Language in the Indian Diaspora: Sociolinguistic Perspectives

by Rajend Mesthrie (Editor), Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi (Editor)

Overview

Rajend Mesthrie and Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi bring together an international range of scholars to explore the sociolinguistic outcomes of multilingualism and contact involving the Indian diaspora. The collection presents twelve rich case studies of Indian diaspora languages in South Asia, East Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the USA. It examines different forms of displacement in response to a wide range of historical, social, technological and geopolitical developments: internal displacement and transcontinental migration, colonial and contemporary migrations, urban and rural migrations, migration of skilled and unskilled workers, and migration of major and minor Indian languages.
By comparing the sociolinguistic consequences of migration in diverse contexts, Language in the Indian Diaspora examines the role of language practices in shaping local and global mobile contexts. In doing so, it develops our understanding of the processes of language use and language change in the emerging arena of migration studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474478366
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	12/31/2025
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Rajend Mesthrie is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Senior Research Scholar at the University of Cape Town. He was Head of the Linguistics Section (1998 – 2009), and holder of an NRF research chair in migration, language, and social change. He was President of the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa (2002-2009) and President of the International Congress of Linguists (2013-2018). He is an elected honorary life member of SALALS (South African Linguistic and Applied Linguistics Society) and the LSA (Linguistic Society of America). He is a past co-editor of English Today (2008-2012). Amongst his book publications are Language in Indenture: a Sociolinguistic history of Bhojpuri-Hindi in South Africa (1992, reprinted. 2019), Introducing Sociolinguistics (with Swann, Deumert & Leap, Edinburgh UniversityPress 2009), Language in South Africa (ed., 2002) and Youth Language Practices & Urban Language Contact in Africa (ed., with Hurst-Harosh & Brookes, 2021).

Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi is Professor and Head, Dept. of Linguistics at the Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Pune (India). She received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Reading (UK) as a Felix Scholar. Her research has primarily included the sociolinguistic aspects of language contact, dialect variation and change, and linguistic diaspora. She was coordinator of the Special Assistance Programme awarded to Deccan College by the UniversityGrants Commission of India (2011-16) to conduct research on ‘Language Contact’. Since 2017, she is heading a joint project of the Deccan College to create a digital, annotated database of regional and social variation in Marathi. Project website: www.sdml.ac.in

Table of Contents

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Introduction: Diversity and Diaspora, Rajend Mesthrie & Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi

1. Resistance and Reconciliation: Language and Identity Construction among the Internally Displaced Bhils in the Narmada Valley, Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi

2. Narratives of Displaced Kashmiri Pandits: Mobility, Diasporic Morbidity and the Chronotope of Victimhood, Rakesh M. Bhatt

3. Patterns of Language Use in the Diaspora Communities in Kolkata, Aditi Ghosh

4. Diasporic Adjustments and Indian languages in South Africa, Rajend Mesthrie

5. Language in the South Asian Diaspora in Britain, Devyani Sharma & Lavanya Sankaran

6. Symbolic Value as a Catalyst for Language Maintenance: Sanskrit in the US diaspora, Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande

7. Indian Languages in Singapore, Ritu Jain & Rajesh Rai

8. East Indian Languages in the Caribbean Diaspora, Surendra Gambhir

9. A Sociolinguistic Investigation of the Retention of Ancestral Dialect Features in the Kokni spoken in Cape Town, Ruta Paradkar

10. The Dialect Roots of varieties of Gujarati in South Africa, Rajend Mesthrie & Vinu Chavda

11. South African Gujarati Literature: An Inventory and Critical Commentary, Mrunal Chavda & Rajend Mesthrie

12. Performing Language Alternation in Multilingual Mauritius: The Conversational Significance of Song Interludes in Everyday Interactions, Tejshree Auckle

Editorial Reviews

Mesthrie and Kulkarni-Joshi are highly respected scholars in South Asian sociolinguistics. It is a pleasure to see their new production on diversity and diaspora in South Asian languages and the great geographic range of communities covered. The volume makes an excellent contribution to South Asian linguistics and to diaspora studies.

Hans Heinrich Hock

A panoramic coverage of life stories, social histories, beliefs, past memories, and speech practices of the ‘second’ and the ‘third’ Indian diaspora. The 12 chapters critically engage with a variety of diaspora formations, free or forced, arising out of internal and overseas migration.

Shobha Satyanath