This chapter focuses on varieties of English around the world and English as a world language. As a consequence of the expansion of English-speaking people across the globe, countless English varieties have sprung up: pidgins (such as Nigerian Pidgin English), creoles (Jamaican Creole English), new dialects (Australian English), varieties of English as second language (ESL; Indian English), and various in-between forms. World Englishes can be grouped into three concentric circles: an Inner Circle—countries where English has historical continuity (the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.), the Outer Circle—where English is important for historical reasons and where it is spoken mostly as a second language (India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya, Singapore, etc.), and the Expanding Circle—comprising those countries where English plays no historical role but where it is widely used as a foreign language. Finally, there are numerous second-language varieties that constitute products of language contact in their own right (e.g., the “New Englishes,” spoken and used as stable national forms in many countries, notably in Asia and Africa, with distinctive properties and functions).