Co-brother

Indian English (IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Indian government for communication, along with Hindi, as enshrined in the Constitution of India. English is also an official language in seven states and seven union territories of India, and the additional official language in seven other states and one union territory. Furthermore, English is the sole official language of the Indian Judiciary, unless the state governor or legislature mandates the use of a regional language, or if the President of India has given approval for the use of regional languages in courts.

Status

After gaining independence from the British Raj in 1947, English remained an official language of the new Dominion of India and later the Republic of India. Only a few hundred thousand Indians, or less than 0.1% of the total population, speak English as their first language, and around 30% of the Indian population can speak English to some extent.

According to the 2001 Census, 12.18% of Indians knew English at that time. Of those, approximately 200,000 reported that it was their first language, 86 million reported that it was their second, and 39 million reported that it was their third.

According to the 2005 India Human Development Survey, of 41,554 surveyed, households reported that 72% of men (29,918) spoke no English, 28% of them (11,635) spoke at least some English, and 5% of them (2,077, roughly 17.9% of those who spoke at least some English) spoke fluent English. Among women, 83% (34,489) spoke no English, 17% (7,064) spoke at least some English, and 3% (1,246, roughly 17.6% of those who spoke at least some English) spoke English fluently. According to statistics from the District Information System for Education (DISE) of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, enrollment in English-medium schools increased by 50% between 2008–09 and 2013–14. The number of English-medium school students in India increased from over 15 million in 2008–09 to 29 million by 2013–14.

According to the 2011 Census, 129 million Indians (10.6%) spoke English. 259,678 (0.02%) Indians spoke English as their first language. It concluded that approximately 83 million Indians (6.8%) reported English as their second language, and 46 million (3.8%) reported it as their third language, making English the second-most spoken language in India.

India ranks 50 out of 100 countries in the 2021 EF English Proficiency Index published by the EF Education First. The index gives the country a score of 496 indicating "low proficiency". India ranks 8th out of 24 Asian countries included in the index. Among Asian countries, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea and China (including Hong Kong and Macau) received higher scores than India.

Writing for '' The New York Times'', journalist Manu Joseph states that, due to the prominence and usage of the language and the desire for English-language education, "English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." In his book, ''In Search of Indian English: History, Politics and Indigenisation'', Ranjan Kumar Auddy shows that the history of the rise of Indian nationalism and the history of the emergence of Indian English are deeply inter-related.

Court language

Under the Indian Constitution, English is the language of India's Supreme Court and of all the high courts of India. However, as allowed by the Constitution, Hindi is also used in courts in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan by virtue of special presidential approval. As of 2018, the high courts of Punjab and Haryana were also awaiting presidential approval to use Hindi alongside English, and the Madras High Court has been taking steps to use Tamil alongside English.

Names

The first occurrence of the term ''Indian English'' dates from 1696, though the term did not become common until the 19th century. In the colonial era, the most common terms in use were ''Anglo-Indian English'', or simply ''Anglo-Indian'', both dating from 1860. Other less common terms in use were ''Indo-Anglian'' (dating from 1897) and ''Indo-English'' (1912).James Lambert, 2012 "Beyond ''Hobson-Jobson'': Towards a new lexicography for Indian English", ''English World-Wide'' 33(3): 294. An item of Anglo-Indian English was known as an ''Anglo-Indianism'' from 1851.

In the modern era, a range of colloquial portmanteau words for Indian English have been used. The earliest of these is ''Indlish'' (recorded from 1962), and others include ''Indiglish'' (1974), ''Indenglish'' (1979), ''Indglish'' (1984), ''Indish'' (1984), ''Inglish'' (1985) and ''Indianlish'' (2007).

Features

Indian English generally uses the Indian numbering system. Idiomatic forms derived from Indian literary languages and vernaculars have been absorbed into Indian English. Nevertheless, there remains general homogeneity in phonetics, vocabulary, and phraseology among various dialects of Indian English.

Formal written publications in English in India tend to use lakh/crore for Indian currency and Western numbering for foreign currencies like dollars and pounds.

History

The English language established a foothold in India with the granting of the East India Company charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and the subsequent establishment of trading ports in coastal cities such as Surat, Bombay (called Mumbai since 1995), Madras (called Chennai since 1996), and Calcutta (called Kolkata since 2001).

