You are on page 1of 6

Seminar Theme

The Role of English in India

Topic: Is English An Indian Language ?

Harsha Bhat
M.A (I) Linguistics
25th November 2010
There is an Amitabh Bachchan film titled Namak Halal, where he plays a prince
hidden away in the village brought up as a country bumkin with a heart of gold. He
comes to the big bad city of Bombay (it was Bombay then) , and ends up working in a
5 star hotel. One of the most memorable scenes in the film is where he appears for a
job interview and is quizzed of his English competence.

In this scene Arjun Singh wald Bheem Singh wald Dashrath singh(Amitabh) is
introduced to Ranjeet.

Ranjeet: Yeh sab to theek hai, magar angrezi vangrezi aati hai ya nahi.
Amitabh: E lo kar lo baat. Are aisi angrezi ave hain ke I can leave angrez behind. I
can talk english, I can walk english, I can laugh english, because english is a funny
language. Bhairon becomes barren and barren becomes Bhairon because their minds
are very narrow. In the year 1929 when India was playing Australia at the melbourne
stadium Vijay Hazare and Vijay Merchant were at the crease. Vijay Merchant told
Vijay Hazare. look Vijay Hazare, this is a very prestigious match and we must
consider it very prestigiously. We must take this into consideration, the consideration
that this is an important match and ultimately this consideration must end in a run.
Ranjeet: O.K., O.K.
Amitabh: In the year 1979 when Pakistan was playing against India at the Wankhade
stadium Wasim Raja and Wasim Bari were at the crease and they took the same
consideration. Wasim Raja told Wasim Bari, look Wasim Bari, we must consider this
consideration and considering that this is an important match we must put this
consideration into action and ultimately score a run. And both of them considered the
consideration and ran and both of them got out.

But English as a funny language is not just the opinion of the likes of Ramlal but of
quite a sizeable chunk of Indian. If not funny, definitely foreign and hence ‘different’.
We never see it as our language nor do we claim to be native speakers. But the so
called English speaking countries too wouldn’t accord us this status and they too find
the English we speak funny , sub standard and a dilution of the ‘standard”. But what is
a standard language, who is a native speaker. What makes a language a native
language for a speaker? Is English an Indian language? Firstly let’s see how this
English came in to India and how it came to be the power that it currently is. .

The incubation of English in the Indian sub-continent could be said to have taken
place with the granting of a charter by Queen Elizabeth I on 31st December, 1600 to a
few merchants of London, which gave them the monopoly to trade with India. With
the Englishmen came English. Though initially English had strong competition from
Portuguese, which was largely used by major European traders in India, slowly it was
able to lay its feet in the new turf and quite strong at that.

In an alien culture, confronted with all things new and exotic, the Englishmen found it
quite hard initially to communicate with their subjects and so did the natives. The
languages began influencing wach other as did the cultures. English began borrowing
words from the languages of the subcontinent, and vice versa. There was a whole lot
of exchange between the local indeginious languages and the colonizers. English, the
tongue of the ruler began lashing its whip slowly though on the poor country cousins .
In less than two hundred, English was beginning to compete with local languages.
Anthea Gupta identifies 1774 as a key date because it was then that English became
‘the language of the Supreme Court in Calcutta’. (Gupta 189)

That the traders had intentions of turning rulers was slowly showing through their
involvement in Education. But was education to be in English or in the vernacular
languages, was much debated. A key figure in the language debate was Lord
Macaulay who belonged to the anglicists group which supported english.The
orientalists on the other hand were in the favour of use of classical languages of Indian
tradition, such as Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, which were not spoken as native
languages. In the Minute of Macaulay, which is said to have led to the "the real
beginnings of bilingualism in India" (McCrum et al. 1988: 325) which had been
prepared for the Governor General William Bentick ,the anglicists presented their
views. According to the Minute, a class should be formed in India, a group of people
who would act as interpreters between the British and Indians, "a class of persons,
Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect"
(Bailey 1991: 138).

Macaulays proposal met success as William Bentick expressed his full support to the
Minute. English gradually became the language of government, education,
advancement, "a symbol of imperial rule and of self-improvement" (McCrum et al.
1988: 325).

English was established firmly as the medium of instruction and administration by the
British Raj (1765-1947). Indian education was ever greater anglicized as the English
language became rooted in an alien linguistic, cultural, administrative and educational
setting. English became accepted as the language of the élite, of the administration,
and of the pan-Indian press. English newspapers had an influential reading public.
Indian literature in English was also developing (Kachru 1983: 69).

Language became a marker of the white man's prowess. Kachru quotes E. M. Forster
in A Passage to India (Kachru 1986: 5): "India likes gods. And Englishmen like
posing as gods". Indians naively accepted both the pose the power and bowed down to
the reign of English.

English was used in India and elsewhere in the colonies as a tool of power to cultivate
a group of people who identify with the cultural and other norms of the political elite.

