19 - Englishes in Asia and Africa: origin and structure

Summary

Introduction

Leaving the relatively ordered universe of native forms of English in the southern hemisphere, which arose on the basis of large numbers of native-speaker settlers in that area, one arrives at varieties of English spoken as second-language, near-native or indeed native varieties at overseas locations, above all in parts of Asia, and which are not historically continuous with British or American English. All countries, where such varieties of English are spoken, are former colonies of Britain, with the exception of Nepal which was never a colony but which entertained links with Britain, not least in the military area, and which had contact with English due to the presence of the language in Nepal's mighty southern neighbour, India. One further Asian country, the Philippines, was under American control between the end of Spanish colonialism in 1898 and independence in 1946 and hence has been exposed to forms of American rather than British English.

Before discussing linguistic aspects of English in Asia, it is necessary to discuss questions of terminology. About twenty years ago, in the early 1980s, the term ‘New English’ became popular in linguistic literature on English in Asia and many parts of Africa, not least because of its use in two important publications, by Pride (1982) and by Platt, Weber and Ho (1984).