World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental

Destruction Ahmar Mahboob, University of Sydney

Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5730-5970

Abstract

Research on World Englishes typically focuses on influences on and variations in the English
language as it expands and is used by speakers of other languages. This work includes studies of
the evolution of Englishes in global contexts (Schneider 2014, 2017) as well as differences in the
acceptability and power of different varieties of English (Tupas 2015; Canilao 2019).
However, what is almost always missing in the literature is a discussion of how the
introduction of English in regions where English was not previously spoken impact local
languages, people, life forms, and the environment. This chapter will investigate the
impact of English on local languages and people. In doing so, the paper will first introduce
four interrelated ways of defining language. The chapter will then illustrate how a change
in the eco-linguistic environment of a region can have lasting and on-going impact on the
peoples and the environment of the region. In order to do so, the chapter will focus on the
grammatical system of English as well as an analysis of three concepts/words: ‘religion’,
‘language’, and ‘family’, that influence how people look at and engage with others.

Introduction

Western culture has made, through language, a provisional analysis of reality and,
without correctives, holds resolutely to that analysis as final. The only correctives
lie in all those other tongues which by aeons of independent evolution have arrived
at different, but equally logical, provisional analyses. (Whorf 1941:313)

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH), largely because of the influence of Lenneberg &
Brown’s (1956) adoption of SWH, is broadly known for and taught as positing a link
between language and cognition. SWH has had a tremendous impact in the development of
linguistics and in its strong version, SWH, known as linguistic determinism, is taken as an
argument that language determines our thought patterns; whereas, in its weak version,
known as linguistic relativity, it is used to advocate that differences in language can lead to
differences in thought. However, what is often glossed over – and what is highlighted in the
quote above – is Whorf’s analysis of how the west’s understanding of the world and its
approaches to knowledge construction are highly dependent on the semantics of English and
other Standard Average European Languages (SAE) (Haspelmath 2001; Whorf 1941).

In recent years, some linguists (Lee 1996; Pavlenko 2016) have revisited SWH and have
highlighted how a reduction of Sapir-Whorf’s work to linguistic determinism/relativity has
discounted the importance of language in developing more pluralistic worldviews and
theories. A high dependence on SAE and, in particular, English, as norm-defining implies
that the world views espoused and promoted through other languages are ignored in
research and theory.

In an earlier paper, Ruanni Tupas and I (Mahboob & Tupas 2020) explored how the
semantics and usage of specific terms in Filipino English, Pakistani English and many
1
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Filipino and Pakistani languages have changed under the influence of SAE and identified some
social consequences of these changes. This chapter extends my earlier work and investigates
how World Englishes can potentially impact communities and environment. In particular, this
chapter will explore how the influence of English cyrptogrammar (Halliday 1990) has
impacted the ecology of languages in South Asia, with a focus on Pakistan. In order to do this,
it is important to develop some needed definitions of language.

What is language?

In dozens of workshops and presentations for language professionals across various parts of
the world, I start off by asking the audiences this question: How would you define
language? Almost all of the responses fall into the following two categories: 1) language is a
tool of communication; and/or, 2) language is a set of sounds, words, grammar etc. While
both of these are useful ways of understanding language, they don’t really define language.
The first one tells us of one function or use of language and the second one tells us of the
structural components that make up (or ways of analysing) language. It is therefore
necessary to first establish some relevant definitions of ‘language’.

Language can be defined in many ways; four interrelated ways of defining language that
are relevant here include:

1) language is a semo-genic system, which operates through sound (sign language

and reading operate through sight; Braille operates through touch);
2) language is a socio-semiotic inheritance;
3) language is science; and,
4) language is a complex-dynamic system.

Language is a semo-genic system

A semo-genic system means a ‘meaning’ (semo) - ‘making’ (genic) system, i.e. a system
(amongst many) that helps us to generate meanings, make sense, and participate in the
world around us. This definition of language has a long tradition, including in the works of
and inspired by MAK Halliday, who was one of Braj Kachru’s (a pioneer in the field of
World Englishes) PhD supervisors.

Work on World Englishes includes a number of dimensions. In ‘Globalization, literacy and

ideology’ (Hassan 2003, 2011; see Mahboob 2015 for a longer discussion of Hasan’s work in
relation to World Englishes), Hasan highlights the importance of thinking of language
‘variation’ in multiple ways, including semantic variation. She points out:

a) varieties of English may exist in a number of places - not just geographically

or nationally determined;
b) that they may be different from ‘standard’ varieties in only limited -
but meaningful - ways; and
c) that they can have an impact on our everyday lives.

Hasan’s work corroborates the necessity to look at language variation, including

World Englishes, in more ways than just structural variations.

2
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
It is important to note that language is ‘a’ semo-genic system, not the only one. Language
is only one set of sounds (within a range of frequencies) used by humans in different
combinations to mean different things. Other sets of sounds (e.g. music, thunder, buzzing)
also make meanings for us.

Writing systems (or literacy), while they make meanings, are different from language as
they operate through sight, a different sensory system: writing systems use our visual system
while language uses the auditory system. In fact, literacy is just one set of visual data that
we receive and process constantly (as language is of sound). We use other sets of visual data
to make meaning as well: think of sign language, colors, size, or of any other thing that you
can see.

The limitation of defining ‘language’ to ‘sound’ is supported by words for ‘language’ in

other languages. For example, in Urdu, the common term for ‘language’ is ‘boli’. ‘Boli’, a
word used across parts of South Asia, literally translates to ‘spoken’ - highlighting that boli is
understood as oral only. In addition, boli is not restricted to humans, but shared with others,
as will be discussed in more detail later. Similarly, Chinese distinguishes between script (wen
文) and speech (hua 话).