India, after becoming independent in 1947, was left with a colonial language,English,
as the language of government. It was thought that the end of the British Raj would
mean the slow but sure demise of the English language in South Asia. But even after
more than 60 years of Independence we know that it has not and will not happen. The
reasons fro it being one of the Official languages of this multilingual country include
the absence of any other pan Indian language, the opposition of Hindi as a national
language , the Hindi Urdu controversy etc. This is also a reason why English to this
day remains a language of power and prestige.

Native V/S Non native

But if we have accepted it as an official language and also claim to a country with the
largest number of English speaker outnumbering the English-speakers of the United
Kingdom and the United States combined and if ‘Indian English is the oldest World
English after the ones spoken in the British Isles’ (Crystal, Guardian), why are we not
accorded the status of being native speakers? What is a Native English?

‘Native speaker’ is a political predicate for social empowerment or for ‘peer


‘recognition. (The Native Speaker- Pg 63) The question of a Native speaker arises
with the differentiation of ‘New Englishes’ or ‘New Varieties of English(NVE s)
from Old Varieties of English. The NVEs are those varieties of English like
Singaporean English or Indian English which were born in former British Colonies
during the colonial rule but have developed in their own distinct varities post
England’s departure from their turfs. These varieties emerged as an amalgamation of
English which was transplanted into these lands by the colonisers and the indigenous
languages, culture and ecology. English in these new environments sprouted few new
leaves which were not to be found in the so called “Native” Variety and have distinct
flavours of their own but the speakers of these varieties are still not granted the status
of being native speakers; despite radical semiotic reconstructions and reconstitutions
which could not have taken place without the involvement of humans.
These varieties are no less than any other variety, or the native variety of the language,
as they are not mere random blend of errors and deviations from the native variety but
full fledged systems governed by norms and upheld equally strongly by their
respective speech communities.

Native speaker status is not granted to speakers of these varieties of the language
though it has been nativized in many of these countries because granting such a status
would imply granting a share in the cultural heritage and political power of the
speakers of this language in the centre of power.

In world Englishes, all other languages are seen as Non native Varieties as opposed to
Standard southern English English and standard American English. According to Ayo
Bamgbo.se, University of lbadan, Nigeria, the subject of distinction is as follows:
Non-native Englishes differ from native ones in a number of ways which those
interested in language in society will certainly regard as linguistically significant.
First, all of them have developed through the imposition of English on populations
that predominantly speak other languages. The result is that speakers of non-native
varieties are bilingual, having acquired English as an additional language mainly
through the educational system. Second, the influence of such languages has left a
permanent mark on these varieties in terms of borrowing, loan translation, code-
mixing,
style and register-shift, and various other processes of nativization. Third, the
resulting resources are creatively exploited by users to fashion out new forms of
expression. Fourth, in spite of tendencies toward the development of internal norms,
there is still a constant reference to external norms, at least as a point of reference.
(Journal VVol24.3)

None of the above rules hold for a native language. For instance never is British
English compared to American English to check for its correctness. According to
Anjum P.Saleemi, For a language system to acquire the status of a native variety, it
has to be shared under appropriate conditions. More specifically, he proposes that the
linguistic system operating in a speech community is a variety of a language L only if
the members of this community share the system underlying L to such an extent that:
(a) their grammaticality judgements about linguistic structure are generally stable
and uniform, and differ from those related to the other varieties of L in a limited
but systematic way.
(b) they can communicate with each other effectively and extensively.
(c) any children born among them are primarily exposed to input based on this
shared system. Rajendra Singh and N.S. Prabhu too are of the opinion that sharing of
well-formedness judgements within the relevant speech community are essential to
being a native speaker and that a ‘non-primary system’ when shared ‘ceases to be a
non-primary one’. But in the words of Yamuna Kachru, native speakerhood is more
dependent on attitudes and societal cohesion than on shared judgements of well-
formedness of utterances. (Journal of Pramatics

With such an unclear ground for the very definition of a ‘native speaker’ Is this
question justified? I don’t think so. One can definitely ask if R.P.English is an Indian
language , to which the answer is a clear no. But a question like is English an Indian
language is clearly unjustified. Indian English is a variety and let us keep it at that.
There is no need for awarding a native speaker status. That we are speakers of a
variety which no other nation is , means it is a functionally fit system which needs no
authorization from any other .and involvement in the OVE, NVE issue is
unconsciously being subjected to subtle linguistic imperialism. Indian English, for
example is more suitable for use in India than English English because we are more
comfortable with this variety of the language owing to the resemblance of its
phonology to that of Indian Languages and its vocabulary being adapted to Indian
culture and society. 'Native', as an adjective applied to varieties as opposed to
speakers, does not mean that is better, refined, standard or more suitable than the
‘non-native varieities. Hence any such labelling is a simple futile attempt that displays
simple imperialistic attitudes.
Bibliography:
• Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 295-321
• Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 283-294
• Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 323-333
• ENGLISH IN INDIA- Loyalty and Attitudes- Annika Hohenthal
• The Otherness of English- Prabol Das Gupta
• The Native Speaker- Rajendra Singh
• Linguistic and Social Characteristics of Indian English- Jason Balridge
• Indianization of English Media in India- M.J.Warsi

You might also like