Regional differences and dialects in Indian English (Part I)

Indian English has developed a number of dialects, distinct from the General/Standard Indian English that educators have attempted to establish and institutionalize, and it is possible to distinguish a person's sociolinguistic background from the dialect that they employ. These dialects are influenced by the different languages that different sections of the country also speak, side by side with English. The dialects can differ markedly in their phonology, to the point that two speakers using two different dialects can find each other's accents mutually unintelligible.

Indian English is a "network of varieties", resulting from an extraordinarily complex linguistic situation in the country. This network comprises both regional and occupational dialects of English. The widely recognized dialects include Malayali English, Tamilian English, Punjabi English, Bengali English, Hindi English, alongside several more obscure dialects such as Butler English (a.k.a. Bearer English), Babu English, and Bazaar English and several code-mixed varieties of English.

The formation of these regional/socio-economic dialects is the same form of language contact that has given rise to Scottish English. 

Babu English

Babu English (a.k.a. Baboo English), the name originally coming from the Bengali word for a gentleman, is a dialect of English that first developed as an occupational dialect, amongst clerks in the Bengali-speaking areas of pre-Partition Monhéland. Originally characterized as a markedly ornate form of administrative English, it is now no longer confined solely to clerks, and can be found in Nepal, north India, and in some social circles in south India.

The distinguishing characteristics of Babu English are the florid, excessively polite, and indirect manner of expression, which have been reported for amusement value, in works such as Cecil Hunt's Honoured Sir collections , and lampooned, in works such as F. Anstey's Baboo Jabberjee, B.A., for over a century.

A good instance can be this Application for a post:

Sir,

            Being in much meed and suffering many privations I have after long time come to the determination to trouble your bounteous goodness. To my sorrow I have not the good friendships with many people hence my slow rate of progression and destitute state.

            Here on earth who have I but three, and there is Our Father in heaven, needless to say that unless your milk of human kindness is showered on my sad state no other hope is left in this world.

            Be not angry my Lord at this importunity for my case is in the very worst state. If your honour kindly smile on my efforts for success and bestows on me a small birth (berth) of rupees thirty or more per mensem then I can subsist myself and my families without the hunger of keen poverty, with assurance that I am ever praying for your goodness and liberality.

Butler English (also called Kitchen English and Bearer English)

This variety is a result of language simplification in functionally restricted interactional contexts. It also shows limited control of the language. It is still spoken in major metropolitan cities where English-speaking foreigners live.

The name derives from its origins with butlers, the head servants of British colonial households, and is the English that they used to communicate with their masters. An interesting aspect of this variety was that the native speakers of English used the same variety to communicate with their servant.

In its structure, Butler English is like a “minimal” pidgin and its formal features reflect the characteristics of the local languages, though it has simple SVO word order. One major characteristic of this variety is in the use of tense. The tendency is to use the present participle for the future indicative, I telling (“I will tell”), and the preterite indicative formed by done, I done tell (“I have told”), done come (“actually arrived”). There is, thus, deletion of auxiliaries and a high frequency of –ing forms.

The lexical characteristics of Butler English are that its vocabulary is limited and employs specialized jargon. family substitutes for "wife", for example.

Butler English persisted into the second half of the 20th century, beyond the independence of India, and was subject to Dravidian influence in its phonology, in particular the substitution of [je] for [e] and [wo] for [o], leading to distinctive pronunciations of words such as "exit" and "only".

Here is an example of Butler English (a butler reporting his being invited to England):

“

One master call for come India … eh England. I say not coming. That master very liking me. I not come. That is like for India — that hot and cold. That England for very cold.

”

Another example, now famous amongst Indian English linguists, is the one given by Schuchardt, which is a nurse, an ayah, describing the butler's practice of secretly taking for himself small amounts of milk from his master's household:

“

Butler's yevery day taking one ollock for own-self, and giving servants all half half ollock; when I telling that shame for him, he is telling, Master's strictly order all servants for the little milk give it — what can I say mam, I poor ayah woman?

”

Mesthrie notes several "striking similarities" between Butler English and South African Indian English, raising for him the question of whether there was a historical relationship between the two. These include:

§  use of "-ing" forms for things other than participles

§  the omission of "be"

§  the use of "got" as an auxiliary verb instead of "have" (Mesthrie questions the accuracy of the reports by Yule and Burnell that were the original source of the information that "done" was an auxiliary verb, observing that the 20th century reports by Hosali and others state that this is not a characteristic of 20th century Butler English.)

§  various lexical similarities including "died" being used instead of "dead"

He notes various dissimilarities, however:

§  Butler English uses "been" as an auxiliary verb whereas SAIE does not.

§  Because of pronoun deletion, "is" can begin a sentence in Butler English, whereas such pronoun deletion is less common in SAIE.

§  Butler English has no clear examples of "-s" as a possessive, whereas in SAIE that have a 15/17 occurrence rate.

§  Butler English does not share SAIE's use of "only" as a focus marker

§  Butler English does not share SAIE's use of "got" as an existential

§  Butler English does not share SAIE's occasional subject–object–verb word order (e.g. four children got for "I have four children.", after pronoun deletion), although he observes that the famous quotation reported by Schuchardt contains one object–verb example: little milk give it

§  Butler English does have various lexical forms found in SAIE, such as look-attering, no fadder, hawa, and dawa