| Malawian English | |
|---|---|
| Region | Malawi |
Early forms | |
| Latin (English alphabet) Unified English Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Malawi |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | sout3331 |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
| Part of a series on the |
| English language |
|---|
| Features |
| Societal aspects |
| Dialects(full list) |
Malawian English is theEnglish language as spoken inMalawi. English is the country'sofficial language.
English was introduced into Malawi towards the end of the 19th century, due to the influence of British explorers, missionaries, the arrival of theAfrican Lakes Corporation, and colonial administrators present since the establishment in the 1890s of theBritish Central Africa Protectorate. The seventy years ofBritish colonial rule that followed theScramble for Africa, set the groundwork for English to grow into the area's dominant and most socially prestigious language. One in a thousand people speak English as their first language, but it is essential to progress to secondary education.[1]
Since Malawian independence, the dominance of English has continued:
This remains true despite a large majority of Malawians speaking Chichewa and the small number of English speakers outside urban centres. Also, in Malawian government schools, students are taught in Chichewa, and learn English as a second language from about age 10. But in international schools in Malawi (like Saint Andrew's International High School inBlantyre) which follow the British curriculum, English is the language students are taught in, and do not learn Chichewa at all, as it is regarded as a local language.
English words are replacing their equivalents in other Malawi languages. One study of acorpus of Chichewa discourse captured over a ten-year period found that references to numbers greater than 3 were exclusively in English, at least in urban areas.[2]
Malawian English features some non-linguistic expressions that are still used, such as "eesh!", an exclamation meaning "oh my!"
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | This article about theEnglish language is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |
