Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This contribution treats Indian English, its genesis, its acquisitional contexts, and its major sociolinguistic uses. In so doing, it contextualizes this linguistic variety within the broader context detailing the history of language contact in South Asia. Here, I demonstrate how over the centuries, Indian English has become an essential part of the linguistic landscape of India naturally underpinning and uniting its millennia‐long multilingualism. The article starts out with the discussion of language contact in South Asia. It then proceeds to present the history of English in India. I finally conclude with a summary of my sociolinguistic fieldwork in India throughout 2007 and 2016, which allowed me to gain insights into the sociolinguistics of the settings in which English is acquired in India.</jats:p>