English in India and South Africa: Comparisons, Commonalities and Contrasts

Abstract

This article offers a comparison of the history of English in India and South Africa, with special reference to its rise as a second language. As far as external history is concerned both territories show investment in a language whose use has long outlasted the colonial era, despite the concerns of leaders and scholars with a pro-indigenous language stance. The article focuses on comparing the grammatical characteristics of the second language varieties of English in India and South Africa, arising from the Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English. A comparison of relevant chapters in this work reveals close structural similarities between Indian English and Black South African English. Moreover, South African Indian English falls midway between the two in this typological survey.

Key words:

• Indian English
• Black South African English
• South African Indian English
• World Atlas of Variation in English
• Angloversals

Note on Contributor

Rajend Mesthrie is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cape Town in the School of African & Gender Studies, Linguistics & Anthropology. He holds an NRF research chair in Migration, Language & Social Change. Among his publications are Language in South Africa, (2002), World Englishes (2008) and A Dictionary of South African Indian English (2012).

Notes

1. L2 or ‘second language’ is often a linguistic cover term for a chronological second, third, fourth etc language, seen from the viewpoint of an individual's acquisition of language.

2. 16 June 1920.

3. The categories used by the editors were slightly different, but do not affect the present analysis: low-contact traditional L1 dialects; high-contact L1 varieties; L2 varieties; Pidgins; Creoles.

4. Several influences converge to provide this effect: Afrikaans, English, Indian languages and possibly Indonesian languages.

5. Who-all is reported as a frequent form in White South African English (Bowerman 2012). Intriguingly, while the form occurs in this variety and IE, it is noticeably absent in SAIE.