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Article published In: Language of Empire, Language of Power
Edited by Kees Versteegh
[Language Ecology 2:1/2] 2018
► pp. 18–40

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Mapping the spread of the English language in India

A linguistic ecology approach

 | University of Tuscia
Published online: 9 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.18004.mur
Abstract
This article aims to offer, within an intra- and interdisciplinary approach, a further analysis of the formal and informal contexts in which the English language was used in India during the British colonisation, highlighting the favourable conditions these contexts created for the formation of pidginised varieties of English, such as Butler Pidgin English or Boxwāllā(h) Pidgin English ( 1994. English in South Asia. In Robert Burchfield, ed. The Cambridge History of the English Language. V. English in Britain and Overseas: Origins and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 497–553.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Substantial elements of a wider picture of social, cultural, political and commercial contact have been taken into account along with the analysis of old written sources. Indeed, both official records of the East Indian Company (e.g. dispatches about political strategies and language policy) and merchants’ correspondence have been studied in order to understand how we can say something about oral communication through written sources (Rambø, Gro-Renée. 2013. Historical language sociology – or rather language ecology? In Wim Vandenbussche, Ernst Håkon Jahr and Peter Trudgill, eds. Language Ecology for the 21st Century: Linguistic Conflicts and Social Environment. Oslo: Novus Press. 165–188.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Mapping the English language in education: East Indian Company language policy
  • 3.Political, commercial and private life relations
    • 3.1“…being myself ignorant of the Persian”: Bentinck’s appeal to Indian Princes
    • 3.2The trade networks
    • 3.3Private life
  • 4.Dynamics for the formation of English based contact languages in India
    • 4.1Internal ecology: English varieties in use among EIC merchants
    • 4.2Interpretative sociolinguistics of external language factors
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
References (78)
Sources
British library, London, UK
Asian and African Manuscripts, India Office Record
Mss Eur E 424/1, Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck papers
IOR/E/3/94, Surat, December 30, 1699, general letter, p. 133
IOR/H/487, extract of public letter to Bengal, June 17, 1800, ff. 185r–191v
IOR/H/488, letter from Webbe J. [sic] to Edmonstone, June 19, 1802
IOR/H/632, translation of a firman by Paypas Braminey Linguist, pp. 24–26
IOR/H/723, letter to Board of Control, October 5, 1836
National archive, London, UK
Correspondence from Indian brokers
C 104/248, Part I–II, merchants’ correspondence in English and Portuguese language
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