English-language public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the British East India Company (India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the world). In 1835, English replaced Persian as the official language of the East India Company. Lord Macaulay played a major role in introducing English and Western concepts into educational institutions in India. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers.John MacKenzie, "A family empire," ''BBC History Magazine'' (Jan 2013) Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, primary, middle, and high schools were opened in many districts of British India, with most high schools offering English language instruction in some subjects. In 1857, just before the end of East India Company rule, universities that were modeled on the University of London and used English as the medium of instruction were established in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. During the British Raj (1858 to 1947), English-language penetration increased throughout India. This was driven in part by the gradually increasing hiring of Indians in the civil services. At the time of India's independence in 1947, English was the only functional ''lingua franca'' in the country.

After Indian Independence in 1947, Hindi was declared the first official language, and attempts were made to declare Hindi the sole national language of India. Due to protests from Tamil Nadu and other non-Hindi-speaking states, it was decided to temporarily retain English for official purposes until at least 1965. By the end of this period, however, opposition from non-Hindi states was still too strong to have Hindi declared the sole language. With this in mind, the English Language Amendment Bill declared English to be an associate language "until such time as all non-Hindi States had agreed to its being dropped." This has not yet occurred, and English is still widely used. For instance, it is the only reliable means of day-to-day communication between the central government and the non-Hindi states.

The view of the English language among many Indians has changed over time. It used to be associated primarily with colonialism; it is now primarily associated with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India.

While there is an assumption that English is readily available in India, studies show that its usage is actually restricted to the elite, because of inadequate education to large parts of the Indian population. The use of outdated teaching methods and the poor grasp of English exhibited by the authors of many guidebooks disadvantage students who rely on these books, giving India only a moderate proficiency in English.

In addition, many features of Indian English were imported into Bhutan due to the dominance of Indian-style education and teachers in the country after it withdrew from its isolation in the 1960s.

Hinglish and other hybrid languages

The term ''Hinglish'' is a portmanteau of the languages English and Hindi. This typically refers to the macaronic hybrid use of Hindi and English. It is often the growing preferred language of the urban and semi-urban educated Indian youth, as well as the Indian diaspora abroad. The Hindi film industry, more popularly known as Bollywood, incorporates considerable amounts of Hinglish as well. Many internet platforms and voice commands on Google also recognise Hinglish. When Hindi– Urdu is viewed as a single language called Hindostani, the portmanteaus Hinglish and Urdish mean the same code-mixed tongue, where the former term is used predominantly in modern India and the latter term predominantly in Pakistan.

Other macaronic hybrids such as ''Minglish'' (Marathi and English), ''Manglish'' ( Malayalam and English), '' Kanglish'' ( Kannada and English), ''Tenglish'' (Telugu and English), and '' Tanglish'' or ''Tamglish'' ( Tamil and English) exist in South India.

Phonology

Vowels

In general, Indian English has fewer peculiarities in its vowel sounds than the consonants, especially as spoken by native speakers of languages like Hindi, the vowel phoneme system having some similarities with that of English. Among the distinctive features of the vowel-sounds employed by some Indian English speakers:

* North Indians, especially a minority of English students and teachers along with some people in various professions like telephone customer service agents, often speak with a non-rhotic accent. Examples of this include ''flower'' pronounced as , ''never'' as , ''water'' as , etc. Some South Indians, however, like native Telugu speakers speak with a rhotic accent, but the final becomes an , and an alveolar tap is used for /r/, resulting in ''water'' and ''never'' as or and respectively.
**Features characteristic of North American English, such as rhoticity and r-coloured vowels, have been gaining influence on Indian English in recent years as cultural and economic ties increase between India and the United States.
* Many North Indians have an intonation pattern similar to Hiberno-English, which perhaps results from a similar pattern used while speaking Hindi.
* Indian English speakers do not necessarily make a clear distinction between and unlike Received Pronunciation (RP), i.e. they may have the cot-caught merger, with the target vowel ranging between either option.
* Diphthong is pronounced as
* Diphthong is pronounced as
* Diphthong is pronounced as
* may be more front or central
* can be more mid central or open-mid
* Most Indians have the trap–bath split of Received Pronunciation, affecting words such as ''class'', ''staff'' and ''last'' (, and respectively). Though the trap-bath split is prevalent in Indian English, it varies greatly. Many younger Indians who read and listen to American English do not have this split. The distribution is somewhat similar to Australian English in Regional Indian English varieties, but it has a complete split in Cultivated Indian English and Standard Indian English varieties.
* Most Indians do not have the hoarse-horse merger.
The following are some variations in Indian English resulting from not distinguishing a few vowels:
* Pronunciation of ranging from to
* Pronunciation of and as
* Pronunciation of ranging from to

Consonants

The following are the characteristics of dialect of Indian English most similar to RP:

