#78, Research Article: ‘Changing Structure of English in Contemporary India : An Overview’ by Dr. Monali Bhattacharya

Dr. Monali Bhattacharya works with Banasthali University, Rajasthan as an Assistant Professor in English.

India has witnessed giant transformation in every arena of life, be it in the cultural make-up, technological structure or even in the language socialization. The colonial set-up is the foundation pillar on which the post-colonial structure of India is built-up. But the colonial mind-set has not been the sole the reason which has invaded the total Indianness of the society thereby giving rise to a new breed of nationality which is the hybrid product of cross-cultural genesis. Language being the basic mode of discourse has also witnessed a massive change in its structural pattern.

Colonization era brought cultural as well as language invasion to India. But with the passage of time the invasion adapted itself to the nativity and rooted itself in the new land. In the process of trying to root itself, these foreign cultural elements also underwent lots of intrinsic transformation and one of the glaring examples of this is the massive change that English language has undergone from its colonial structure to its post-colonial dressing in the different countries that were previously colonies of the Imperial power. English language intruded into the colonies as a foreign language, as the only instrument of communication for the white masters, but soon it became a second language with the natives trying to ape their superior races.

Today we are witnessing a totally different chapter when the native languages have encroached into English and have given birth to very new kind of language. In fact, today, England has almost completely lost its copyright in the usage patterning of English, which it enjoyed in the pre-colonial times. Instead English has become a global language today.

In India, the present position of English is as follows:

a)       It is non-Indian language which is recognized constitutionally as the Associate National Official Language and as inter-regional link language.

b)      Educationally it is recognized as an essential component of formal education and as the preferred medium of learning with specialized education in science and technology available through the medium of English only.

c)       Socially it is recognized and upheld as a mark of education and symbol of prestige.

Some might agree while some might not, with the special status that English enjoys as a communicative mode in India. Some say that English is the link language that provides a communicative channel for the Indians belonging to diverse linguistic regions to interact while others argue that English is a communicative link only in boardroom interactions, seminars, conferences or official exchanges and that rural masses communicate only through local dialects or Hindi. The argument can always turn into a prolonged affair, so without falling into any pitfall of debate, it is always better to focus on the ground realities. Given the present Indian scenario of communication techniques and usage, nobody can deny that our country has witnessed a great linguistic convergence leading to certain phonological and syntactic adjustments, on the part of both – English as well as the Indian languages. Hence, English has been Indianized while there has been Englishization of Indian languages. Thus the general discourse in India today includes mixed codes of usage from English and other regional languages or Hindi in its language matrix. This percolation of English words is not limited only into the educated or semi-educated society, but even rustics and illiterates generally use common English words in their daily verbal interaction – Time Kya ho raha hai, being one of the most common sentences uttered in India at some place or the other after every few seconds. The Indianization of English language has led to the emergence of a variety of English albeit non-native, lexically, morphologically, syntactically and stylistically different from the standard British form, which has come to be known as ‘Indian Variety of English (IVE) Thus words like ‘dhoti’, ‘biri’, ‘Bastis’, ‘Angrezi Sarkar’, ‘Swadeshi’, ‘Harijan’, ‘Namaskar’ are generally used in their native structure, even in literature of Indian Writing in English. Similarly, some Indian affixes have gone into derivation of an entirely new IVE vocabulary. For eg. – wallah, – Ji, sahib are class maintaining derivational suffixes :

Rickshaw + wallah          –        Rickshaw – wallah

Master + Ji                      –        Masterji

Major + Sahib                 –        Majorsahib

Similarly the grammatical structure has also undergone massive transformation, not only in ordinary interaction but also in the literary output. People speak ‘I’m working in this city for five years whereas writers pen down –

‘I am living far off in Borivli’ (The Railway Clerk). The literary artists have also shown Englishization of Indian proverbs e.g.

a)       ‘You can not straighten a dog’s tail’ (Kanthapura)

b)      “Through their fingers money goes pouring like water” (Kanthapura)

This Indian variety of English in India has given rise to a very new conception of English language which man has tried to formulate according to his need of the communication pattern. Thus if the rural Indians have Englishized their dialects then urban youth has tried to fashion a suitable mode of communication in English adapting the language to the technological advancements. Thus with the mobiles becoming a necessity with the youth, the short messaging system has become unique form of communication.

Dis is 2 inform u dat I’ll ariv lat.

The spellings, grammar and all other syntactical formalities have been replaced by the convenient coding of language. Thus this has become dis; arrive – ariv; late – lat; to-2; inform-infrm. Actually the language has totally succumbed to the pressure of saving time in this busy world. Thus a totally new SMS language has come up which has completely transformed the linguistic behaviour of India. Some of the common changes that SMS has brought, can be seen everywhere for eg. –

to                –            2

you              –            u

for               –            4

Your            –            ur

that              –            dat

from            –            frm

see              –            c

extreme        –            xtrm

we               –            v

are               –            r

am               –            m

light             –            lite

why             –            y

because       –            b’coz

need            –            nid

and the list can go on and on. Thus a highly educated person who has great linguistic competence in English also finds himself puzzled when he reads SMS on his mobile –

‘May dis yr ushr vd gety n mirth 4 u n may al ur dremz cum tru. Bye n cyaa.’

This is not the only astonishing change that language has adapted according to the needs of the hi-tec society. With the computers becoming an essential part of our lives, its communicative mode has become our language behaviour. Its technical vocabulary has intruded into our colloquial language in such a manner that today we delete anything instead of removing. This technicality of society has given rise to jargonism in our ordinary linguistic discourse. Today jargon exists everywhere, though it doesn’t actually have any negative connotation. Jargon is the special or technical language of a trade, profession or similar group. But now the respective technical language of every profession has percolated into ordinary chat. Thus gone are the days when we used to talk to people, now we dialogue with people over a cup of coffee or participate in a heated debate on the commoditization of services. Today we pen down our thoughts in diary instead of simply writing or just table our views in front of friends. Computers have greatly contributed in initiating this new mode of language behaviour. Thus today in our normal discourse, we keep up with the tradition of cut-copy-paste. Journalism also has seen this adaptive capability of a literary language like English and we often come across statements like – It is a good read in the best article reviews. This kind of English that is spoken in the urban India can be termed as the general variety of English. Though there is great difference in the habitual make-up of urban India and rural India, but somewhere they meet and that is in the usage of Hinglish which is the result of intrusion of local dialects into English and invasion of English into the local languages and Hindi. Thus urban as well as rural youth has done some code-matching and code-fixing in their oral communication hence, giving rise to emergence of Hinglish as being most popular linguistic behaviour.

Thus, we may say that today English language is no more merely a ‘communicative skill’ which raises the intellectual impact of the users in the society or a higher status symbol amongst the upper class; it has instead now become more of a ‘communication tool’ between all the classes.

Though English invaded Indian linguistic culture as foreign language and its native users made it official language, but even after independence, it remained important and always enjoyed status of second language in India. But the multi-dimensional changes that English adopted in the past few years, is really astonishing.

Thus today, we may say that though English has almost lost its pre-colonial beauty of literariness, but it has acquired a very colourful communicative mode. Just like the fast-moving consumer goods, English language is transforming its multi-dimensional communicative structure day by day, and in the process has enhanced its utility quotient, in India.

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