Another way of realizing that language and writing systems are not inherently related to
each other is by looking at the nature of writing systems themselves. There are two broad
ways in which writing systems operate:
1) symbols represent meaning;
2) symbols represent sounds.

Within the second category, there are two main types of scripts:
a) syllabic (symbol represents syllable);
b) phonetic (symbol represents individual sounds).

The Chinese script is an example of a writing system that represents meanings: people who
speak different dialects of Chinese (which are mutually unintelligible) can engage with each
other through writing. All other writing systems are either syllabic, e.g. Hiragana,
Cherokee, or phonetic, e.g. Latin, Arabic.

Semantic scripts, such as Chinese, have an advantage over others because they exploit the
visual nature of writing more efficiently and do not necessarily tie the oral rendering of the
character to any particular sequence of sounds. In other words, people who speak
Cantonese and Shanghainese and even Japanese can read and use the same Chinese
characters in writing, even though they are mutually unintelligible languages. A lack of
relationship between script and utterance is part of the reason that the China found it
necessary to introduce a Romanised sound-based version of Putonghua Chinese (pinyin) to
aid primary children develop literacy in Putonghua (one dialect of Chinese that is promoted
as the language of oral communication across the country).

Scripts that represent sounds do not have this advantage. On the contrary, using symbols that
represent sound can create problems in learning and using spelling systems. While spelling
systems are supposed to represent the sound of the word/syllable, accents and pronunciation
vary across the people who share a language. The spelling systems evolve at particular times,

3
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
places, and represent particular ways of uttering those words. These ways change across
time, place, people, meaning, and usage; however, standardised spelling systems (phonetic
scripts more than syllabic) do not represent or acknowledge these variations. An ability to
use and control the standard spelling system contributes to an individual’s ability or inability
to succeed in and through education and hence their opportunities in life.

The differences between the types of writing system shows that writing systems are
essentially visual; some of them can be linked to sound, but this is not an essential criterion
for the existence of a writing system. One reason that this is not obvious to many people is
that most people learn to use only sound-based scripts. Since most languages in the world
use symbols that represent sound, their users can easily assume that spoken language and
writing are interrelated or two ‘modes’ of languages. Furthermore, since a lot of our
understandings about language and linguistics are influenced by and written in English, and
because English uses a phonetic script, studies on language often assume reading and
listening as two modes of language. However, after considering the nature of writing
systems, we can note that writing systems are primarily visual and may, in cases (even if
these cases are in majority), have a relationship with sound. Oral language and writing
systems are not two modes of a continuum because they operate through different sensory
systems, which can work independently of each other.

This understanding of the difference between language (an oral system), writing, and sign-
language (writing and sign-language are both are visual systems) has multiple social
implications. For example, by realising that reading is just one aspect of our visual system,
we can notice that using literacy as a measure of ability, development, or success is
discriminatory. For example, most measurements of development include literacy as a
measure, a nation’s development index includes a measure of its literacy rate, people with
no literacy have no access to higher education or to certain types of jobs and employment
opportunities. We would not discriminate against a person who has no sight, then why
discriminate against someone who does not use one aspect of their sight? Or, looking at this
another way, we do not discriminate against people who can’t use sign languages (an aspect
of sight), then why should we discriminate against people who can’t read (another aspect of
sight).

In addition to sight and sound, humans also use the senses of smell, touch and taste to make
meanings. We live our daily lives by drawing from, integrating, interpreting, and
acting/responding to our sensory stimuli. The sensory stimuli that we receive from our
sensory systems has no meaning in itself. Our interpretive frameworks, which are
developed socially (and include language, religion, culture, beliefs, etc.), look for, identify,
and make meanings of particular patterns, sets, and sequences in the stimuli (collected
through all sensory systems).

Language is a socio-semiotic inheritance

Language is a socio-semiotic tool that evolves and is transmitted from one generation to another.
It is an inheritance: children typically learn language from their elders, who learnt it from their
elders, and they from theirs, and so on. As our ancestral languages evolved and passed across
generations, our ancestors captured the nuances of our environment (e.g., the names, properties,
and uses of indigenous plants, animals, resources etc.) as well as our ways

4
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
of knowing, doing, and being. These ancestral ways evolved based on what was necessary
in living with the environment and other species of the local region (or similar).

Since language is socio-semiotic and not material/biological, it does not transfer across
generations through DNA, but through social engagement and interaction. For language
to flow through generations, the language ecology of the communities has to remain
independent. If the language ecology of a community is disturbed, e.g. by introducing
new languages in a community, then it will impact the local language ecology, the local
languages, the people, and the environment.

Changing languages has an impact on people as the new language that people shift to may
not have the grammatical or semantic resources to transfer all the ancestral ways of
knowing, doing, and being.

A shift away from or a loss of one’s language implies that one loses one’s ancestral ways
of knowing, being, and doing. This disconnect from ancestral knowledge and wisdom
impacts people’s lives and their relationships with others and the environment.

Similarly, the introduction of new semantic categories into languages that did not have
those categories can have an impact on both the language as well as the people who speak
these languages. We will look at examples of this in more depth later in the chapter.

