Indian English

Not to be confused with Hinglish, Benglish, Tanglish, Kanglish, Tenglish, Urdish and Nenglish, macaronic languages mixing English with Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu and Nepali, respectively.
For pre-1947 Indian English, see South Asian English.

Indian English
RegionIndia
Native speakers
250,000[1][2][3]
L2 speakers: 83 million
L3 speakers: 46 million
128 million total speakers (2011)
Early forms
Latin (English alphabet)
Unified English Braille
Official status
Official language in
 India
Language codes
ISO 639-1en
ISO 639-2eng
ISO 639-3eng
Glottologindi1255
IETFen-IN
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Speech example
An example of a female speaker from the North Indian state of Uttarakhand (Vandana Shiva).
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Speech example
An example of a female speaker from the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya (Arundhati Roy).
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Speech example
An example of a female news presenter from the South Indian state of Karnataka.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Part of a series on the
English language
Topics
Advanced topics
Phonology
Dialects
Teaching

Indian English (IndE,[4] IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora.[5] English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined in the Constitution of India.[6] English is also an official language in seven states and seven union territories of India, and the additional official language in seven other states and one union territory. Furthermore, English is the sole official language of the Judiciary of India, unless the state governor or legislature mandates the use of a regional language, or if the President of India has given approval for the use of regional languages in courts.[7]

Before the dissolution of the British Empire on the Indian subcontinent, the term Indian English broadly referred to South Asian English, also known as British Indian English.

  1. ^ "LANGUAGE - INDIA, STATES AND UNION TERRITORIES (Table C-16)". censusindia.gov.in. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  2. ^ "POPULATION BY BILINGUALISM AND TRILINGUALISM (Table C-17)". censusindia.gov.in. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  3. ^ "India - Languages". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  4. ^ Bhatt, Rakesh M. (31 December 2020), "Indian English: syntax", A Handbook of Varieties of English, De Gruyter, pp. 2208–2222, doi:10.1515/9783110197181-133, ISBN 978-3-11-019718-1, retrieved 21 August 2024
  5. ^ "Case Studies - Asian English". British Library. University of Leeds. Archived from the original on 27 May 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  6. ^ The Constitution of India (PDF). Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. 1 December 2007. pp. 212–267. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 September 2014. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Court language is English, says Supreme Court". The Economic Times. 7 December 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2018.