Language in the Indian Diaspora

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

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.

• Abbreviations AcknowledgementsFiguresMapsSymbolsTablesIntroduction: Diversity and Diaspora, Rajend Mesthrie & Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi1. Resistance and Reconciliation: Language and Identity Construction among the Internally Displaced Bhils in the Narmada Valley, Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi2. Narratives of Displaced Kashmiri Pandits: Mobility, Diasporic Morbidity and the Chronotope of Victimhood, Rakesh M. Bhatt3. Patterns of Language Use in the Diaspora Communities in Kolkata, Aditi Ghosh4. Diasporic Adjustments and Indian languages in South Africa, Rajend Mesthrie5. Language in the South Asian Diaspora in Britain, Devyani Sharma & Lavanya Sankaran6. Symbolic Value as a Catalyst for Language Maintenance: Sanskrit in the US diaspora, Rajeshwari V. Pandharipande7. Indian Languages in Singapore, Ritu Jain & Rajesh Rai8. East Indian Languages in the Caribbean Diaspora, Surendra Gambhir9. A Sociolinguistic Investigation of the Retention of Ancestral Dialect Features in the Kokni spoken in Cape Town, Ruta Paradkar10. The Dialect Roots of varieties of Gujarati in South Africa, Rajend Mesthrie & Vinu Chavda11. South African Gujarati Literature: An Inventory and Critical Commentary, Mrunal Chavda & Rajend Mesthrie12. Performing Language Alternation in Multilingual Mauritius: The Conversational Significance of Song Interludes in Everyday Interactions, Tejshree Auckle