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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

Mapping the spread of the English language in India

A linguistic ecology approach

| University of Tuscia

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 (Kachru 1994). 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 2013).

Keywords: historical sociolinguistics, language ecology, language contact, Portuguese, Indiginised Varieties of English, Pidgin English, interactional sociolinguistics, social anthropology, accommodation theory
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
Published online: 9 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.18004.mur
References

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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