Is there no Indian English?

["Rayalaseema Informatics Centre" <ric@nettlinx.com>]

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In order to help the English-speaking computer users, the Microsoft
Office2000 has incorporated in its program dictionaries of English
pertaining to 13 countries, which include Australia, Belize, Canada,
Caribbean, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa,
Trinidad, UK, US and Zimbabwe. Although the MS Office also provides
dictionaries of 14 Indian languages, the dictionary of Indian English is
curiously missing. It is possible that Microsoft believes that there is
no such thing as Indian English and Indians have a tendency to use
English as used in UK or US as per convenience. But the truth is that
Indian English during the course of several years has developed into a
distinct language incorporating a very large number of words from local
languages.

In an unsuccessful effort to replace English by Hindi as the official
language of the country, the Government of India never cared to develop
and standardize Indian English. If such an effort is made, Microsoft
finds it necessary to incorporate a dictionary of Indian English in
their next edition of the MS Office.

Which English the India Policy Institute recommends for its subscribers?
Is it US English or UK English? Can IPI do something to standardize
Indian English?

R. Jagadiswara Rao


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