyabout multidialectism but aboutmultilingualism too.

David Crystal is honorary professorof linguistics at the University ofWales, Bangor. His latest book, TheStories of English, was published byPenguin in May