Indian English, the largest second-language variety of English, in terms of numbers of speakers, has been the focus of many linguistic studies since Kachru's (1983) groundbreaking collection of papers The Indianization of English. Partly due to the increasing amount and quality of data, the description of this variety has only recently experienced what could be called a new boom, works such as Sedlatschek (Reference Sedlatschek2009) or Balasubramanian (Reference Balasubramanian2009) being cases in point.

Sailaja's book is (to my knowledge) the first scholarly description of Indian English aimed specifically at ‘students who are just beginning to be familiar with linguistic terminology . . . [and] people who may be generally interested in language and (Indian) English’ (p. viii). Motivated by this choice of readership, Sailaja's work can be seen as a very concise description of many different aspects of Indian English. Structured in seven chapters, this book gives an overview of the extralinguistic cultural and historical settings in which the variety developed and is still developing and summarizes some of the earlier findings on different levels of linguistic description. Furthermore, Sailaja includes a detailed bibliography of earlier works on the variety and provides some sample texts.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the present situation of Indian English with respect to the geographical, demographic and cultural settings of the subcontinent. After an introduction to the first of these, and its special panethnic and multilingual situation, Sailaja deals with the current status of Indian English, pointing out that ‘although the official language of India is first Hindi, English is given equal, if not more importance. Incidentally the Constitution itself was written in English and an authorized Hindi translation is now available’ (p. 5). After a brief discussion of the cultural settings in which Indian English functions, Sailaja addresses the question of the term Indian English in contrast to English in India. Discussing the lectal continuum in India, she introduces Kachru's (1983) cline of bilingualism with reference to mesolectal Babu English and acrolectal standard Indian English.

Chapter 2 ‘Phonetics and phonology’ summarizes many earlier findings on the specifics of Indian English pronunciation, with regard to both segmental and suprasegmental features. A very interesting point in this chapter is the fact that Sailaja describes Standard Indian English Pronunciation (SIEP) as non-rhotic (p. 19), which is in contrast to the description of the accent provided by Nihalani et al. (2004: 209). This gives rise to the question whether regional or diachronic variation is responsible for this inconsistency between the works (Nihalani et al. (Reference Nihalani, Tongue, Hosali and Crowther2004) is a revised edition of Nihalani et al. (1979)).

Chapter 3 ‘Morphosyntax’, like the previous chapter, mainly summarizes earlier findings on Indian English morphosyntax and does not include new research, which is in line with the textbook-approach Sailaja takes. It should be pointed out, however, that she does not limit her overview of the morphosyntactic features of Indian English to oft-discussed features, such as invariant question tags or the deviating use of only, but also includes more recent research on structural nativization. Here the discussion of verbs with the particle off, as well as the description of the tendency for monotransitive complementation of ditransitive verbs, may be seen as an indication that the description of lexico-grammatical features of the variety has become largely accepted and the traditional view that innovations on the structural level are relatively ‘unobtrusive’ (see Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985: 17) may have to be reevaluated.

Chapter 4 deals with the levels of lexis and discourse. On the level of lexis, Sailaja shows that Indian English has areas of overlap with both British English and American English. Further, she shows how some lexical items that are also current in other varieties have undergone a semantic shift in Indian English. While there are also many words from traditional Indian languages that have become part of the vocabulary of English in general, there are also some items of Indian origin that are exclusively used in Indian English, although they are used with Romanized spelling and English pronunciation. Concerning word formation processes, Sailaja provides numerous examples from the areas of compounding, hybrid compounding, affixation and specific Indian English acronyms and alphabetisms. Although this overview contains clearly fewer items than, for example, the dictionary part of Nihalani et al. (Reference Nihalani, Tongue, Hosali and Crowther2004), it gives a good introductory overview of central and productive Indian English word formation processes.

The second part of chapter 4 deals with discourse features of Indian English. A remarkable feature here, for example, is the choice of address forms. Cultural and linguistic conventions concerning the way people from different social strata or generations are addressed are transferred from traditional Indian languages into Indian English. These uses clearly deviate from other varieties of English, as, for example, British or American conventions for addressing people are felt to be inappropriate. Other interesting aspects of the second part of chapter 4 are politeness strategies like the use of the invariant question tag with a pleading function and notes on code switching and style.

