The New Cambridge History of the English Language: Volume 6, Part 1

This volume offers in-depth coverage of varieties of English across the world, outside of the British and North American arenas. Introductory chapters deal with the colonial transportation of English overseas and the generic types of English which resulted: first-language, second-language and foreign-language varieties, often subsumed under the label 'World Englishes'. English-lexifier pidgins and creoles are also examined. The remaining chapters treat forms of English in large geographical regions of the world. Anglophone Africa divides into three blocks, west, east and south, each with different linguistic ecologies determined by history and demography. Asia, especially South Asia and South-East Asia, is similar in the kinds of English it now shows. In recent decades, the significance of East Asia for varieties of English has increased given the economic development of China and the status of other Asian nations, such as South Korea and Japan.