* The voiceless plosives are always unaspirated in Indian English, (aspirated in cultivated form) whereas in RP, General American and most other English accents they are aspirated in word-initial or stressed syllables. Thus "pin" is pronounced in Indian English but in most other dialects. In native Indian languages (except in Dravidian languages such as Tamil), the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated plosives is phonemic, and the English stops are equated with the unaspirated rather than the aspirated phonemes of the local languages. The same is true of the voiceless postalveolar affricate . The aspirated plosives are instead equated with the fricatives such as or .
* The alveolar stops English , are often retroflex , , especially in the South of India. In Indian languages there are two entirely distinct sets of coronal plosives: one dental and the other retroflex. Native speakers of Indian languages prefer to pronounce the English alveolar plosives sound as more retroflex than dental, and the use of retroflex consonants is a common feature of Indian English. In the Devanagari script of Hindi, all alveolar plosives of English are transcribed as their retroflex counterparts. One good reason for this is that unlike most other native Indian languages, Hindi does not have ''true'' retroflex plosives (Tiwari, 9552001). The so-called retroflexes in Hindi are actually articulated as apical post-alveolar plosives, sometimes even with a tendency to come down to the alveolar region. So a Hindi speaker normally cannot distinguish the difference between their own apical post-alveolar plosives and English's alveolar plosives. Languages such as Tamil have ''true'' retroflex plosives, however, wherein the articulation is done with the tongue curved upwards and backwards at the roof of the mouth. This also causes (in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) the preceding alveolar to allophonically change to ( → ). Mostly in south India, some speakers allophonically further change the voiced retroflex plosives to voiced retroflex flap , and the nasal to a nasalised retroflex flap.
* Most major native languages of India lack the dental fricatives and (spelled with ''th''), although �occurs variably in languages like Gujarati and Tamil. Usually, the aspirated voiceless dental plosive is substituted for in the north (it would be unaspirated in the south) and the unaspirated voiced dental plosive , or possibly the aspirated version , is substituted for . For example, "thin" would be realised as instead of for North Indian speakers, whereas it would be pronounced unaspirated in the south.
The following are the variations in Indian English:
* The rhotic consonant /r/ is pronounced by most speakers as an alveolar tap , but may also be pronounced as a retroflex flap or alveolar trill based on the influence by the native phonology, or an alveolar approximant like in most varieties of English.
* Pronunciations vary between rhotic and non-rhotic; with pronunciations leaning towards native phonology being generally rhotic, and others being non-rhotic.
**In recent years, rhoticity has been increasing. Generally, American English is seen as having a large influence on the English language in India recently.
** Many Indians with rhotic accents prefer to pronounce words with as , such as as and as , as opposed to and in more non-rhotic varieties. Speakers with rhotic accents, especially some south Indians, may also pronounce word-final as , resulting in ''water'' and ''never'' as and respectively.
* Most Indian languages (except Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Odia and Punjabi) including Standard Hindi, do not differentiate between ( voiced labiodental fricative) and (voiced labiovelar approximant). Instead, many Indians use a frictionless labiodental approximant for words with either sound, possibly in free variation with and/or depending upon region. Thus, ''wet'' and ''vet'' are often homophones.Wells, p. 627
* South Indians tend to curl the tongue (retroflex accentuation) more for and .
* Sometimes, Indian speakers interchange and , especially when plurals are being formed, unlike speakers of other varieties of English, who use for the pluralisation of words ending in a voiceless consonant, for words ending in a voiced consonant or vowel, and for words ending in a sibilant.
* In case of the postalveolar affricates , native languages like Hindi have corresponding affricates articulated from the palatal region, rather than postalveolar, and they have more of a stop component than fricative; this is reflected in their English.
* Syllabic , and are usually replaced by the VC clusters , and (as in ''button'' ), or if a high vowel precedes, by (as in ''little'' ). Syllable nuclei in words with the spelling ''er''/''re'' (a schwa in RP and an r-coloured schwa in GA) are also replaced by VC clusters. e.g., ''metre'', → .
* Indian English uses clear in all instances like Irish English whereas other varieties use clear in syllable-initial positions and dark l (velarised-L) in coda and syllabic positions.
The following are variations in Indian English due to language contact with Indian languages:
* Most Indian languages (except Hindustani varieties, Assamese, Marathi and Konkani) lack the voiced alveolar fricative . A significant portion of Indians thus, even though their native languages do have its nearest equivalent: the unvoiced , often use the voiced palatal affricate (or postalveolar) , just as with a Korean accent. This makes words such as and sound as and (the latter, especially in the North). This replacement is equally true for Persian and Arabic loanwords into Hindi. The probable reason is the confusion created by the use of the Devanagari grapheme (for /dʒ/) with a dot beneath it to represent (as ). This is common among people without formal English education. In Telugu, and are allophones, so words such as ''rosy'' become and words such as ''fridge'' become . The same happens in Bengali as well.
* In Assamese, and are pronounced as ; and and are pronounced as . Retroflex and dental consonants are not present and only alveolar consonants are used unlike other Indian languages. Similar to Bengali, is pronounced as and in Assamese. For example; change is pronounced as , vote is pronounced as and English is pronounced as .
* Again, in Assamese and Bhojpuri, all instances of are spoken like , a phenomenon that is also apparent in their English. Exactly the opposite is seen for many Bengalis.
* Inability to pronounce certain (especially word-initial) consonant clusters by people of rural backgrounds, as with some Spanish-speakers. This is usually dealt with by epenthesis. e.g., .
* Many Indians with lower exposure to English also may pronounce as an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive . Again note that in Hindi Devanagari the loaned from Persian and Arabic is written by putting a dot beneath the grapheme for native : . This substitution is rarer than that for , and in fact in many Hindi is used by native speakers instead of , or the two are used interchangeably.
* Many speakers of Indian English do not use the voiced postalveolar fricative (). Some Indians use or instead, e.g. , and in the south Indian variants, with as in , e.g. .

