Reflection on the Woman Warrior

Where Do We See Evidence of Linguistic Imperialism in the Anglophone World?

Linguistic imperialism is defined as spreading a language; in most cases through enforcement and Anglophone world refers to the countries which share British roots such as Canada, US, New Zealand, India, Australia and many more.  Linguistic imperialism in these countries portrays how at one point in history, the British had power over these countries to such an extent that the language for communication changed in those places. The magnitude to which the British had power over these countries and its level of effectiveness can be judged by the current day situation in the Anglophone world. For example, in countries such as Canada and the US, the language of instruction and the main language is English; in fact many of the British settled down in those countries along with the Europeans. This clearly illustrates that the British had a great level of power of those countries. On the other hand, in countries like India, English is an official language and a mandatory subject till the end of secondary schooling. Along with that, most of the college courses are taught in English; however countless other languages still co-exist and are used to communicate on a regular basis. This shows that the British had a decent amount of power over India but not to the same extent as the power they had over other countries such as Canada and America. 

Economy, politics, education, money, social standing and diplomacy have all been affected in the Anglophone world. One particularly interesting area that has been affected is politics; India is a prominent example for politics since India follows the British parliament norms for all its government matters. The Indian judicial system and its constitution is an imitation of the British one and along with that, it is written in English. This evidently depicts how linguistic imperialism changed India from a Mughal anarchy with all the government documents written in Urdu to an imitation of the British democracy with all the government documents written in English. In addition to that, even the Indian politicians used English as a more common language for communication rather than Hindi, Urdu or the other local languages. For example, Jawaharlal Nehru gave the independence speech on the 15th of August 1947 (Independence day of India) in English to a crowd of mainly Indians. This is because that was the language he was most comfortable communicating in with the country. Many other politicians after him gave speeches to the public in English such as Indira Gandhi and the public also understood them.

The example of politics in India is a vivid example of linguistic imperialism in the Anglophone world and how it has changed many aspects of the country and the daily lives of the people living there.