Chapter 5, ‘History and changes in progress’, addresses Indian English from a different perspective than the previous chapters, as it does not concentrate on the features of Indian English but rather on the development of the variety from its early stages in the late seventeenth century until today. In the description of the history of Indian English, Sailaja divides the developmental process into three distinct periods, which is in line with earlier descriptions of the development of Indian English (cf. Mehrotra Reference Mehrotra1998), although she includes a fourth period previous to English settlement. The first of these periods is the period before Macaulay's ‘Minute on Indian Education’ (1835), characterized by the Orientalist–Anglicist controversy and the policies of the East India Company, especially concerning religious activity and proselytization. The second period is the post-Macaulay period, characterized by the constant development of education in English and the use of English as the administrative language of the Raj. The third period begins with independence (1947), and lasts into the twenty-first century. In this period the main issue is the status of English after India's independence. Apart from the pure description of the historical events that formed the variety, Sailaja also includes a number of maps that are helpful for the understanding of the power structures on the subcontinent in the relevant periods. At the end of chapter 5, Sailaja returns to the linguistic description of the lectal variation in India, giving examples from Babu English and Indian pidgin English.

Chapter 6 contains a detailed annotated bibliography of many earlier works on Indian English. This bibliography is structured according to the linguistic levels the different works describe. However, as Sailaja points out, it is not an easy task to select an equal amount of relevant works for the different levels, since there have been clear research biases in the past:

This research bias is thus clearly reflected in Sailaja's bibliography. However, keeping in mind the audience addressed by Sailaja's work, her bibliography offers a wide choice of earlier work on the variety, so that students or other interested readers will find a sound selection of resources to help them carry out studies of the variety beyond the introductory scope Sailaja offers.

Chapter 7 contains sample texts of Indian English from a variety of different text types. Included are literary texts, official documents and letters, newspaper articles and letters to the editor, advertisements, lectures and transcribed audio samples of spoken Indian English. Although Sailaja includes far fewer texts than Mehrotra (Reference Mehrotra1998), this large variation of different text types gives a good overview of authentic text material. Especially noteworthy is the inclusion of texts that cover a large time span; the earliest text included was written in 1794; the latest texts are from 2007. In this way, Sailaja gives authentic examples from all the periods described in chapter 5 and shows that the monolithic term Indian English covers a large variety of different genres and text types.

For a critical evaluation of Sailaja's monograph on Indian English, one has to keep in mind the envisioned purpose and readership of this book. Being primarily aimed at students and interested laypersons, Sailaja gives an overview of the development and some prominent features of Indian English. Although not comprehensive, this overview nicely summarizes many earlier works on Indian English and will be a very helpful resource for anyone who is starting their studies of Asian varieties of English. However, such an approach also has a downside. An area that is virtually not covered is the description of Indian English in relation to other postcolonial varieties of English, especially those in the neighbouring South Asian communities. Although a comprehensive description of any of the neighbouring varieties of English would be beyond the scope of an introduction to Indian English, the historical parallels in the development of other varieties on the subcontinent, such as Pakistani English, would have been worth mentioning. This is especially the case since Sailaja gives a relatively detailed description of the historical development of Indian English (bearing in mind the general shortness of the book). Another minor area for criticism is the structure of the book. The book starts with a general description of the sociocultural situation in India and the setting of Indian English today. The historical development of the variety, however, is taken up much later in the book, after several chapters that describe individual features of the variety. To my mind the book would have benefited from presenting the historical background before delving into the description of linguistic features. Especially the distinction between standard Indian English forms and non-standard Indian English forms, which Sailaja makes throughout chapters 2 to 4, is better understood with a previous knowledge of the lectal continuum in India, which has its roots in the history of the variety.

In sum this is a highly recommendable book for anybody looking for an easy-to-read introduction to Indian English or who is interested in postcolonial varieties of English in general. While the book does not provide the reader with new insights into the features of the variety, but rather summarizes earlier research, this summary will be very helpful for newcomers to the field of variational linguistics. In this light the annotated bibliography in chapter 6 will also be of great value for anybody wishing to widen their perspective after reading this introductory work. Apart from being recommended for individual students or interested laypersons, this book is also eminently useful for classroom use at the undergraduate level.