Indian South African English: phonology

South African Indian English (henceforth InSAfE) is worthy of the attention of sociolinguists for a variety of reasons. It offers the opportunity of examining in a relatively fossilized form (on account of former rigid segregative tendencies in South Africa) the evolution of a dialect of English under less than perfect conditions concerning educational and social contact with target-language speakers. It provides, again in a relatively fossilized form, the opportunity of studying the changes a language undergoes as it shifts from L2 to L1. Indian languages have existed in large numbers in South Africa, chiefly in the province of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), since 1860. Their existence in this country is ultimately a consequence of the abolition of slavery in the European colonies. Colonial planters in many parts of the world looked to migrant labor from Asian countries to fill the gap caused by the understandable reluctance of slaves to remain on the plantations once they were legally free. The British-administered Indian government permitted the recruiting of laborers to a variety of colonial territories. This resulted in a great movement of hundreds of thousands of Indian laborers first to Mauritius (1834), then British Guyana (1838), Jamaica and Trinidad (1844), and subsequently to various other West Indian islands, Natal, Suriname and Fiji. Although Natal was a new colony that had not employed slave labor, the policy of consigning the indigenous, mainly Zulu-speaking population into `reserves’ created a demand for Indian labor on the sugar, tea and coffee plantations. Just over 150 000 workers came to Natal on indentured contracts between 1860 and 1911. A large majority chose to stay on in South Africa on expiry of their five or ten year contracts.

The languages spoken by the indentured workers were as follows:

(a) From the South of India chiefly Tamil and Telugu, and in small numbers – Malayalam and Kannada. The latter two languages did not have sufficiently large numbers of speakers to survive beyond a generation in South Africa.

(b) From the north of India a variety of Indo-European languages including Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Magahi, Kanauji, Bengali, Rajasthani, Braj, etc. These dialects coalesced to form one South African vernacular, usually termed ‘Hindi’.

(c) A small number of Muslims amongst the indentured laborers (about 10% among North Indians and slightly fewer amongst South Indians) would have spoken the village language of their area as well as varieties of Urdu.

From 1875 onwards smaller numbers of Indians of trading background arrived in Natal, establishing languages like Gujarati, Konkani and Meman which are still spoken today in South Africa. In addition to these spoken languages people of Hindu background used Sanskrit as their prestige religious language, while Muslims looked to Arabic for this purpose.

The sociolinguistic milieu in which Indians found themselves was a particularly complex one. Not only did they lack a knowledge of English and Zulu, but they would not always have been able to converse amongst themselves. In particular people from the north, speaking Indo-European languages, would not have been able to understand people from the south who spoke Dravidian languages. Furthermore only about 2% of incoming Indians had a knowledge of English (these would have been Christian Indians, some of whom had been recruited as teachers or a small proportion of the trading-class Indians). Under these circumstances a pidgin English might have arisen, but for the prior existence of a Zulu-based pidgin, Fanakalo. The learning of English was a relatively gradual process, though Gandhi mentions the use of English by some urban youths amongst themselves, in a newspaper article of 1909 – i.e. before the end of the period of indenture. Multilingualism and the lack of a lingua franca of Indian origin resulted in a shift to English (not without regrets and resistance) by the 1960s, when English started to be introduced as a language of the home. The period of language shift can be thought of as gradual or rapid, depending on one’s defining criteria. As 1960 was exactly one hundred years since the first immigrations, the period of shift might seem a gradual one; but as 1960 was also less than fifty years since the last shipload, the period is perhaps not all that gradual.

The sociolinguistic milieu in which Indians found themselves was a particularly complex one. Not only did they lack a knowledge of English and Zulu, but they would not always have been able to converse amongst themselves. In particular people from the north, speaking Indo-European languages, would not have been able to understand people from the south who spoke Dravidian languages. Furthermore only about 2% of incoming Indians had a knowledge of English (these would have been Christian Indians, some of whom had been recruited as teachers or a small proportion of the trading-class Indians). Under these circumstances a pidgin English might have arisen, but for the prior existence of a Zulu-based pidgin, Fanakalo. The learning of English was a relatively gradual process, though Gandhi mentions the use of English by some urban youths amongst themselves, in a newspaper article of 1909 – i.e. before the end of the period of indenture. Multilingualism and the lack of a lingua franca of Indian origin resulted in a shift to English (not without regrets and resistance) by the 1960s, when English started to be introduced as a language of the home. The period of language shift can be thought of as gradual or rapid, depending on one’s defining criteria. As 1960 was exactly one hundred years since the first immigrations, the period of shift might seem a gradual one; but as 1960 was also less than fifty years since the last shipload, the period is perhaps not all that gradual.

The kind of English that stabilized was, as I have already indicated, a very special one, given that the policy of apartheid (1948-1991) kept Indian children away from first-language speakers of English descent, in hospitals, homes, neighborhoods, public facilities, schools, and even universities. The result is that whilst being quite South African in some respects (aspects of lexis and phonology), it is a recognizably different variety of South African English. The peculiarities of apartheid society have ensured that there is continuity between IndE and InSAfE (in aspects of pronunciation, lexis and syntax). The relationship between the two varieties is not straightforward, however. Some of the early input into InSAfE was indeed directly from India, but of a diverse nature. This included: (a) the first generation of clerks, interpreters and teachers brought over in small numbers, (b) indentured workers of Christian background, mainly from South India, (c) some traders from India with a previous knowledge of English and (d) political leaders from India (e.g. Gandhi, Sastri, Gokhale). But given the fact that most first generation immigrants did not learn English we should be careful not to overestimate the links between IndE and InSAfE. Although the second and third generations learnt English without direct contact with India, conditions of acquisition and teaching were such that there was considerable transfer from the Indian languages. This was a factor that ensured further continuity between InSAfE and IndE. However, in South Africa the substrate comprised of both Indic and Dravidian languages, causing a blend of Indic and Dravidian influence in InSAfE that I suspect is not found in India. And, of course, the features of L1 English of Natal as well as contact with Zulu and (to a small extent) Afrikaans made InSAfE further diverge from IndE.

InSAfE uses a great many words of Indian origin and a great many neologisms from other sources. Only a few of these have passed into the wider society. These tend to be terms pertaining to vegetables (e.g. dhania ‘coriander’) and culinary terms (e.g. masala ‘ground spices’, roti ‘flat, round unleavened bread’, bunny chow ‘half a loaf of bread stuffed with curry’).