Language is science

Science, at its core, is a system of classification and categorisation. Taxonomies, which are
based on various ways of classifying and categorising, used in science are language. Another
way of thinking about this is to observe that language gives us the words/phrases/terms that we
draw on and use to understand and do things. The taxonomies in language create the classes and
categories that we use to name and identify everything. Each language evolves in a different
context. Thus, a taxonomy of any language will be primarily based on the context in which that
language evolved. So, in language X, we will have a different set of meanings which represent
the ways of knowing, doing, and being of the people who speak language X; and in language Y,
we will have another set of meanings which represent the ways of knowing, doing, and being of
the people who speak language Y. The vocabularies or taxonomies of each language will be
different as the people who develop these languages are different, they use language for
different purposes, and they use it in different ways.

Taxonomies in themselves are worth some attention. In western academia and

knowledge building, most taxonomies are either:
1) genealogical, a focus on hereditary ties between entities;
2) structural/functional, a focus on structural/functional features of the entity.

For example, in biology, there are taxonomies which focus on genealogy and evolution,
and taxonomies which focus on structural/functional features. Similarly, in linguistics, we
have taxonomies that focus on the genealogy and historical relationships between
languages (e.g. Indo-European languages, Dravidian languages) and taxonomies that focus
on structural/functional features (e.g., SVO languages, ergative languages).

5
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
It is possible that other languages have different ways of creating taxonomies, i.e. they have
different approaches to science; however, given the influence of English and other SAE on
our sciences as well as our disciplinary knowledge and approaches, our understanding of
other ways of knowing and representing the world are limited and not do not inform or
taxonomies or ways of knowing, doing, and being. This is the point being made by Whorf in
the opening quote for this chapter: the western academia has been shaped by the semantics
of SAE and does not have the means or the flexibility to expand to include alternative ways
of being, knowing and doing. As a consequence:
1) non-western approaches to knowledge and knowledge making are
marginalised and mostly excluded from western education and universities; and
2) knowledge construction in other languages is influenced by English
academic genres and practices.

One alternative way of taxonomising things (and this is only one possibility) is to focus on
interrelationships. Notice that western taxonomies typically do not include or focus on
interrelationship between species/entities. For example, while biologists create taxonomies
based on genealogy or structural features of animals and plants; these taxonomies typically
do not include any information about the interrelationships or interdependencies between life
forms as well as other natural environment that cohabit the same region. A lack of this
information contributes to a general unawareness that when one species of life form becomes
extinct, it is not just that species that is affected, but everything else in the system as well,
especially those species that had interrelationships with it. Similarly, when linguists map
language genealogy and structures/functions in their taxonomies, they do not focus on or
include interrelationships and/or plurilingualism between the people who speak those
languages. In many parts of the world, an individual speaks more than one language. In
many parts of the world, the languages one knows represent one’s relationships with people
who speak those languages. In many parts of the world, since people speak multiple
languages, language is not tied to identities, but relationships. These and other potential ways
of taxonomizing a language are not included in linguistics, which is based on taxonomies of
English and SAE.

Taxonomies effect people, communities, and nature. For example, as will be discussed in more
detail later, the word/concept ‘religion’ itself and the associated taxonomies that relate to it (e.g.
names of religions, characteristics of religions) evolved in English and other SAE contexts. The
concept of ‘religion’ as used in English - a set of beliefs and practices - did not necessarily exist
in other languages or parts of the world. For example, there were multiple practices across South
Asia. Only a few of these were/are practiced in settled areas; many other were practiced by
nomadic and/or remote communities, which outnumbered settled communities in pre-colonial
South Asia. Not all of these practices did or have names. For many, like the Kalasha of the
mountains of Pakistan, the name was given by the Europeans. And many Indigenous
communities were converted into one of the major religions of the region (with Islam,
Hinduism, and Christianity being dominant). The Kalasha people continue to experience the
pressure of religious conversion on their people (Choudhry, Park, Golden & Bokharey, 2017).
The introduction of the concept of ‘religion’ and its associated taxonomies, which are either
genealogical or structural in their orientations, into languages that do not have those words,
concepts, or taxonomies can lead to social disharmonization and conflict. We will look at
examples of this later in the paper when we focus on ‘religion’.

6
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Language is a complex dynamic system

Complex dynamic systems are natural systems, including language, that are inherently
unstable and constantly changing in ways difficult to predict and are influenced by
numerous internal and external factors. In their seminal paper, ‘Language is a Complex
Adaptive System’, The “Five Graces Group” (2008: 2), point out:

(a) The system consists of multiple agents (the speakers in the speech community)
interacting with one another. (b) The system is adaptive; that is, speakers’ behavior
is based on their past interactions, and current and past interactions together feed
forward into future behavior. (c) A speaker’s behavior is the consequence of
competing factors ranging from perceptual mechanics to social motivations. (d) The
structures of language emerge from interrelated patterns of experience, social
interaction, and cognitive processes.

A study of World Englishes in many ways assumes a dynamic nature of language: it focusses
on the dynamicity of features and use of English in a colonial and global world. Larsen-
Freeman (2016) notes that English as a Lingua Franca research also identifies the following
features of language as evidence that language is a complex adaptive system: emergence
(new features of language may arise when the system is used), self-organisation (order in
language emerges through use), open (language, as a system, is open to additions and
changes), adaptive/feedback sensitive (our language assimilates and responds to use),
dynamic (language is not static or restricted by ‘rules’), unfinalisable (there is no end-point
in what language is, nor do we ever stop developing our own language), inseparable from
context (language is shaped by and in turn shapes our understanding of context), and variable
(variation is always present across all strata of language).

Defining language as a complex dynamic system can raise many questions, such as: should
we write grammars of languages when grammars are not stable? This question applies to
World Englishes as much as to other descriptive studies of language. While this is a
complex question, a quick answer to it is: yes, but differently.

