Engelsk sprog i Indien: Historie og betydning

The 31st of december year 1600, Queen Elizabeth the 1st allowed the Honourable East India Company to be founded, which resulted in a colonization of India. In the beginning of the British colonization of India, English was only taught to the local population through Christian missionaries, but in the 1700’s English was one of the main languages in administration, and many Indians were demanding English education as a form of social advancement. The East India Company grew bigger and bigger, and in the year of 1765 the company had grown so much that eventually the British forces were controlling most parts of India. In the year of 1857 universities opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, and English became accepted as the language of government, social elite and national press.

After India became an independent country in 1947, there were some disagreements about the language. The plan was to phase English out as the language of government, but people couldn’t find out which language should replace English. In the beginning the choice seemed simple, as Hindi was the most spoken language in the country at the time, but ever since the violent demonstrations against the Hindi language in Tamil Nadu in 1963, the country has remained divided on the subject. With over 900 million people and a thousand languages, of course it’s going to be hard to pick a mother tongue. Hindi is now the native language in India, but other than that there are 22 “national languages”, and then there is English, which is seen as an associate language.English continues to be a very used language in India. With so many languages, English is a great language for communicating with people who otherwise would speak unintelligible languages. Furthermore English is still used in government, higher education, worldwide communication and trading, so English is still an important language in India. About 4% of the total Indian population speak English, but that is about 40 million English speakers, making India the 3rd most English speaking country, after USA and the UK.