Contact and impact: Englishisation (Par I)

Englishisation is the impact of the English language and English literature on South Asian languages and literatures. The prolonged contact of English with South Asian languages has resulted in a deep and subtle influence on the languages of the region, both major and minor. The contact with English is the latest and is in some sense multidimensional. Englishisation was responsible for changes in the outlook of English-educated people. It opened a new way of looking at social order, and the concepts of liberalism, secularization and the fundamentals of humanistic culture.

The impact of Englishisation has several facets. The first facet is related to the extent of the impact this language has had on all the major and minor languages of the subcontinent. English contributed to conceptualization of literature and literary theory within new sociological, literary and linguistic paradigms. It made models available for the development of literary genres traditionally not associated with South Asian literatures.

English made a contribution towards the extension of the thematic range of literature and a new way of treating themes. This happened in many ways: by the expansion of genres and by the introduction of social realism, secularism and concepts of a social order different from the ones known to the subcontinent. In India, European modernism, introduced through English, provided dynamic paradigms of literary creativity.

English functions as a resource for formal innovation within a genre, such as blank verse, the sonnet and short expositionary essays. Additionally, English became a resource for the transmission of literary controversies, innovations and trends. A good example is the paradigm of “progressive” writing introduced by the Progressive Writers’ Movement in the 1930s. The impact has been immense in changing the direction of South Asian literatures in terms of both their thematic focus and stylistic innovation. The call of the progressive movement was to break away from the well-enthroned Great Tradition (South Asian languages with a well-established and rich literary tradition when they came in contact with English) and accepted norms of literary creativity. In Hindi, the literary movement termed rahasyavãd (“mysticism”) was the result of the Romantic Movement.

English has functioned as the main agent for releasing the South Asian languages from the constraints of the classical literary traditions. Some of the major languages, particularly those used in the metropolitan cities like Calcutta (Bengali), became the vehicles for channeling the impact of English into other languages. What is called “the Bengal Renaissance” did not influence only the neighboring languages, but the gains of the renaissance were transmitted to Hindi. In turn, these literatures transmitted the literary and linguistic impact of Englishisation. It is in this way that Englishisation became a pan-South Asian phenomenon. Englishisation increased as the diffusion of English expanded in its societal depth and functional range. Englishisation became a symbol of modernization for people and for their language.