Is the English of India considered a separate standard variety?

Question

Is the English spoken by native or near-native Indian speakers considered a separate standard variety, like US or Australian English, especially with reference to pronunciation? My research found that it has a specific set of pronunciation characteristics that distinguish it. I'm wondering if those characteristics amount to a standard variety.

By "standard variety" I mean, for example, the English that would be used on TV by Indian news media, government officials, university professors, etc. I realize that standard variety also refers to grammar, vocabulary, etc. Here I'm mainly interested in pronunciation.

A native speaker here means someone who would identify English as their dominant or main language, learned in childhood, although it could also include fluent bilinguals or multilinguals who speak English at a native or near-native level.

These native or near-native speakers could be distinguished from Indians who speak English as a second language after their maternal language and have a lower level of mastery. Those people's pronunciation could be heavily influenced by their first language.

Listening to a native Australian, an American wouldn't say, "That person has a foreign accent." We would say, "That's Australian English." Intuitively, we recognize Australian English as a standard variety, even if we don't know that term, and even if English pronunciation varies widely across Australia. I'm wondering if Indian English is a similar case.

I hope I've expressed my question clearly. I'm not a linguist. I'm hoping for insight from linguists.

[Edited for more clarity.]

Answer 1

The Oxford English Dictionary addresses this, and gives a quite in-depth description of the phonetics of Indian English. It also provides sources for further research.

The short of it is that, yes Indian English is considered a separate variety and has some features that are standard to most speakers of that variety, though there is considerable variation as the speakers of Indian English have a range of other languages influencing their pronunciation.

There is no single ‘Indian English’ (IndE) variety and there are few extensive descriptions of IndE phonology. As a second (or third or fourth) language in India, English is spoken in a range of different ways, influenced by regional variation and interference from one or more of the 200+ native Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages, as well as sociological differences (Gargesh 2008).

Answer 2

It is a pity that you exclude grammar, as that is where India English differs most noticeably from AE and BE. It also has an influence on whether it is a "variety" and if so, which type.

As far as pronunciation is concerned, to speakers of other Englishes, the Indian accent of Indian English is broadly consistent across the subcontinent.

Prasār Bhāratī is an Indian state-owned public television broadcaster founded by the Government of India, owned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. It has two divisions: Doordarshan (television broadcasting) and Akashvani (radio).

Prasār Bhāratī broadcast some programs in English and that standard of English can be considered as standard Indian English - in the same way that "BBC English" is to the UK. A listener / viewer from, for example, northern India will be able to understand that accent when used in a local news report anywhere in India.

In a similar way, BBC English is used by reporters and presenters from all over the UK and many may speak with regional accents. None of the accents differ greatly from BBC English (they are all easily intelligible) and all adhere to standard grammar (with, perhaps an infrequent local idiom).

I assume some sort of "standard American English" for the main broadcasters in the US.

It is not unreasonable to think that the same thing happens in India, Canada, Australia, and South Africa.

Is the English of India considered a separate standard variety?

It is in India: The State broadcaster almost certainly has certain standards unique to the subcontinent.

(As an aside, and English friend was employed by an Indian TV company to make a commercial but his voice was overdubbed by a local Indian English speaker.)

Answer 3

There seem to be de facto common features shared across India. The following study ("Social Evaluations of Accented Englishes: An Indian Perspective", Roshni Raheja, 2020) found that when listening to other speakers, Indian English speakers could identify an Indian accent, but could not accurately place the region or city of the speaker.

There is certainly quite a bit of English-language media produced by Indian English speakers; some examples are mentioned in the linked study.

I don't think the concept of "a standard variety" of pronunciation is very clear or necessarily meaningful (for the most part, English pronunciation is not literally standardized, but is rather a matter of custom). For example, I'm not confident that it's correct that no American English speaker would think of a native Australian speaker as having "a foreign accent": after all, Australia can be considered a foreign country from the US perspective. Different American English speakers might have different perceptions of Indian English, depending on their exposure to it.

Adaptations made by speakers who learned English as a second language have doubtless contributed to the characteristic pronunciation features of Indian English, but there are also speakers of Indian English as a first language (whether monolingual or multilingual).

Answer 4

In some countries, most people are not educated enough to be able to speak English properly. They learn English as a second language, and that makes them use some of their first language's common understanding of the language mix into English language as they speak. The grammar, pronunciation, and even tone are influenced by their first language more or less. For example, India, Japan, and Thailand. Some of the practice here use a mix of their language and English when they speak. Most of the pronunciation they use are outright incorrect if compared to the American or British English. However, this is how they mostly do in their country, and not enough people here care to fix it because everyone here uses it. It is a variant of evolved English for that place now.

Therefore, I would say that such situation creates what could be called a 'standard' variety for that specific country, that people in the country usually use that standard way of speaking. This standard is, of course, separate from English in other places including the most popular AmE and BrE. So, calling the English of Indian a 'separate standard variety' can be considered correct.