A lively and accessible introduction to world Englishes, setting a range of global varieties in their historical and social contexts.

A sweeping account of the global rise of English and the high-stakes politics of languageSpoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca- - its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "riseof English" has many obvious benefits to communication. Tourists can travel abroad with greater ease. Political leaders can directly engage their counterparts. Researchers can collaborate with foreign colleagues. Business interests can flourish in the global economy.But the rise of English has very real downsides as well. In Europe, imperatives of political integration and job mobility compete with pride in national language and heritage. In the United States and England, English isolates us from the cultural and economic benefits of speaking other languages.And in countries like India, South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, it has stratified society along lines of English proficiency.In The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business. From the inner workings of the European Union to linguistic battles over influence inAfrica, Salomone draws on a wealth of research to tell the complex story of English - and, ultimately, to argue for English not as a force for domination but as a core component of multilingualism and the transcendence of linguistic and cultural borders.

The social development of English as a world language emerges from a comprehensive account of our current knowledge of it as well as the gaps in understanding which future research can remedy.

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

From Singapore to Scotland, Canada to the Channel Islands, Namibia to New Zealand and beyond, International English takes you on a fascinating journey through the varieties of English spoken around the world. Comparisons across the varieties provide a comprehensive guide to differences in phonetics, phonology, grammar and vocabulary, making this a useful resource for teachers of English as a foreign language and linguistics students alike. This sixth edition has been thoroughly updated to include the following: new sections on the Death of RP, Estuary English, Multicultural London English, the Dublin accent and Fijian English; updated material on RP phonology, New Zealand English phonology, Australian English lexis, North American English lexis and the Northern Cities Chain Shift; revised and updated references and bibliography. This textbook comes with free-to-download MP3 files at www.routledge.com/9781138233690, which demonstrate the different varieties featured in the book – ideal for use in class, at home or on the move. International English remains a key and indispensable resource for teachers and students, and is essential reading for anyone studying varieties of English in a global context.

Avoid business blunders with Do s and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors "Roger Axtell is an international Emily Post." The New Yorker America hosts some 41 million international visitors who spend $50 billion dollars each year while mixing trade and tourism. Do s and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors offers hosts an indispensable guide to everything from entertaining and business protocol to the role of interpreters and corporate gift giving. You ll find: * List of tips by country on specific aspects of hosting and other valuable resources and references * Guidance for doing business with special groups, such as the British and Japanese * What foreign guests find peculiar about American dining, social drinking, and office protocol With the information in Do s and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors, you ll make your clients and colleagues visits more pleasant and avoid social mistakes that could ruin a deal. Instead, you ll gain a competitive edge by laying an important cornerstone of a good business relationship. "Knowing the appropriate protocol, customs, and etiquette when hosting business guests from overseas can often be more significant than the business discussion itself. This book provides all that and more." William A. Guenther, Manager, The Council House, Official Guest Facility of S.C. Johnson Wax Company

The two volumes of Englishes around the World present high-quality original research papers written in honour of Manfred Görlach, founder and editor of the journal English World-Wide and the book series Varieties of English Around the World. The papers thematically focus on the field that Manfred Görlach has helped to build and shape. Volume 2 of Englishes Around the World presents studies of so-called “New Englishes”, post-colonial varieties as spoken predominantly in countries of the former British Empire. There are five contributions on the Caribbean (covering Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad), five articles on Africa (South Africa, East Africa, and Nigeria), six studies of English in Asian countries (Japan, the Philippines, India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea), and six papers on Australia and New Zealand. Topics covered range from sociohistorical causes and processes, the nativization of English in different countries, or the expression of individual identities by means of the English language through structural descriptions to sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, lexicographic, pragmatic, stylistic, and other matters. The articles in the respective sections are written by D.R. Craig, L.M. Haynes, P.L. Patrick, K. Shields-Brodber, and L. Winer; A Banjo, V. de Klerk, R. Mesthrie, J. Schmied, and P. Silva; R.W. Bailey, R. Begum and T. Kandiah, A. Gonzalez, R.R. Mehrotra, P. Mühlhäusler, and M. Newbrook; L. Bauer, S. Butler, M. Clyne, P. Peters and A. Delbridge, G. Tulloch, and G.W. Turner.

