This issue of ET covers a typically wide geographical area, with papers dealing with English in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Julia Schultz shows that the influence of French on English is not just a matter of history, with the well-known effects of the Norman Conquest and Renaissance changing the vocabulary of a once Germanic language to a Germanic and Romance hybrid.Footnote * An analysis of the OED Online shows that borrowings from French remained at a high level in the twentieth century, particularly in specialised and learned domains and what may be termed ‘high culture’. Ross Smith, a regular contributor to ET, leads us into the world of language and business from his head office in Madrid, more specifically the frantic world of translating to the tightest of schedules and deadlines. His advice about balancing the conflicting demands of professional translation quality and the turnover time given by clients will be valuable to applied linguists entering this field. Eun-Young Julia Kim reports on the contribution of English to Korean vocabulary. She reports not only on the kinds of semantic shift and code-mixing that are familiar in new varieties of English, but lesser known features like the use of creative compounding and clipping. Jinhyun Cho examines the sociological and educational dimensions of the increasing use of English as a medium of higher education in Korea, arguing that students and many lecturers are ill-equipped for this change. She questions the benefits of using an essentially foreign language in local higher education.

Massrura Mostafa and Marium Jamila examine the role played by loanwords from English into Bangla, the language of Bangladesh. Rather like the Korean case, English can be shown to have contributed immensely to the vocabulary of Bangla in specific spheres. The global spread of English covers the polar areas of science and technology as well as fashion and entertainment. In an interesting twist the authors ask not just whether this lexical swamping is good for Bangla, but whether it is any good for English in Bangladesh, given that many people learning English naturally assume that the nativised Bangla form of the English word is the correct one. Maather Al-Rawi describes the influence of Arabic on the syntax of English in Saudi Arabia, in respect of the variable absence of the auxiliary and copular verb be, the indefinite article and verbal inflection –s and the insertion of the definite article. She is able to demonstrate Arabic influence on all of these developments, except for the absence of –s endings on verbs.

Four articles from Africa follow. Eric Anchimbe details the use of stereotyping via language in multiethnic Cameroon. The author gives extensive examples of derogatory nomenclature across the Anglophone-Francophone divide and across regional and linguistic groupings, arguing that this goes beyond stereotype into the realm of insult and victimisation. Although his conclusions are gloomy for ethnic and societal relations, the familiar adage regarding words, sticks, stones and bones may offer some consolation. Dare Owolabi describes how certain suffixes like -able enjoy an extended life in Nigerian English, which provides fertile ground for neologisms in its more popular forms. Grace Adamo presents tantalising data on young urban bilingual switching between Yoruba and English in Nigeria, posing the question that educationalists must ask, namely ‘What are the implications of code-switching and mixing for the future of African languages?’ The links to the Bangladesh dilemmas are patently clear. Quentin Williams also focuses on code-switching, this time in rap performances of young people in Cape Town who are able to draw on Afrikaans and English as ludic resources. English is shown to have an ambiguous role as language of status vis-à-vis the more community-oriented Afrikaans. We conclude the issue with two short contributions. Jan Blommaert, the well-known scholar of language globalisation, writes a column for ET on ‘lookalike language’ in Asia, or what Tom McArthur used to characterise as ‘English as a decorative language’; and Daniel Huber contributes a short reply to Michael Bulley's recent contribution (ET 109) ‘Why no mips?’