Faculty, students and community members gathered at Stony Brook University for a lecture by Kingsley Bolton, professor emeritus at the University of Stockholm and a leading authority on world Englishes, in which he discussed the relationship between language and identity.
The event, part of the College of Arts and Sciences Sir Run Run Shaw Lecture Series and the full-day MIC Symposium on Multilingualism, paid tribute to Professors S. N. Sridhar and Kamal K. Sridhar, whose decades of scholarship helped reshape the study of bilingualism, multilingualism and South Asian linguistics.
Presented by the Center for Multilingual and Intercultural Communication and the Mattoo Center for India Studies, and co-organized by the Departments of Asian and Asian American Studies and Linguistics, the event highlighted the importance of multilingualism throughout Asia.
S. N. Sridhar is a retired SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Linguistics and India Studies in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies, as well as the founding director of the Mattoo Center for India Studies. Kamal Sridhar is a retired faculty member in Linguistics and Asian Studies at Stony Brook, where she served as director of the Center for India Studies from 2002 to 2008 before retiring in 2022.
“It is a great privilege in this lecture to review a number of issues relevant to the work of both professors with particular reference to multilingualism in the Asian region and the study of Asian Englishes,” said Bolton, who noted that the Sridhars have shaped the field through influential research, mentorship and institution-building.
He then provided an overview of Asia as one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. The continent is home to an estimated 2,300 languages spoken across communities that range from global megacities to remote regions.
Bolton noted that while public understanding often reduces Asian languages to major families such as Sinitic, Indic and Austronesian, the reality is far more complex. Dialect diversity, historical migration and geographical separation have produced a linguistic map that is unique and unmatched by any other region.
“Asia is outstanding in terms of multilingual diversity,” Bolton said, referencing societies such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines that are marked by high levels of societal multilingualism. He noted that numerous smaller languages across Asia have become endangered as economic shifts, modernization and urbanization reshape traditional communities.
“Despite such diversity and linguistic pluralism, many of the smaller Asian languages are now regarded as endangered,” he said. “They face the changes that come with modernity and the modern world.”
Bolton highlighted three case studies: Hong Kong, the Philippines and India, each representing a different model of multilingualism shaped by history, migration and governance.
Hong Kong is home to at least 29 languages, including South Asian, Southeast Asian, European and minority Chinese languages. Bolton presented mapping research that reveals dense linguistic pockets across the Kowloon Peninsula. “This is the kind of detailed work we have been able to do by mining census data,” he said. “It gives us a much fuller picture of multilingualism in what was often seen as a monolingual community.”
The Philippines is “an area of immense complexity,” Bolton said, with roughly 180 languages spoken across more than 7,000 islands. Scholars in Manila have been cataloging this diversity since the 17th century, yet the work remains ongoing as communities continue to evolve. Bolton noted that the Philippines presents a unique combination of colonial history, geographical dispersion and strong local identities.
India, depending on the method of classification, is estimated to include anywhere from 464 to more than 1,500 languages across the subcontinent. While Hindi is an official language, Bolton noted that linguistic realities on the ground vary widely. “India is certainly one of the most linguistically complex societies in the world,” he said.
Bolton then addressed the rise of Asian Englishes, a field to which the Sridhars have made significant contributions. English has grown across the region through multiple channels: British and American colonialism, economic expansion, the spread of English-medium education and the rise of middle class urban centers that use English as a pathway to mobility. Today, Asia is home to hundreds of millions of English speakers, including in nations where English carries no official status but remains essential in commerce, higher education and technology.
Bolton described how Asian varieties of English have become recognized as legitimate linguistic systems with their own norms and histories. He discussed the work of scholars who have documented Indian English, Singapore English and Philippine English and how these varieties illustrate what he called “indigenized norms,” shaped by local histories and cultural practices.
Much of the modern understanding of these varieties stems from the scholarship of S. N. Sridhar and Kamal K. Sridhar, whose work in world Englishes and second language acquisition helped shift the discipline away from a narrow focus on native-speaker norms. Bolton highlighted a landmark 1986 paper by the Sridhars that critiqued dominant assumptions in second language acquisition research, including the idea that learners aim for native-like proficiency. The paper argued for recognizing the agency of multilingual speakers, the legitimacy of local English varieties and the social contexts in which language learning takes place.
Throughout the lecture, Bolton emphasized the Sridhars’ role as “intellectual bridge builders.” He pointed to their work connecting theoretical linguistics with applied linguistics, South Asian studies with global Englishes, and educational theory with multilingual practice. “These bridges have been important in many different respects,” he said. “The scope and depth of their scholarship is beyond impressive.”
Despite progress, he added that the field continues to evolve. “Yes, a bridge has been built, but it is a bridge only half built,” he said, quoting the Sridhars’ that more work remains in aligning applied linguistics with multilingual realities. “I hope that in my talk I have been able to highlight at least some of the key achievements of these two researchers whose meticulous and wide-reaching scholarship has informed and inspired the front line of linguistic research.”
— Beth Squire
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