“Babel is an endlessly interesting book, and you don’t have to have any linguistic training to enjoy it . . . it’s just so much fun to read.” —NPR English is the world language, except that 80 percent of the world doesn’t speak it. Linguist Gaston Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world’s people in their mother tongues, you’d need to know no fewer than twenty languages. In Babel, he sets out to explore these top twenty world languages, which range from the familiar (French, Spanish) to the surprising (Malay, Javanese, Bengali). Whisking readers along on a delightful journey, he traces how these languages rose to greatness while others fell away, and shows how speakers today handle the foibles of their mother tongues. Whether showcasing tongue-tying phonetics, elegant but complicated writing scripts, or mind-bending quirks of grammar, Babel vividly illustrates that mother tongues are like nations: each has its own customs and beliefs that seem as self-evident to those born into it as they are surprising to outsiders. Babel reveals why modern Turks can’t read books that are a mere 75 years old, what it means in practice for Russian and English to be relatives, and how Japanese developed separate “dialects” for men and women. Dorren also shares his experiences studying Vietnamese in Hanoi, debunks ten myths about Chinese characters, and discovers the region where Swahili became the lingua franca. Witty and utterly fascinating, Babel will change how you look at and listen to the world. “Word nerds of every strain will enjoy this wildly entertaining linguistic study.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Six thousand years. Sixty languages. One “brisk and breezy” whirlwind armchair tour of Europe “bulg[ing] with linguistic trivia” (The Wall Street Journal). Take a trip of the tongue across the continent in this fascinating, hilarious and highly edifying exploration of the many ways and whys of Euro-speaks—its idiosyncrasies, its histories, commonalities, and differences. Most European languages are descended from a single ancestor, a language not unlike Sanskrit known as Proto-Indo-European (or PIE for short), but the continent’s ever-changing borders and cultures have given rise to a linguistic and cultural diversity that is too often forgotten in discussions of Europe as a political entity. Lingo takes us into today’s remote mountain villages of Switzerland, where Romansh is still the lingua franca, to formerly Soviet Belarus, a country whose language was Russified by the Bolsheviks, to Sweden, where up until the 1960s polite speaking conventions required that one never use the word “you.” “In this bubbly linguistic endeavor, journalist and polyglot Dorren thoughtfully walks readers through the weird evolution of languages” (Publishers Weekly), and not just the usual suspects—French, German, Yiddish, irish, and Spanish, Here, too are the esoteric—Manx, Ossetian, Esperanto, Gagauz, and Sami, and that global headache called English. In its sixty bite-sized chapters, Dorret offers quirky and hilarious tidbits of illuminating facts, and also dispels long-held lingual misconceptions (no, Eskimos do not have 100 words for snow). Guaranteed to change the way you think about language, Lingo is a “lively and insightful . . . unique, page-turning book” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).

What makes a place so memorable that it survives forever in a word? In this captivating round-the-world tour, Paul Anthony Jones acts as your guide through the intriguing stories of how eighty places became immortalized in the English language. You’ll discover why the origins of turkeys, limericks, Brazil nuts, and Panama hats aren’t quite as straightforward as you might presume. If you’ve never heard of the tiny Czech mining town of Jáchymov—or Joachimsthal, as it was known until the late 1800s—you’re not alone, which makes its claim to fame as the origin of the word “dollar” all the more extraordinary. The story of how the Great Dane isn’t all that Danish makes the list, as does the Jordanian mountain whose name has become a byword for a tantalizing glimpse. We’ll also find out what the Philippines has given to your office inbox, what Alaska has given to your liquor cabinet, and how a speech given by a bumbling North Carolinian gave us a word for impenetrable nonsense. Surprising, entertaining, and illuminating, this is essential reading for armchair travelers and word nerds. Our dictionaries are full of hidden histories, tales, and adventures from all over the world—if you know where to look.