English as spoken as a second language in India has developed distinct sound patterns in terms of both segmental and prosodic characteristics. We investigate the differences between two groups varying in native language (Gujarati, Tamil) to evaluate to what extent Indian English (IE) accents are based on a single target phonological-phonetic system (i.e., General Indian English), and/or vary due to transfer from the native language. Consonants, vowels and intonation patterns from five Gujarati English (GE) and five Tamil English (TE) speakers of IE were transcribed and, in a subset of cases, acoustically analyzed. The results showed transfer effects in GE back vowels, TE rhotics and the proportion of rising versus falling pitch accents in GE intonation. The effect of the General Indian English model was evident in the front vowels of both GE and TE and in the presence of initial voiced stops in TE. Thus, the data reveal both phonetic and phonological influences of IE speakers' native language on their accent in IE, even in proficient speakers; these influences appear to supersede IE norms and can be found in both the segmental and suprasegmental properties of their speech.

English as spoken as a second language in India (IE) has developed different sound patterns from other varieties of English. While most descriptions of IE have focused on the English of speakers whose first languages belong to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian families, in this study, I examine the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the English produced by speakers of three Indian L1s from the Tibeto-Burman language family (Angami, Ao, and Mizo). In addition to describing aspects of Tibeto-Burman Indian English, a previously unreported Indian English variety, I also examine how and why this variety of English differs from General Indian English. The English of Tibeto-Burman L1 speakers seems to form a variety distinct from Indian English, most noticeably in terms of the lack of retroflexion of coronal consonants, the devoicing of word-final obstruents, the simplification of consonant clusters, the presence of post-vocalic [p], and the reduced set of vowel contrasts. Most of these can be traced to transfer from the L1 phonology, with the coda devoicing and cluster reductions reflecting simplification in terms of markedness, following developmental sequences found in second language acquisition.

The phonetic correlates of accent/stress distinguish Indian English (IE) from American dialects (Spencer, 1957;Kachru, 1983). We examine the realization of accent in IE compared to American English (AE) produced by teaching assistants in similar contexts. In teaching discourse, we find that a lexically accented syllable is often realized in IE with a relative drop in frequency and without a reliable increase in amplitude. In similar contexts, lexically accented syllables in AE reliably increase in both frequency and amplitude. Following the distinction made in Beckman (1986), we conclude that IE acts as a pitch-accent language rather than as a stress-accent language like AE.We also suggest a source for the distinct prosodics of IE: some Indian languages use a low pitch on accented syllables (Mohanan, 1986;Hayes and Lahiri, 1991;Harnsberger, 1999). We investigate the effect of different first languages on the production of IE using three Indian teaching assistants with different L1 (Bengali, Tamil, Hindi-Urdu), and compare their IE discourse to L1 sentences. The similarity of the results for three different L1 suggests that the phonetic correlates of accent in IE are common to Indian languages.

The sounds of Indian English are distinct and recognizable to outsiders, while insiders perceive variations in how English has developed in this large diverse population. What characteristics mark the unity? Which are clues to a speaker's origins or identity? This Element synthesizes research over the past fifty years and adds to it, focusing on selected features of consonants, vowels, and suprasegmentals (stress, intonation, rhythm) to understand the characteristics of Indian English accents and sources of its uniformity and variability. These accent features, perceptible by humans and discoverable by computational approaches, may be used in expressing identity, both local and pan-Indian.

Language attitudes inform social stereotyping, which in turn affects linguistic judgments (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick 2007). Nonstandard varieties are particularly subject to negative stereotypes, being evaluated as “less friendly” and “hard to understand” (Giles & Watson 2013). In this study, we investigate attitudes towards Indian English, a variety of English spoken by one of the largest immigrant populations in the USA (approximately 2.4 million), to understand the roots of linguistic stereotyping towards this variety of English. We compared attitudes of American English speakers towards Indian English and British English. Our results show that while American English speakers do not explicitly indicate any communication problem with Indian English, they disfavor Indian English compared to British English. This disfavoring of Indian English aligns with Raciolinguistic theories, suggesting that post-colonialism, especially Whiteness, is a factor in language prestige and how different varieties are perceived.