Key Features:
A fascinating survey of English both as a pre-eminent world language in its standard British and American forms and as an increasingly divergent language
- Organized by region into six geo-political categories: global English; Europe; the Americas; Africa; Asia; Australasia, Oceania, and Antarctica
- Languages covered include: UK dialects such as Cockney, Brummie, Ulster Scots, Manx English; Spanglish; Creole English; Jewish English (Yinglish); Blue-eyed English; Chicano English; Maori English; Bearer English
- A typical major entry describes the language situation in a territory, points of pronunciation, grammar, borrowings and loans to English at large, and human-interest information within the text or in panels
- Panel features on certain languages include such items as sample conversations, songs, newspaper material, and shop and road signs, and there is a map for each section
Description:
The Oxford Guide to World English takes up where its 'mother book', the Oxford Companion to the English Language, left off. Tom McArthur covers the world's many varieties of English in an interconnected way and notes the ties that bind varieties and regions that are geographically far apart. The end result is a book that, while invaluable to the specialist, is accessible and appealing to the non-specialist, and covers a vast spread of 'Englishes' from Brummie, Cockney, Estuary, and RP in the UK to New York and New Orleans speech in the US and such other varieties as Indian English, Maori English, and West African Pidgin. This hugely comprehensive work provides a fascinating and novel survey of English as both a pre-eminent 'standard' world language and a family of vigorously diverse regional varieties.
PREVIOUS EDITION: 0198662483
Competition:
English as a Global Language by David Crystal. Published 1998 £9.95. Publisher: CUP. Comments: Much less detailed than ours, more of a treatise on world English, its future, and why it is a leading world language
A fascinating survey of English both as a pre-eminent world language in its standard British and American forms and as an increasingly divergent language
- Organized by region into six geo-political categories: global English; Europe; the Americas; Africa; Asia; Australasia, Oceania, and Antarctica
- Languages covered include: UK dialects such as Cockney, Brummie, Ulster Scots, Manx English; Spanglish; Creole English; Jewish English (Yinglish); Blue-eyed English; Chicano English; Maori English; Bearer English
- A typical major entry describes the language situation in a territory, points of pronunciation, grammar, borrowings and loans to English at large, and human-interest information within the text or in panels
- Panel features on certain languages include such items as sample conversations, songs, newspaper material, and shop and road signs, and there is a map for each section
Description:
The Oxford Guide to World English takes up where its 'mother book', the Oxford Companion to the English Language, left off. Tom McArthur covers the world's many varieties of English in an interconnected way and notes the ties that bind varieties and regions that are geographically far apart. The end result is a book that, while invaluable to the specialist, is accessible and appealing to the non-specialist, and covers a vast spread of 'Englishes' from Brummie, Cockney, Estuary, and RP in the UK to New York and New Orleans speech in the US and such other varieties as Indian English, Maori English, and West African Pidgin. This hugely comprehensive work provides a fascinating and novel survey of English as both a pre-eminent 'standard' world language and a family of vigorously diverse regional varieties.
PREVIOUS EDITION: 0198662483
Competition:
English as a Global Language by David Crystal. Published 1998 £9.95. Publisher: CUP. Comments: Much less detailed than ours, more of a treatise on world English, its future, and why it is a leading world language