The document discusses the key features of Indian English, including its origins in the 1830s with the introduction of English language public instruction in India. It became the official language in 1837, replacing Persian. The number of English speakers in India has grown significantly over time to around 280 million currently, making it the largest English-speaking population worldwide. Indian English has developed its own stylistic, vocabulary, pronunciation and syntactic features that differ from other varieties of English due to the influence of Indian languages. These include differences in terms used for numbers, tagging questions, and the occasional omission of prepositions.

1. Features of Indian English
by
MUHAMMAD IBRAHIM KHALIL
M.Phil. NUML University Islamabad

2.  Public instruction in English language began in India in
the 1830s
 In 1837, English replaced Persian as the official
language of the company by Britain.
 Lord Macaulay was instrumental in introducing
English and Western concepts to education in India
 During the 1840s and 1850s, many districts of British
India opened primary, middle, and secondary schools,
Origin and History:

3.  India's independence in 1947, English was considered
the only functional lingua franca in India.
 Hindi was declared the first official language and
efforts were made to declare Hindi the only national
language of India.
 English usage is actually limited to elite,
Origin and History:

4.  Kachru suggested that only 3% of all Indians speak English
 Encyclopedia Britannica claimed less than 5%.
 In 2011, around 280 million speakers with at least basic
knowledge of English
 In 2004/2005 Research Data shows 4% are fluent in English
 India ranks third in the world after the US and the UK to use
English as a spoken language.
 India has at least 400 total languages.
 English is the co-official language one of 22 official languages in
India, which has the largest English-speaking population in the
world.
Number of Speakers and Sociolinguistic
Varieties of Indian English:

5.  Stylistic influence of Indian local languages is a special
feature of Indian literature in English.
 "Apka Shubh(good) name kya hai?“
 general mai, ek minute" (one minute
 Indian vocabulary in English, Avatar, bandana, bangle,
cot, guru, jungle, khaki, loot, thug, veranda and yoga.
Indian Stylistic and Vocabulary

6.  the speakers of English in India make no difference when it
comes to the sound / v, w/
 the two sounds / θ / and / ð / are usually replaced by / d / and / t /.
 Central vowel is also / ʌ / usually ignored and replaced by the
vowel / a /.
 speakers of English in India is the replacement of two adjacent
vowels with a single long vowel followed by / r / sound. So beer
becomes / bir / and pear is pronounced / per /.
 British English labio-dental fricative /v/, which is often realised as
a labiodental approximant [V] and also often merged with /w/.
Pronunciation Features

7.  English is a stress-timed language, and both syllable stress
and word stress, Native Indian languages are basically
syllable-timed languages, such as Latin and French
 Indian languages stress is associated with a low pitch,
while in most English dialects stressed syllables are
generally pronounced with a higher pitch
 Indian accents are of "sing-song" character, a feature seen
in a few English dialects in Britain such as Scouse and
Welsh English.
Supra-segmental Features

8. International Digits
System
Indian Digits System International Words
System
Indian Word System
10 - Tens -
100 - One Hundred -
1000 - One Thousand -
10,000 - Ten Thousand -
100,000 1,00,000 One Hundred
Thousand
One Lakh
1,000,000 10,00,000 One Million Ten Lakh
10,000,000 100,00,000 Ten Million One Crore
Numbering Featureses

9.  Indian English do not use the complex, rule-generated tag
questions available in English, such as you have eaten,
haven 'tyou? You haven 'teaten, have you? You went to the
store, didn’t’t you? You didn't go to the store, did you?
Instead they use a finite set of simple tag questions
consisting of Is it?, Isn't it?, and No?
 Indian Use "Can you drop me?" and "We will drop her first"
instead of "Can you drop me off?" and "We will drop her
off first" no preposition
 Indian English is showing variation in WH-questions; i.e.,
there are examples with AUX-movement/no AUX. i.e.,
What you know? Instead of What do you know?
Syntactic Features of Indian English

10.  Cenejac, J. (2018) Characteristic of Indian English, retrieved on
June 20, 2020, from www.latg.org/2018/06/24/indian-english
 Features of Indian English, retrieved on June 20, 2020, from
www.toshniwalcollege.ac.in
 Fuchs, R. (2014). Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English, Evidence
from Educated Indian English and British English, University of
Münster, Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, ISBN 978-3-662-
47818-9 (eBook)
 Gail M, C. (1997). Anglo-Indian English: A Nativized Variety of
Indian English, Published by: Cambridge University Press, Source:
Language in Society, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 561-589
References