On the occasion of the 100th issue of English Today, scholars from around the world were invited to send their thoughts. Excerpts from messages received up to September 6th, 2009 are presented here.

This survey includes studies published mainly—but not exclusively—during the 1990s and focuses on literature that brings to the debate on world Englishes theoretical, conceptual, descriptive, ideological, and power-related concerns. The concept “world Englishes”—its genesis and its theoretical, contextual, and pedagogical implications and appropriateness—has been discussed during the past two decades in several programmatic studies and conference presentations (see B. Kachru 1994a). The concept, though not necessarily the term “world Englishes,” gradually evolved during the post-colonial period after the 1960s. It refers to the recognition of a unique linguistic phenomenon, and particularly to the changing contexts of the post-1940s. It was during this period that post-Imperial Englishes were being gradually institutionalized in the language policies of the changed political, educational, and ideological contexts of what were earlier the colonies of the UK and the USA. The earlier tradition of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic acquisition of English, its teaching, and its transformations were being reevaluated by some researchers. The major concerns of this reevaluation include the implications of pluricentricity (Clyne 1992), the new and emerging norms of performance, and the acceptance of the bilingual's creativity as a manifestation of the contextual and formal hybridity of Englishes. In other words, a critical evaluation of earlier paradigms was slowly initiated.

This survey is primarily an update of the review published in ARAL I, (Kaplan 1981:2-24). The research on various aspects of bilingualism during the last five years shows three main characteristics. First, there is questioning of some basic concepts which are still considered, as it were, sacrosanct by researchers for the description and analysis of bilingualism--individual and societal--and for actual fieldwork (cf., section 2 below). In such questioning--however mute at present--several theoretical and methodological sacred cows are under attack. Second, one notices a shift in the areas of research towards experimentation, with more precise methodology and techniques, to answer questions concerning the bilingual's brain (cf., sections 5 and 6). Third, there are insightful breakthroughs in crosscultural and cross-linguistic research with serious applied orientation (cf., sections 10 and 11) and, equally important, there is concern for a social commitment in such research. True, in this intense research activity there are very few questions asked which may be considered as breaking new ground. However, the newness lies in the answers which are provided to old questions. In these answers, we notice many fresh insights gained through a wealth of cross-cultural data, through the results obtained from longitudinal studies (e.g., Hakuta and Diaz in press, Rosier and Holm 1980), through the experiments conducted with highly refined and sophisticated tools and techniques of data collection and data analysis, and through increasing understanding of the bilinguals' and monolinguals' neuropsychological processes.

The area of bilingualism is essentially interdisciplinary; therefore, it has been studied from linguistic, educational, psychological, and sociological perspective. In defining the term various classificatory, normative, and methological criteria have been used (see, e. g., Beziers and Van Overbeke 1968:112–131; Haugen 1953; Weinerich 1953), and no one defintion of the term is generally accepted. Bloomfield (1933:56) defines bilingualism as “native–like control of two languages” ––a very high goal indeed. For Haugen (1953:6) a bilingual produces “complete and meaningful utterances in other languages.” Weinreich (1953:1) considers bilingualism “the practice of alternately using two languages.”

The term bilinguals' creativity is used here to refer to those creative linguistic processes which are the result of competence in two or more languages. The term is not interpreted in the sense of acquisitional inadequacies of the bilinguals in a particular language, as has generally been done in describing the linguistic behavior of the bilinguals' use of “non-native” languages. The concept creativity applies both to an individual bilingual and to a bilingual speech community (or a speech fellowship). The bilinguals' creativity entails two things: first, the designing of a text which uses linguistic resources from two or more—related or unrelated—languages; second, the use of verbal strategies in which subtle linguistic adjustments are made for psychological, sociological, and attitudinal reasons. Examples of such creativity may be drawn from non-native literatures written in English or French, or the code-mixed varieties of languages (see section 2 below).

In the political divisions within South Asia there has traditionally been no organized effort for language policies.1 Language was essentially related to one's caste, village, district, and state. Beyond this, one identified with languages associated with religion (Sanskrit or Arabic), or learned and literary texts (mainly Sanskrit and Persian). At the time of Indian independence (1947), one task of the new government was to unravel the status and position of almost 560 sovereign states which were ruled by an array of mahārājās, nawābs, and lesser luminaries, depending on the size and the revenue of each state and subdivision. Each state state was a kindgom unto itself, and such political divisions did not foster a national language policy. In India, the largest country in South Asia, four languages were used for wider communication as bazār languages or languages of literature and intranational communication: Hindi (and its varieties, Hindustani and Urdu), Sanskrit, Persian, and later, English (cf., for Sanskrit, Kachru and Sridhar 1978; Sharma 1976; for English, Kachru 1969; 1982a). The Hindus tended to send their children to a pāṭhśālā (traditional Hindu school mainly for scriptural education) for the study of the scriptures and some basic knowledge of the śāastras (Sanskrit instructional texts, treatise), and the Muslims tended to send their children to a maktab (traditional school for Koranic instruction). The denominational schools (vidyāZaya) provided liberal arts instruction in Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, or in the regional languages.

The 1970s have ushered in a new phase in approaches to language planning; the preference for a less provocative term such as language policy is indicative of this. There is now a decline in the use of terms such as language planning and language engineering: this is as it should be. For almost tow decades, language planning was presented as a cure-all for culturally and lingustically pluralistic societies in the developing Asian, African, and other non-Western countries. The term was overused, and its applications exaggerated. But this enthusiasm was not shared by all; serious practitioners were conscious of the limitations of the claims and the complexities of the task. This changed attitude has naturally contributed to a reassessment and re-evaluation of these earlier claims. There is now a much better understanding of the linguistic, political, sociological, and attitudinal constraints on language policy formation. The availability of greater cross-linguistic empirical data makes comparative observations more meaningful. As a consequence, the term language planning is now used with caution, with restricted generalization, and with an appreciation of the complexity of each situation. It has rightly been recognized that the task is more complex than linguists can handle within the traditionally conceived boundaries of their discipline, for example, in the work of the venerable Einar Haugen, or more recently, in the work of Charles Ferguson, Joshua Fishman, and others.