Spelling pronunciation

A number of distinctive features of Indian English are due to " the vagaries of English spelling". Most Indian languages, unlike English, have a nearly phonetic spelling, so the spelling of a word is a highly reliable guide to its modern pronunciation. Indians' tendency to pronounce English phonetically as well can cause divergence from British English. This phenomenon is known as spelling pronunciation.
* In words where the digraph represents a voiced velar plosive () in other accents, some Indian English speakers supply a murmured version , for example . No other accent of English admits this voiced aspiration.
* Similarly, the digraph may be aspirated as or , resulting in realisations such as , found in no other English accent.Wells, p. 630 This is somewhat similar to the traditional distinction between and present in English, however, wherein the former is , whilst the latter is .
* In unstressed syllables, which speakers of American English would realise as a schwa, speakers of Indian English would use the spelling vowel, making sound as instead of . This trait is also present in other South Asian dialects ( Pakistani and Sri Lankan English).
* The word "of" is usually pronounced with a instead of a as in most other accents.Wells, p. 629
* Use of instead of for the "-ed" ending of the past tense after voiceless consonants, for example "developed" may be instead of RP .Wells, p. 628
* Use of instead of for the ending of the plural after voiced consonants, for example may be instead of .
* Pronunciation of as in both the noun and the verb, instead of as a noun and as a verb.
* Silent letters may be pronounced. For example, 'salmon' is usually pronounced with a distinct .

Supra-segmental features

English is a stress-timed language. Both syllable stress and word stress (where only certain words in a sentence or phrase are stressed) are important features of Received Pronunciation. Indian native languages are actually syllable-timed languages, like French. Indian-English speakers usually speak with a syllabic rhythm. Further, in some Indian languages, stress is associated with a low pitch, whereas in most English dialects, stressed syllables are generally pronounced with a higher pitch. Thus, when some Indian speakers speak, they appear to put the stress accents at the wrong syllables, or accentuate all the syllables of a long English word. Certain Indian accents possess a "sing-song" quality, a feature seen in a few English dialects of Britain, such as Scouse and Welsh English.

Numbering system

The Indian numbering system is preferred for digit grouping. When written in words, or when spoken, numbers less than 100,000/100 000 are expressed just as they are in Standard English. Numbers including and beyond 100,000/100 000 are expressed in a subset of the Indian numbering system. Thus, the following scale is used:

Larger numbers are generally expressed as multiples of the above (for example, one lakh crores for one trillion).

Vocabulary

Indian English includes many political, sociological, and administrative terms, such as dharna, hartal, eve-teasing, vote bank, swaraj, swadeshi, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, and NRI. It incorporates some Anglo-Indian words such as tiffin, hill station, gymkhana, along with slang.

Some examples of words and phrases unique to, or chiefly used in, standard written Indian English include:

* ''academics'' ( noun) (also Canadian and U.S. English): Academic pursuits in contrast to technical or practical work.
** e.g. "For 14 years he immersed himself in academics and was a fine achiever." (''Hindu'' (Madras), 6 Dec 1991 27/2)
* ''avail'' ( verb): take advantage of an opportunity or resource
* ''brinjal'' ( noun): eggplant/ aubergine
* ''cinema hall'' (noun): A cinema or movie theatre.
** e.g. "''Cinema halls'' in Uttar Pradesh will soon display the newly-unveiled logo for Kumbh Mela, right after the national anthem is played" ('' Times of India'', 3 Jan 2018)
* ''do the needful