The label ‘South Asian English’ is a cover term for English in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. For the purpose of the present chapter a singular reference – South Asian English – is used for a number of reasons (contrast this with the chapter on South-East Asian Englishes). The region of South Asia consists of geographically contiguous countries or islands near these. The colonial past of all, except Nepal and Bhutan, is similar. Furthermore, in the opinion of many scholars South Asia can be treated as a (socio-)linguistic area in which phonological, syntactic, lexical and stylistic features are shared to a large extent (Braj Kachru, personal communication).

The seven countries just mentioned already encompass nearly 1.5 billion people which represents slightly less than one quarter of the population of the world (McArthur 2002: 309). The dominance of English in the public lives of five of these seven nations (Nepal and Bhutan were not part of the empire, though Burma/Myanmar, which is not considered here, was) is a legacy of British colonialism with its administration and the establishment of English in their educational systems. The indigenous languages of these nations belong to two large families, Indo-European and Dravidian (see section 1.6 ‘Indigenous languages’ below). The former covers most of the north of South Asia, up as far as the border with China and the Turk-speaking central Asian republics.