Descriptions of language can be of importance and use; however, they need to be written with
purpose/goal and be specific. For example, if one needs to train nurses, then it will be useful to
have descriptions of how nurses use language in specific professional contexts (in the
multilingual context of Pakistan). But it would be a quite impossible task to write a full grammar
of the language of nursing. A large number of currently available grammars of languages are of
little use as: a) they are too ambitious in their scope; b) do not consider language variation; and,
c) the descriptions are too generic and not context sensitive. Regardless of such limitation, these
grammars flood the markets. By studying about language through these grammars, one develops
a belief that language is a set of rules that is used for communication; one does not develop a
sense of language dynamicity of variation; nor, how one can use it differently to achieve
different purposes. It is possible to write grammars differently; for example, a grammar that is
written of a select and relevant use of language and serves particular planned purposes: e.g., a
grammar of how nurses use language in specific professional contexts in Pakistan written with
the purpose of developing training material for nurses in Pakistan. In writing such a grammar, the
purpose of writing the grammar will help select the best approaches to grammatical
categorization and description.

7
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Language, well-being, and the environment

The four definitions of language introduced above are not exclusive, but interrelated. When
we talk about contact-initiated language change, as opposed to natural language change, the
introduced concepts influence the semo-genetic potential of the language being influenced.
So, for example, by introducing the concept of ‘religion’ to their colonial regions,
differentiating between ‘religions’ in terms of genealogical (e.g., Abrahamic religions)
and/or structural/formal (e.g., monothetic religions; fire worshippers) features, and not
considering the relationships between or taxonomies of people who practiced different
‘religions’ in the same region, the western Europeans sowed seeds of social disharmonization
in the regions that they colonised.

The replacement of and influence on Indigenous languages by colonial languages has ongoing
impact on the socio-semiotic capacities of the people who speak/spoke those languages. This, in
turn, impacts people and their communities. When a person’s language is changed on design,
their view of the world along with their engagement with the world also changes. This has
potential consequences for the community of people who adopt these new concepts. And, it
needs to be noted, consequences of changes in human actions, beliefs, and practices impact not
just humans or other living organism, but all aspects of our environment.

The deep semantics of a language influences the overall beliefs, perceptions, action,
and practices of an individual. The deep semantics, or what Halliday (1990) calls
‘cryptogrammar’, of a language is best understood by looking at syndromes of features
within a language, rather than at an isolated language feature (Halliday, 1990).

English grammar and speciesism

rd
We grow up learning that there are three 3 person singular pronouns in English: he
(human males), she (human females), and it (for everything else). While this is correct, we
often do not realise that the English grammar slants the world in a way where humans are
superior to all other living and non-living things (Dunayer 2001). In the example of 3rd
person singular pronouns, English divides the world between humans and non-humans and,
then, within the human category between two genders.

Similarly, in schools we were taught to use ‘who’ for humans and ‘that’ for everything
else, e.g.:
The mother who ran away.
The cow that ran away.
The choice of the relative pronoun, we are taught, depends on the ‘humanness’ of
the reference.

The use of ‘humanness’ as a feature of English pronouns suggests that humans are given a
unique place in the cryptogrammar of the English language. This is why, to give something
a human characteristic, we use the pronoun ‘he’ or ‘she’; and, in reverse, to dehumanise
someone, we can assign him/her the pronoun ‘it’.

In terms of World Englishes, a review of research on third person pronouns included in ‘The
Mouton World Atlas of Variations in English’ (Kortmann & Lunkenheimer 2013) suggests
8
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
that while varieties of Englishes may have variation in the use gendered pronouns, they do
differentiate between ‘s/he’ (human) and ‘it’ (non-human). This suggests that while the use
of forms for gender representation within ‘human pronouns’ is inconsistent, the distinction
between human and non-human is grammatically maintained in varieties of World Englishes.

This use of a ‘human’ based distinction in the English grammar, rare amongst world
languages (including in SAE), reflects how people who speak English and its varieties use
‘humanness’ as a feature to distinguish between things. In doing so, English grammar puts
humans above all other beings and things. This is a feature that is reinforced through parts
of its vocabulary, as discussed later, and influences how people see themselves in relation to
other living beings and non-living things.

In contrast to English or Pakistani English, Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi has a single third person

pronoun ‘woh’ and does not differentiate between humanness or gender. On the other hand,
these languages assign a gender to everything, including non-living things; something that
English does not do. This suggests that the grammar of these languages treat all living and
non-living beings equally; this does not mean that all people who speak Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi
treat everyone and everything equally or fairly, but that the grammar of the language is
inclusive so the tendency of the people would be to be inclusive. Evidence for this is found
in Mughal miniature art. Mughal art has innumerable works depicting diverse wildlife and
nature. It needs to be noted that the Mughal court was formed of artists and intellectuals, not
politicians or industrialists. Not using ‘humanness’ as a distinctive feature between things
suggests that the cryptogrammar of Urdu does not use humanness as a feature of
discrimination in its grammar.

The influence and adaptation of English on/in local contexts and languages has also
brought about a change in local policies and practices. For example, in the case of Pakistan,
since all government policies and documents are written in Pakistani English, the
cryptogrammar of English influences how the policies are formed, e.g., policies give
preference/protections to certain humans and there is often a disregard of non-human life
forms. This has real life consequences.

