Why do children of Indian descent dominate English-language spelling competitions?
The latest results are now official. Another child of Indian descent won a prestigious spelling contest. The latest competition was the Scripps National Spelling Bee, held over Memorial Day weekend in Washington, DC.
The 2022 winner was Harini Logan, age 14, from San Antonio. She is Indian-American, an ethnic group that statistically comprises barely 1 percent of the U.S. population. Yet, over the past two decades, Indian-Americans have dominated the Scripps National Spelling Bee (and others, too) – with 21 of the past 23 champions being of South Asian descent. Again, that’s 21 out of 23 — this is stunning.
This phenomenon isn’t random or accidental. There must be a reason for it. Oh, and if you think the test words are easy — um, think again. Take a look at the winning words (spelled correctly by the champion) over the past ten years:
2012: guetapens
2013: knaidel
2014: stichomythia / feuilleton
2015: scherenschnitte / nunatak
2016: Feldenkrais / gesellschaft
2017: marocain
2018: koinonia
2019: auslaut / erysipelas / bougainvillea / aiguillette / pendeloque / palama / cernuous / odylic
2021: Murraya
2022: moorhen
So, why do Indian-Americans perform so well?
The American immigrant experience certainly explains this, in part. Many immigrants, especially the well-educated, work harder than native-born contemporaries. They certainly value education and stress study habits early in life that gives their children advantages. There’s certainly some stereotyping in this general assessment, but I don’t see how anyone can deny cultural factors as a contributor to superior performance.
Let’s go one step further. Author and social-scientist Malcolm Gladwell explained in his book, Outliers what makes Asians superior in mathematics. Again, there might be some dissatisfaction with these generalities, but the explanation is all there if you take the time to read it.
That said, mastering words is a very different skill set than grasping math. And, I don’t see how those qualities that apply to Asian culture are applicable in the case of Indian-American children and their superiority as spellers. Moreover (and here’s what really blows my mind), given that many of these children (based on their names) are clearly first- and second-generation Americans, that means a language other than English was probably spoken inside the home when they were younger. So, they often don’t get the same time and attention with English speaking based on the parents speaking habits in the home. One would even think that bilingualism might have a potential negative impact on spelling accuracy, but that’s apparently not the case.
I’ve read a few articles on this, but they offered poorly-constructed assessments and weren’t very convincing.
So, does anyone care to offer an explanation? In English, please.
