One of the major non-native accents of English is what for convenience of reference we shall call Panjabi English (PE)—the English spoken by educated Panjabi speakers (for Panjabi see Gill & Gleason, 1962). This accent has assumed a certain importance over the last two decades because of the settlement of a large number of Panjabi speakers from India and Pakistan in various English-speaking countries, chiefly Britain. Nevertheless, it has not attracted much attention from the linguist. One possible reason for this neglect is that many linguists hold the view that there can be no ‘system’ in a non-native variety of a language, which, they may contend, is the result of an attempt to imitate, with varying degrees of inefficiency, some native variety of the language (though now at several generations' remove).