For example, in South Asia, there were three recognised genders: males, females, and third
gender. People who belonged to the third gender were traditionally known as ‘khwaja
sira’, where ‘khwaja’ (a word borrowed from Persian) was an honorific. Khwaja sira
included transvestites, transsexuals and transgender people and were both recognised and
respected in the community. Some khwaja sira held important roles in the royal courts
(Lal, 1994).

English does/did not have three genders and the British Raj did not recognise a third gender
when it became the colonial rulers of India. This lack of recognition of the third gender in
English led to the persecution of the khwaja sira. When the British took over India, khwaja
sira lost their legal and official entitlements and recognition and were categorised as a
‘criminal tribe’ according to the British 1871 Criminal Tribe Act. This persecution of khwaja
sira had and continues to have implications for this community. Many khwaja sira were
forced into poverty and prostitution. Khan (2014) provides a short and pointed analysis of
the impact of the British colonisation on people of the third gender:

9
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
 The colonial state declared 'obscene acts and songs' a crime and, in 1860, they
inserted section 377 into the new Indian Penal Code, which criminalized sodomy and
punished those who have carnal intercourse that the state considered against 'the
order of nature'. Further, in 1871, laws to regulate these folk were included in the
Criminal Tribes Act by the British Governor General of India. Through this act,
'persons of the male sex who admit themselves, or on medical inspection clearly
appear to be impotent' were subjected to mandatory registration, surveillance, and
control. Changes in inheritance laws meant that khwaja sara and hijra could not pass
on sanads and hereditary stipends to their disciples. The British hoped to diminish
their chances of survival by curtailing the various policies that ensured the economic
viability of these individuals from being passed on to the next generation. (p. 1287)

The change in the social and economic position of khwaja sira also resulted in a shift in the
lexical terms used to refer to them. Over time, khwaja sira were called hijra, chukkas, and
khusras. All these terms are considered derogatory and project a negative stereotype of
khwaja sira. Hijra was borrowed into English and continues to be used in Pakistani English,
including in popular media. The use of the term hijra has a negative connotation, as
opposed to the term khwaja sira, which includes a respected honorific.

In recent times, Pakistan has recognised people of the third gender and their legal rights
have been restored. Activists today are advocating the use of the term khwaja sira over
hijras, chukkas and khusras. However, this campaign has only recently started and its impact
on attitudes towards and status of this community cannot yet be studied. While there is some
effort being put into changing the lexical item used to refer to the people of the third gender,
there is little positive (public) discourse to support the community – for example, as far as I
am aware, there is no mention of the third gender in Pakistani English textbooks or other
mainstream educational material.

English lexicon and conflicts in South Asia

It is the vocabulary of a language that most clearly reflects the physical and social
environment of its speakers. The complete vocabulary of a language may indeed be
looked upon as a complex inventory of all the ideas, interests, and occupations that
take up the attention of the community, and were such a complete thesaurus of the
language of a given tribe at our disposal, we might to a large extent infer the
character of the physical environment and the characteristics and the culture of the
people making use of it. (Sapir 1912: 228)

The vocabulary of a language is its taxonomy. Linguists often study words in terms of their
semantic relations, e.g. hyponymy, synonymy, and antonymy. These semantic relationships
allow us to see how language are taxonomies with patterns, links, and relationships between
items. The vocabulary of a language contains ways of expressing things that have relevance
to the community that speaks it; thus, they vary across regions and groups. Research on
World Englishes provides ample evidence of lexical variations across varieties of English.
People, including speakers of World Englishes, develop and use vocabulary that is
necessary for them.

The vocabulary of a language also changes over time. These changes can be speakers - initiated,
changes initiated in language/regions, or contact-initiated, changes initiated through
10
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
contact with users of new languages. In the context of World Englishes, the vocabularies of
World Englishes as well as the local languages have been influenced both by speakers-
initiated change and those that occurred as a result of language contact. In this chapter, we
will focus on the later type of vocabulary change: language change influenced by a change
in the eco-linguistic environment.

The vocabulary of a language is influenced by the location and context of its speakers. A
language that develops in cold climates will be expected to have more words for snow and
cold in comparison to a language spoken in sub-Sahara Africa. Similarly, the vocabulary of a
language is influenced by how widely it is spoken: a language that is spoken very widely
will include taxonomies of things across a wide region as compared to a language that is
spoken in a small region.

The influence of the geographical area covered by a language on the range of its taxonomies is
one of the factors why languages such as English, Arabic and other global languages have far
more developed vocabularies and taxonomies than languages spoken in limited regions.
The English invaded almost all parts of the world and the vocabulary of the English
language expanded with it. With the increase in words, new taxonomies and taxonomical
relations emerged in the language. We can find evidence of this in studies that contrast
between varieties of World Englishes. These taxonomies, as was discussed earlier, are often
organised genealogically or structurally/functionally.

When words and taxonomies are introduced into another language these borrowings may,
in some cases, interfere with the existing taxonomies that people live by; and, in turn,
possibly impact their behaviour and practices. Here we will look at three such words:
religion, language, and family.

Religion

In South Asia, there was no religion before the Europeans invaded. This was not because
people did not have belief systems or practices, it is because there are no words in local
languages that capture the exact meaning and definition of ‘religion’ as ‘a belief system’.

The etymology of ‘religion’ itself is an interesting one. The Latin root ‘religio’ did not have
the meaning of religion today. The word religion was used by the English to create a new
category; a category that classified and grouped people based on their beliefs and deities.
The English and the colonials were able to develop the taxonomies of ‘religion’ because they
captured almost the whole of the world and learnt about different practices and beliefs.

