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304 Kenneth Keniston

edge) has studied how much proficiency in English is required in order to
use a computer whose operating system, instructions, and interface are in
English. Once again, some claim that one or two years of language train-
ing are adequate; other argue that in order to use any complex computer
program, very high levels of English proficiency are needed. Finally, there
is the question of English language e-mail and English language content
on the Web.
Despite all these uncertainties, the overall linguistic pattern in South
Asia is clear. In India alone, eighteen languages (including English and San-
skrit) are officially recognized. There are, according to the Ethnologue fig-
ures, thirty distinct languages in India with more than a million speakers.
Certain linguistic groups like Hindi speakers are as large as the entire pop-
ulation of the European Union; Bengali, with an estimated two hundred
million speakers, is approximately as common as French, Italian, and Ger-
man combined. There are probably more Telegu speakers in Andhra
Pradesh than there are German speakers in the world. The linguistic diver-
sity of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the other South
Asian nations is thus extraordinary.
But it is not unprecedented: among industrialized countries, Canada,
Belgium, and Spain, to say nothing of the former Yugoslavia and the former
Soviet Union, have very large linguistic subcommunities. The great major-
ity of sub-Saharan African nations like Nigeria, Kenya, or South Africa,
have multiple linguistic communities. Indeed, the monolinguistic pattern of
the United States, where more than 95% of all inhabitants speak good En-
glish, is highly exceptional and perhaps even unique on the world scale.
4. The linguistic history of South Asia is complex and largely unana-
lyzed. Early works by Fishman et al. (1968), Das Gupta (1970), and by Brass
(1974), lay out general issues as of twenty-five years ago. Laitin (1992) fo-
cuses on Africa, but uses the Indian model of a colonial language, a national
language, plus a local language as the paradigm for Africa as well. Laitin as-
sumes that the colonial language (e.g., English or French) is part of the na-
tional linguistic repertoire, but in the case of India and presumably most
African nations, this is true only of a small cosmopolitan elite.
More recent works include King (1997) and Tariq Rahman’s excellent
work (1996), which chronicles at length the role of language in the
East/West Pakistan war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. On the mil-
itancy with regard to the use of the Tamil language, see Ramaswamy (1997).
5. On the history of British English language policy in India, see
Read and Fisher (1998), and Viswanathan (1989).
6. Communication theorists discuss this as the Sapir-Whorf Hypoth-
esis. See, for example, Gudykunst and Kim (1997), and Griffin (1994). I am
indebted to Charles Ess for these references.
7. See <http://www.elcot.com/tamilnet99.htm> (International Semi-
nar on the Use of Tamil in IT, Chennai, February 7–8, 1999).