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World Englishes in their Local Multilingual Ecologies
Edited by Peter Siemund, Gardy Stein and Manuela Vida-Mannl
[Hamburg Studies on Linguistic Diversity 9] 2025
► pp. 291–316

Chapter 13
The role of English in the linguistic ecology of Northeast India

 | University of Bonn
 | University of FloridaGainesville
 | Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
India is the world’s most populous country and a hub of linguistic diversity. Within this diverse country, India’s Northeast is a region that is historically, geographically, religiously, and linguistically more distinct from the rest of India than probably any other region, but it has received scant attention from academic research. As a locus of contact and exchange between South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, it is one of the linguistically most diverse regions in the world. Many of its states lack a single local majority language, potentially contributing to the more widespread use of English as a lingua franca in these states. We examine both the general linguistic diversity and the knowledge of English in the Northeast using the latest Census data (2011). We borrow the concepts of alpha and gamma diversity and the measure of diversity Simpson’s D from the study of ecology and apply them to the analysis of linguistic ecology, confirming that the population of Northeast India is characterized by a greater diversity of local languages than the remainder of India; we also find that knowledge of English is more widespread in four of eight states. Furthermore, we examine the potential for Assamese, Hindi, and English to all serve as local linguae francae and discuss the limitations of Census data as a source, ending with proposals of methods with the potential to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of English in the linguistic ecology of the Northeast.
Keywords: diversity index, lingua franca, linguistic ecology, Northeast India
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.India, Northeast India, and the role of English
    • 2.1Northeast India within the Republic and the wider region
    • 2.2Indian English(es) and the Northeast
    • 2.3The Indian Census
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Linguistic diversity
    • 4.2Knowledge of English
    • 4.3Other linguae francae in Northeast India
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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