In South Asia, on the other hand, people were not divided by religion. Mughal Akbar, a
Muslim and the leader of India in early period of European incursions, was married to a
Hindu and had people of all beliefs and practices as part of his court. Akbar practiced
and promoted Deen-e-Illahi (‘Deen’ of God) and believed that all gods are one and there
is no division between them.

Deen-e-Ilahi means ‘one God’ and recognises that people have different ways of representing
and paying homage to God. And that all of them are welcome. Akbar encouraged diversity of
practices and celebrated them. This is one reason why Akbar’s period is seen as one of prosperity
and integration. Deen-e-Ilahi was lost when Aurengzeb ousted his elders and took
11
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
over the Mughal throne. This happened after the colonial traders were already established
in South Asia and had started exerting their social, political, and military control.

Deen-e-Ilahi is grounded in some of the boli of South Asia. For example, in my boli, we
make a three-way distinction between deen, iman, and muzhab. Deen is associated with
deity, it can be any deity or none. Iman is the belief that we are all part of the same universe
(dishonesty, cheating, or causing harm to anyone or anything are considered acts of breaking
iman). Muzhab are individual and local ways of celebrating deen, iman, and life. Muzhab, by
definition, recognizes and respects diversity and is closer to the English word ‘culture’ than
‘religion’. Akbar’s Deen-e-Ilahi can be understood as one way in which these distinctions
(captured in the vocabulary of local boli) were used to develop inclusive, diverse, and
prosperous peoples.

In South Asian languages, we did not have a semantic equivalent of ‘religion’. In Pakistan,
people often mistranslate ‘religion’ into ‘muzhab’ and adopt the English taxonomies for
religion into local languages. Muzhab is a set of practices, not a system of belief. By
resemanticising ‘muzhab’ into ‘religion’, the meanings, interpretations, and implications
of the concept changed. This has had a lasting influence on the region.

In addition, we need to realise that the pre-British India did not look anything like the one
today. There were only a handful of settled cities in pre-British India; most people lived
free in the vast lands that no one owned or claimed; they knew and interacted with other
groups. The idea of land ownership did not exist in India, as it did not exist in most other
non - European contexts. Islam was essentially a religion of some of the urbanised areas of
South Asia, places that were important trading hubs. The free people across South Asia had
a diversity of beliefs, languages, and practices, most of which are lost today.

In addition to the creating of “religions”, the British also created history that sowed the seeds
of conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Histories written and sponsored by the British state
that Islam was brought to Sindh by Muhammad Bin Qasim, who captured parts of Sindh
from a Hindu Raja. The introduction of Islam into South Asia through violence establishes a
history of violence and conflict. However, there is little evidence to support such a history of
violence. There is much more evidence to suggest that Islam came into South Asia as it did
to most other parts of the world, through trading. Geographically, Mecca is located mid-point
between the Mediterranean and Yemen, which serves as a relatively closer sea journey to
Ethiopia (an ancient civilisation) (Jasmin, 2005). This was an ancient trading route. Islam
introduced a uniform and honest system of trading in Mecca, through which Arab traders
gained recognition and wealth. Islam spread through these trading routes and was very likely
already in South Asia by the late 600s (by 660s the capital of Islam had already relocated
from Mecca to modern day Syria). This also explains why Muslims were generally found in
the settled areas of South Asia, but not in rural areas, where a diverse number of belief
systems co-existed, along with languages and cultures. It is also worth noting that while the
concept of ‘iman’ spread through trading routes, this was not accompanied with Arabic; in
South Asia, the Mughals did not speak Arabic. The Muslims gained prosperity as traders and
their networks allowed them to manage influence over large regions. In South Asia, Islam
was actually proselytised and forced upon Indigenous peoples across large regions, e.g. many
regions of the mountainous norther areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, during the British
period, as the idea of religious identity gained hold and started to impact policy and practice
(Schmidt, Kohistani, and Zarin, 2008).
12
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Language

In parts of South Asia, a region with thousands of languages, locals understood language
through a multilingual lens, not a monolingual one. This led to different ways of
understanding and referring to language in South Asia. For example, one term for language
in Urdu, my mother tongue, is ‫( ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬boli) (note: ‫ ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬is not the only word for language in Urdu).
‫ ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬can be used as a collective noun (unlike ‘language’, which is always a count noun). ‫ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬
are diverse, situated, contextual, and connect us to different people in different ways.
Derivatives of ‫ ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬include words like ‘bol’ (utterance), ‘bolna’ (to speak), ‘bolt-a/i/ay’ (verb,
with gender markings).

‫ ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬is
also used to refer to non-human speech. Many South Asian languages do not
differentiate between human ‘language’ and non-human ‘communication’ (like English and
other western languages do) nor do they use ‘humanness’ as a category in their grammars.
Humans have ‫ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬, just like elephants and whales and cats have ‫ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬, even the wind and the
leaves have their ‫ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬. Variations of forms and functions of ‫ ﯽﻟﻮﺑ‬exist across many South
Asian languages (e.g., Hindi, Nepali, Pushto, Sindhi, Punjabi, Balochi, Brahuvi), each with
its own way of viewing language. This adds to the syndrome of features that suggest that
the deep grammar of Urdu is environmentally inclusive.

Other languages across South Asia use different terms for language. For example, in the
Torwali language, one of the languages spoken in the high mountain country of Swat, the
local word for language is ‫( ﺐﯿﺟ‬jeeb). According to Zubair Torwali (personal communication,
April 5, 2019), linguist and language activist, ‫ ﺐﯿﺟ‬is used for both language and tongue.
Torwali does not differentiate between language and tongue; from a Torwali perspective,
language is about what is spoken.

