Not long ago, I came across Tore Janson's A Natural History of Latin: The story of the world's most successful language (2004) – and I thought: ‘That's an odd claim.’ Then four things came to mind: the Roman Empire, which lasted for centuries; the Roman Catholic church, which has lasted longer; Latin as Europe's international language, and the Romance language family (‘Latin’ under other names). In the later twentieth century, the teaching of Latin itself fell on hard times, which for me – a teacher of the language some decades ago – is a matter of regret. It was a pleasure therefore to encounter Janson's book, which (mirabile dictu) came out first in Swedish then in English.

In 1986, I was interviewed by a long-standing colleague and friend, Arnold Pitt, for the British journal The Esperanto Teacher. As editor of that periodical he referred to the journal I had recently begun to edit, English Today, as ‘the other ET’. His interview questions began with English worldwide, and ended with his key concern, Esperanto as a (or the) world’s auxiliary language. I have always had a strong fellow feeling for ‘Esperantism’. Many artificial languages have been ‘manufactured’ for commendable philanthropic reasons, but only Esperanto has had any kind of impact on the world, and, to my mind, it is admirable in its cosmopolitanism. That said, however, my views on the pre-eminence for good and/or ill of English and, sadly, the limited prospects of Esperanto have not changed in the twenty years since that interview. The interview is therefore reprinted here with some further reflections [in square brackets]. Comments are welcomed.

The difference over twenty years, in the making of ET since 1985, includes the vanishing away of paper files. In a cabinet beside my desk I have A–Z files for the many people who literally ‘wrote’ – that is, typed – to me on paper. I almost never consult any of those files now, and don’t remember when I last added a sheet to them. Instead, of course, I check my email, which piles up electronically in non-real space somewhere inside this machine in front of me. And, though I strive to keep my records straight, I seldom check back very far or go into e-files of old e-mails. And, most days, whether in Cambridge or in Hong Kong, I read daily e-abstracts from my much-prized Edinburgh newspaper, The Scotsman, and don't recall when I last saw, leave alone bought and read, a conventional paper edition of it.

there are, as it were, three levels in the title of the discussion, each going further ‘out’ from hong kong, although the direction and perspective could as easily have been reversed, moving ‘inwards’ from the world to china to hong kong, one of history's most successful social, cultural, political, and economic anomalies. there could equally easily have been four levels: hong kong, china, asia, and the world, a framework that would even then have been simpler than, say, ‘london, england, the united kingdom, the european union, europe at large, and the world’, but much the same as ‘lagos, nigeria, africa, and the world’ or ‘los angeles, california, the united states, and the world’.

the april 2005 issue, et82, was hardly out when i began to think i'd been premature in what i wrote in its comment. i noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. the reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).

The April 2005 issue, ET82, was hardly out when I began to think I'd been premature in what I wrote in its Comment. I noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. The reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).

An adapted and extended version of ‘The Big Three’, a paper presented to the Kongres Bahasa Utama Dunia (‘Congress of the World's Major Languages’), organized in October 2004 by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (‘Institute of Language and Literature’), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Dewan, established in 1956, is committed to both linguistic and literary planning with regard to Bahasa Malaysia (Malay as used in Malaysia) and the recognition of Malay as a major Asian and world language.

Sometimes, less can be more. In ET's twenty years of publication, this issue has the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more. It also has the usual number of pages (sixty-four), which means that some or all of the articles are way beyond our long-established norm. Yet at some point this had to happen.

Reflections on the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary and its mother book, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

In recent times ET has received many articles on English in China, and published as many as feasible, but the sheer volume has led to a strangely serious question: How many such articles can we publish without ET becoming English in China Today? Inevitably, therefore, we have been publishing only some of the publishable submissions received. It is therefore ironic to bring out the cover article for this issue, whose subject matter looks Chinese but is about something happening to English outside China. The article is not about English in China or Chinese in a world dominated by English, but describes the work of a Chinese artist in effect playing Sinocentric games with the global language.

THE WORLD-RENOWNED Oxford lexicographer Robert William Burchfield is a hero of mine who, to my great good fortune, became first a colleague then a friend, as he also was to ET.

A consideration of the place of, and options for, explicitly teaching grammar to learners of English as an international language. A development of the opening address given at a conference on the teaching of grammar at the Regional Language Centre (RELC) in Singapore in November 2003. The key issue of the conference was whether the English-language skills of Singaporean school leavers would be improved through a revival of explicit and formal grammar teaching in the Lion City's 21st-century classrooms. The paper addresses this issue in both current and historical terms, going back indeed, at the end, to the beginnings of Western-style grammar teaching among the Greeks. While doing this, however, it also considers the nature and role of what the Singaporean government takes to be the proper target for its future citizens: speaking and writing an internationally acceptable English.

For most of us languages aren't all that easy to use, or learn – whether we have been born into one or several languages, or have to learn one or more ‘alien’ languages, with alien writing systems. This may just be part of the general hurly-burly of life, and is certainly the usual way of things in, say, India, Nigeria and the Philippines, or it may happen in the comparative calm of classroom and library (nowadays widely regarded as the ‘proper’ way to learn languages, even if it is not always the most effective). The first of these is, as it were, the ‘marketplace’ tradition (learning as you go), the second the ‘monastery’ tradition (classrooms, timetables, exams, and accreditation).

This review explores the histories and meanings of, and similarities and contrasts among, three labels for English at large: world English, international English, and global English, first as phrases containing the words world, international, and global, then in terms of their history and use, and how a range of dictionaries has dealt (or failed to deal) with them. The first has been used to mean both standard English and all English; the second refers to the multinational use of English (notably in language teaching); and the third both implies vast use and links the language (often negatively) with socio-economic globalization. Since all three are likely to go on being used, they may need to be handled with care.

In 1995, Ballantine Books published in New York a book by Benjamin R. Barber. Its title was Jihad vs. McWorld, a phrase that would not have made much (any?) sense in 1895, or been easily unpacked even in 1975. It is often in word capsules like these that we see how much a language can change in a century, so as to put Arabic jihad alongside Latin versus while attaching Gaelic Mc (courtesy US fast food) to world, the only bit of original Anglo-Saxon. Barber also provided the subtitle ‘How globalism and tribalism are reshaping the world’, and it is the use of globalism that particularly interests me here. 1995 was a key year for globalization as a label for the worldwide spread of Western and especially US notions and practices relating to trade and technology. On page 23 of his book, Barber says:

1. [bull ] ‘Welcome to McWorld. There is no activity more intrinsically globalizing than trade, no ideology less interested in nations than capitalism, no challenge to frontiers more audacious than the market.’