Chapter 23 - Hobson-Jobson and Dictionaries of Indian English

Summary

From the earliest decades of British colonisation of India to Indian independence in 1947, dictionaries of English in India focused exclusively on the English spoken by the British who were resident in India, and not on English as it was spoken by Indians. Not until the late twentieth century did dictionaries begin to document true Indian English. Yet despite the continuing role of English as an official language, as the language of choice in higher education, and as a lingua franca between speakers of different mother tongues, the lexicography of Indian English remains underdeveloped, and no current comprehensive dictionary of this variety exists, nor has any standard been established for Indian English.