> Thanks, I read that article. Do you think Indian English is strictly colloquial similar to the dialects of English we have in the US? Or does it have its own accepted grammar enforced by proofreaders and copy editors?
I'd suggest that's a distinction without a difference. Or to be more precise, it's a distinction whose difference - the level of official ossification built up around the dialect - isn't really relevant to the question because it has more to do with external factors, and little to do with the language's actual developmental status.
For example, American and British English have crossed the boundary that you propose despite being so similar that native speakers are often hesitant to even regard them as different dialects. But they do have separate rulebooks, because at some point in the past few centuries Americans of high social rank decided that England's culture was no longer the ideal to which they should continue to aspire.
On the other hand, take Haitian Creole and French, which are so different as to not really even be mutually intelligible. But up until very recently Creole did not have an official grammar (or even spelling) enforced by proofreaders and copy editors. How come? Well, Creole's spoken by poor people, and French is spoken by rich people. Rich people set up the social institutions you propose, and for a long time they had a strong interest in maintaining French as the only official dialect.
The example is extreme, but I hope it does illustrate that there are actually two different continua at play here, and while they may be correlated they aren't closely tied together.
I'd suggest that's a distinction without a difference. Or to be more precise, it's a distinction whose difference - the level of official ossification built up around the dialect - isn't really relevant to the question because it has more to do with external factors, and little to do with the language's actual developmental status.
For example, American and British English have crossed the boundary that you propose despite being so similar that native speakers are often hesitant to even regard them as different dialects. But they do have separate rulebooks, because at some point in the past few centuries Americans of high social rank decided that England's culture was no longer the ideal to which they should continue to aspire.
On the other hand, take Haitian Creole and French, which are so different as to not really even be mutually intelligible. But up until very recently Creole did not have an official grammar (or even spelling) enforced by proofreaders and copy editors. How come? Well, Creole's spoken by poor people, and French is spoken by rich people. Rich people set up the social institutions you propose, and for a long time they had a strong interest in maintaining French as the only official dialect.
The example is extreme, but I hope it does illustrate that there are actually two different continua at play here, and while they may be correlated they aren't closely tied together.