South Asian English is the English accent of many modern-day South Asian countries, inherited from British English dialect. Also known as Anglo-Indian English during the British Raj, the English language was introduced to the Indian subcontinent in the early 17th century and reinforced by the long rule of the British Empire. Today it is spoken as a second language by about 350 million people, 20% of the total population.[1]
Although it is fairly homogeneous across the subcontinent, sharing "linguistic features and tendencies at virtually all linguistic levels", there are some differences based on various regional factors.[2]
South Asian English is sometimes just called "Indian English", as British India included most of modern-day South Asia (except Afghanistan). But today, the varieties of English are officially divided according to the modern states:
- Bangladeshi English
- Indian English
- Maldivian English
- Nepalese English
- Pakistani English
- Sri Lankan English
- ^ Baumgardner, p. 1
- ^ Marco Schilk, Tobias Bernaisch, Joybrato Mukherjee, "Mapping unity and diversity in South Asian English lexicogrammar: Verb-complementational preferences across varieties", in Marianne Hundt, Ulrike Gut, Mapping Unity and Diversity World-Wide: Corpus-Based Studies of New Englishes, 2012, ISBN 9027274940, p. 140f
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