The Handbook of World Englishes, 2nd Edition

42The Karmic Cycle of World Englishes: Some Futuristic Constructs

YAMUNA KACHRU AND LARRY E. SMITH

1 Introduction

The late Charles Ferguson, the distinguished socially committed linguist, observed in 1982:

We cannot know what the future will bring. At some point the spread of English may be halted, and some other language may spread to take its place….But for the present the spread of English continues, with no sign of diminishing (although the use may contract in some areas), and two trends are gaining strength. English is less and less regarded as a European language, and its development is less and less determined by the usage of its native speakers.

(Ferguson 1982: ix‐x; emphasis added)

What Ferguson said a quarter of a century ago is still true. The functions of world Englishes are expanding; simultaneously, the domains of use of other contenders or languages of wider communication seem to be shrinking. This is especially true of such languages of wider communication as French and Spanish in Africa and Southeast Asia, if we look at the favored language choice for a range of domains in these regions. The same is true of other languages, such as German, in certain domains in Europe. As far as various other languages of wider communication are concerned (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi‐Urdu), they are as yet providing no serious challenge to world Englishes even though they are no doubt spreading beyond their borders. Let us look at one candidate out of the three mentioned ...