Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru Cecil L. Nelson (eds. The handbook of World Englishes (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics) Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Pp. xix+811.
Any editor assembling a book, however large, on World Englishes has to accept compromises. To do justice to the practical, theoretical, literary and pedagogic aspects of the varieties of English in even one country might well require 800 pages. To do justice to the multiplicity of Englishes throughout the world would require the entire Blackwell series in which The handbook of World Englishes is one volume. Even then, the task would always remain unfinished, partial, because changes even extremely significant changes can occur both unexpectedly and with incredible speed. Let me illustrate this point by referring briefly to Northern Ireland. Until the year 2004, a comprehensive description of Northern Ireland English would have shown a conservative, religiously divided society employing a continuum of interinfluencing varieties, including Hiberno English, Anglo Irish and Ulster Scots. Three years on, and even a small town in rural Tyrone is also home to people speaking eighteen different languages, not counting mother tongue or acquired English. Who would have predicted such a seismic shift in such a short time, and how does a brief linguistic study even begin to describe the range and domains in which such new varieties emerge and evolve? Many people thinking of buying the book under review will probably wonder how it compares with Kortmann Schneider's A handbook of varieties of English (2004) A quick answer is that the two publications are, in many ways, both very different and yet complementary. The Kachru et al. volume, in spite of its title, is not an encyclopedia of World Englishes. Nor is it a volume of structural descriptions of individual Englishes. It is a collection of forty two thematically arranged chapters on theoretical aspects of the spread of the English language throughout the world. Many of the chapters are models of clarity but some of them are not for the uninitiated. They rely on a familiarity with currently available descriptions of individual varieties. For people who already own Kortmann Schneider (2004) and have approximately PS100 to spare, the Kachru volume is an ideal follow up. Most undergraduates, however, will probably prefer the encyclopedic nature of A handbook of varieties of English with its comprehensive coverage and its invaluable CD ROM. The handbook of World Englishes has an interesting and unusual design. Its chapters are presented in nine 'parts which vary considerably in size from two chapters, approximately 32 pages, to fifteen chapters, taking up over 250 J O U R N A L O F L I N G U I S T I C S
Journal of Linguistics