Language Contact in South Asia

Abstract

Language contact in South Asia has been studied since the early nineteenth century. The prevailing approach operates with the concept of “substratum influence” or “subversion,” a unilateral structural influence of one language or language family on another. An alternate approach operates with the notion “convergence,” a bi- or multi-directional structural interaction between languages in contact. Evidence from the interaction between English and South Asian languages, as well as many South Asian languages with each other, lends strong support to the second approach and suggests that apparent cases of unilateral influence in South Asia deserve reexamination. For convergence to take place, a pattern of long-standing non-replacive bi- or multilingualism is required. This pattern is now endangered by the fact the states of India, organized in terms of different majority languages, are making use of the state language mandatory in public affairs and government jobs. As a consequence there is a relatively sudden shift from minority languages to state languages, and “tribal languages” spoken by marginalized groups are greatly endangered.

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