Wondrous Wandering Words: The Hidden Politics of Language in British Women’s Travel Writing on Colonial India (1805–1857)

Abstract The present paper explores the political implications of Anglo-Indian language contact as represented in British women’s travel writing on colonial India. It draws on travel accounts from the first half of the nineteenth century by Mary Martha Sherwood, Maria Graham, Emily and Frances Eden as well as Madeline and Rosalind Wallace-Dunlop. This paper examines how these authors engage with the languages of India and how their individual approaches to these languages reveal their respective colonial agendas although they avoid explicit political statements. My analysis reveals two forms of engaging with the languages of India. Firstly, all authors introduce native vocabulary to their British readers via transcription, translation, explanation, and – with the exception of Sherwood – visual illustration. Secondly, they all explicitly comment on individual languages and – by implication – their speakers. Combining postcolonial theory and gender studies with a sociolinguistic approach that highlights the symbolic power of language and its relevance to identity construction, the paper illustrates how the linguistic attitudes of these female authors shed light on their entanglement in colonial discourses and power structures and render their travelogues deeply political.