Edited by Kees Versteegh
[Language Ecology 2:1/2] 2018
► pp. 18–40
This article aims to offer, within an intra- and interdisciplinary approach, a further analysis of the formal and informal contexts in which the English language was used in India during the British colonisation, highlighting the favourable conditions these contexts created for the formation of pidginised varieties of English, such as Butler Pidgin English or Boxwāllā(h) Pidgin English (Kachru 1994). Substantial elements of a wider picture of social, cultural, political and commercial contact have been taken into account along with the analysis of old written sources. Indeed, both official records of the East Indian Company (e.g. dispatches about political strategies and language policy) and merchants’ correspondence have been studied in order to understand how we can say something about oral communication through written sources (Rambø 2013).
Asian and African Manuscripts, India Office Record
Mss Eur E 424/1, Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck papers
IOR/E/3/94, Surat, December 30, 1699, general letter, p. 133
IOR/H/487, extract of public letter to Bengal, June 17, 1800, ff. 185r–191v
IOR/H/488, letter from Webbe J. [sic] to Edmonstone, June 19, 1802
IOR/H/632, translation of a firman by Paypas Braminey Linguist, pp. 24–26
IOR/H/723, letter to Board of Control, October 5, 1836
Correspondence from Indian brokers
C 104/248, Part I–II, merchants’ correspondence in English and Portuguese language