The multilingualism and diversity in South Asian communities reflects the network of
relationships (and intermarriages). There were and are at least two types of
multilingualism across South Asia:
1) where people can speak multiple languages; and
2) where people can understand more languages than they can speak.

This second type of multilingualism, receptive multilingualism, still exists in other parts of
the world too. For example, the 500 members of the Warruwi Community on South
Goulburn Island, Australia, are receptive multilinguals in nine languages (Singer & Harris,
2016). They all understand the nine languages but may choose not to speak all for various
reasons, including as a sign of respect for other speakers.

In communities that were inherently multilingual and multicultural, introducing the taxonomies
of ‘language’ (a countable noun, which posits independent entities, not interrelated) and naming
‘languages’ led to divisions and conflict. For example, in a place that did not name languages,
there are now hundreds of languages, with each linked to an ethno-linguistic identity (instead of
inter-relationships). In Pakistan, many of these groups are in continuous disagreements and
conflict, even though the named language are sometimes mutually intelligible (e.g. Siraki and
Punjabi, Balochi and Brahuvi). These languages have their own indigenous taxonomies to
understand ‘language’, which, as Whorf (1941) noted is what is expected: their grammars and
taxonomies reflect a different and pluralistic
13
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
conceptualizations of the word ‘language’ in comparison to the one assumed in
English. However, since all language planning work is done with an understanding of
the word ‘language’ as defined in and through English, these policies often do not
support plurilingualism.

Family

The concept of a ‘family’ in South Asian Englishes is that of a ‘nuclear family’ (parents and
children). ‘Family’ is also frequently borrowed into other South Asian languages. This is
because there is no translation equivalent of ‘family’ in most South Asian languages. The
absence of a word for nuclear family across many South Asian languages suggests that
people were not necessarily sociologically patterned in terms of biological relationships.
Words like ‘khandan’, ‘kumba’, ‘dabar’, ‘pariwar’ refer to much larger groupings of people
and which are organized along different sociological patterns.

The notion of a ‘family’ in English is based on genealogy, one of the primary approaches
of creating taxonomies in English. In this case, the genealogical relationships are between
humans. ‘Family’ is a taxonomy of how people are related to each other by blood. This
taxonomy is also used in developing tools to collect data on kinship relationships in other
languages.

Notice here that the idea of ‘family’ in English is linked to biological relationships. An
‘unmarked’ family is expected to include parents and their biological off-spring. This
implies that in English, the sociological organization of humans is seen as one that is
biologically grounded. While using biological relationships to creating sociological
categories is one possibility, it is not necessary to do so. Sociological patterns, as is evident
in the existence of diverse living arrangements around the world, do not necessarily need to
be patterned on biological relationships.

By introducing ‘family’ into South Asian languages, the indigenous taxonomies were changed
and/or lost. This has resulted in changes in ways in which people live and connect with each
other. Family is now considered a nuclear family, and, with each generation, a family divides
to form new families. Through this process, family divides people.

The use of South Asian Englishes, and contact-initiated changes in local languages have
altered the social structures and ways in which people live and engage with each other
across the region. This has real world consequences as discussed below, for example,
breaking the social network by migrating (nuclear) family units; or, in legal matters, where
law is written in English and draws on concepts such as family.

World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction

In the previous section we saw how the cryptogrammar of English and World Englishes is
dissimilar from that of the languages of South Asia. These differences can be seen in syndromes
of grammatical and the lexical features of the languages (Halliday, 1990). By introducing new
ways of categorising and classifying the world, World Englishes influence the grammars and
lexicons of local languages. For example, the use of ‘human’ as a category in English grammar
is absent from Urdu. However, with the wide use and adoption of
14
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Pakistani English, the Urdu grammar has been influenced (as have other languages spoken
that co-exist with a variety of World Englishes). This, along with a tendency of
translating/adapting beliefs, concepts, definitions, terms, policies, and practices developed in
English into local languages, influences and changes the grammar and vocabulary of local
languages. For example, academic genres that are now emerging in multiple languages
adopt the genre structures of English research papers (Fallatah, 2016); this impacts the
grammar of the language and the meanings it makes.

The English vocabulary divides people and things in ways that are different from South
Asian languages. The introduction of English has influenced the grammar and lexicon of
local languages. This has resulted in differences between people that exist today that did
not exist in the past. For example, people in South Asia today are divided based on religion
and language.

This use of religion and language to divide people can be considered one way in which the
Western colonisers used socio-semiotic weapons to achieve their goals. By introducing and
continuing to promote the English language, the English (like other western colonizing
powers) altered the semo-genetic potential and the socio-semiotics of local/colonised
peoples. They altered and/or replaced the socio-semiotic inheritance of local communities.
By altering the taxonomies of the language, World Englishes influenced and altered local
sciences: local ways of knowing, being and doing (leading to a destabilisation of people and,
consequently, the environment).

While, not everything can be reduced to language, the health and vitality of a language can
reveal quite a lot about its speakers. Some languages are healthy, expanding in their range of
functions, uses, and speakers; others are weak and dying, losing their range of functions,
uses, and speakers. The difference between the health and vitality of a language tells us
about the health and vitality of the people who speak that language. If languages are
oppressed, people are oppressed. And, when people are oppressed, they don’t take care of
things around them. This results in damage to others, including the environment.

Part of the issue here is that the majority of current global academia is in English and it
evolved in the context of SAE. The taxonomies and approaches used in this work is based
in the semantics and the cryptogrammar of English. Instead of expanding its base and
learning from and supporting non-SAE ways of knowing, doing, and being, the academia
largely ignores them.

