On the Development of the English Language in India

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: Historical Linguistics - History of English, language: English, abstract: 'Indian English' is an umbrella term which is used to describe all dialects of the English language that are spoken in the Republic of India. But 'Indian English' is not a native language. Like other variations of the English language, 'Indian English' is the result of language contact, which contributed to the development of the present-day 'Indian English' due to the mixture of the linguistic aspects and different social backgrounds. To describe how the development of this language variation occurred, section 2 dwells on the history of 'Indian English' and the usage and cultural aspects by expanding on its functions. Its grammatical form is particularly illustrated in section 3, which deals with the most important linguistic features of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The issues contributing the development of 'Indian English' are revisited in the conclusion.