Language in the Indian Diaspora

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.

Author Biography

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 University Press 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 University Grants 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