One consequence of the dominance of English in shaping academic knowledge, including but not
restricted to linguistics, is that people around the world – who speak different mother tongues –
are all trained in and through English (or material translated from English). This implies that
graduates from universities around the world are trained to see the world in particular ways,
using particular terms/categories, and not others. This can influence practices and policies that
are made assuming English (and other SAE) categories to be the norm.

Conclusion
World Englishes, both as the area of study and as the actual varieties of Englishes, have a
major role to play in expanding the domains of English. So far, this work has focussed on
the changes that the English language undergoes as it transitions and settles into another part
of the world. Through a study of World Englishes, we note how local communities influence
15
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
changes on the English language as they learn and adopt it. What we often do not do, and
what this chapter has attempted to do, is to look at how English influences other
languages, people, and the environment.

A look at the influence of English as a norm-defining language for local languages and
people, as this chapter has done, can reveal that World Englishes have had a lasting effect on
the social and environmental conditions of the people that adopt English – and that these
influences are not always positive. Having identified the types of issues that contact-initiated
language change can make, it is imperative that we use this understanding to educate people
on how language can influence us, our lives, our communities, our environment, and how
we need to take control of our languages in order to bring social harmonisation and
environmental stability.

References

Canilao, M.L.E.N. (2020) Foregrounding Philippine Englishes in fostering

linguistic equality. Asian Englishes, DOI: 10.1080/13488678.2020.1715575.

Choudhry, F.R., Park, M.S-A, Golden, K., & Bokharey, I.Z. (2017). “We are the soul,
pearl and beauty of Hindu Kush Mountains”: exploring resilience and psychological
wellbeing of Kalasha, an ethnic and religious minority group in Pakistan. International
Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 12(1): 1267344. DOI:
10.1080/17482631.2016.1267344.

Dunayer, J. (2001) Animal Equality: Language and Liberation. Derwood, MD:

Lantern Books

Fallatah, W. (2016). Features of Saudi English Research Articles Abstracts. Arab

World Englishes, 7.2, 368-379.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1990) New ways of meaning: the challenge to applied

linguistics, Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6, 7–36.

Haspelmath, M. (2001). The European linguistic area: Standard Average European. In

Martin Haspemath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oessterreicher & Wofgang Raible (eds.),
Language typology and language universals. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Hasan R (2003/2011) Globalization, literacy and ideology. Language and education:

Learning and teaching in society. Volume 3. ed. J Webster. London: Equinox. Chapter 6.

Jasmin, M. (2006) The emergence and first development of the Arabian trade across the
Wadi Arabah. In P. Bienkowski and K. Galor (Eds.) Crossing the Rift: Resources,
Settlement Patterns and Interaction in the Wadi Arabah. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Khan, F. A. (2014). Khwaja Sira: Culture, Identity Politics, and "Transgender" Activism
in Pakistan. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Syracuse University, Syracuse, New
York, USA.

16
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Kortmann, B. (Ed.) & Lunkenheimer, K. (Ed.) (2012). The Mouton World Atlas of
Variation in English. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Retrieved 4 Mar. 2020, from
https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/181631

Lasrsen-Freeman D (2016) Complexity and ELF: A matter of nonteleology. In Pitzl M-L and
Osimk-Teasdale R (eds) English as a Lingua Franca: Perspectives and prospects.
Contributions in Honour of Barbara Seidlhofer. De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 139−146.

Lal, K.S. (1994). Muslim Slave System in Medieval India. New Delhi: Aditiya Prakashan.
Lee, P. (1996). The Whorf theory complex: A critical reconstruction. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.

Lenneberg, E. & Brown, A. M. (1956). The Language of Experience: A study in

Methodology. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and
Linguistics.

Mahboob, A. (2015) Language, literacy, education and empowerment. Journal of

World Languages Vol 2:2-3.

Mahboob, A. & Tupas, R. (2020) World Englishes and Social Change. In Borlongan, A.
(ed) Philippine English: Development, Structure, and Sociology of English in the
Philippines. London: Routledge.

Pavlenko, A. (2016). Whorf's lost argument: Multilingual awareness: Whorf's lost

argument. Language Learning, 66(3), 581-607. doi:10.1111/lang.12185

Sapir, E. (1912). Language and Environment. American Anthropologist, 14(2), new

series, 226-242. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/659930

Schneider, E. W. (2014) New reflections on the evolutionary dynamics of world

Englishes. World Englishes, 33: 9-32. doi:10.1111/weng.12069

Schneider, E. W. (2017) Models of English in the World. In Juhani Klemola, Markku

Filppula and Devyani Sharma (eds) The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singer, R., & Harris, S. (2016). What practices and ideologies support small-scale
multilingualism? A case study of Warruwi Community, northern Australia.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 241, 163–208.

The “Five Graces Group” (Beckner C, Blythe R, Bybee J, Christiansen MH, Croft W,
Ellis NC, Holland J, Ke J, Larsen-Freeman D, Schoenemann T) (2009) Language is a
complex adaptive system. Position paper, Language Learning, 59, Supplement 1, 1-27.

Tupas, R. (2015) Unequal Englishes: the politics of English today. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.

17
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.
Whorf, B. (1941). Languages and logic. Technology Review, 43, 250–252, 266, 268, 272.
Reprinted in B. Whorf (2012), Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf (2nd ed., pp. 299–314). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

18
Mahboob, A. (2020) World Englishes, Social Disharmonisation, and Environmental Destruction. In Kirkpatrick,
A. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.