The current spread of English across the globe is, as Schneider states (2009: 1), ‘one of the most remarkable, and perhaps unexpected, sociocultural changes of the modern period’. This author states the wish for ‘a single, universal language which would allow all of mankind to communicate with each other directly, but all attempts at constructing such a code artificially have failed in practice. Now, it seems, one has emerged quite naturally’ (Schneider, 2009: 1). On the other hand, other authors (Anderman & Rogers, 2005: 2) report that the emergence of global English has created a homogenised form of communication, and it has made ‘mother tongue speakers fear that, in the process of becoming common property, their native tongue is turning into a “hybrid” language sometimes referred to as Eurospeak within the European Union and more broadly as “McLanguage”' (Anderman & Rogers, 2005: 2). There are, therefore, controversial viewpoints in Europe as regards the spread of English as the lingua franca or global language.

Are contractions like don't and it's typical of ‘modern’ English? To what extent were they present in early modern English? This paper endeavours to answer these questions. However, it also sets out to answer another one: early modern English had a set of contractions of its own, and the question is why they disappeared and whether they are still in any way relevant to contemporary English.

This paper assesses efforts being made to promote and expose a Cameroonian local language, Kamtok, to the global, intellectual community and to integrate and promote a global language in the Cameroonian context. Kamtok carries the ecology, culture and identity of Cameroon, besides being one of the most widely spoken languages in the country. The global language which is the focus of this discourse is English, considering that its use is no longer restricted to any particular country. The language, like other colonial linguistic legacies, was transported through colonialism and transplanted in different parts of the world, including Cameroon, and is now serving communication needs beyond the frontiers of its original seat. It is therefore claimed in this paper that Kamtok, like many Cameroonian indigenous languages, is relegated to the background and hidden from the global community, paradoxically because it carries the ecology and identity of Cameroon, and English, like other global languages, is being localized and promoted in the Cameroonian context with every iota of passion and vigour. This type of tendency is predictably rooted in the colonial history or in what Bokamba (2007: 41) calls a ‘ukolonia’ tendency whereby the colonised people were indoctrinated to believe that everything of theirs, including their indigenous languages and culture, was inferior and barbaric. Interestingly, English in Cameroon, unlike Kamtok, has an official recognition and is one of the official languages used for state transactions; it is taught in most, if not all, Cameroonian schools and the variety spoken in Britain is most often the classroom target, though this is done with little or no success; it has been the focus of many research works carried out by local researchers; and its vigorous promotion has even led to the banning of an important Cameroonian language, as shall be discussed later. Kamtok, on the other hand, has witnessed, and is still witnessing, many turbulent moments, such as the open and official banning of its use in some public circles, the complete absence of educational and political efforts to promote it, lack of standardisation, misrepresentation of its developmental status by both scholars and laypeople, and lack of scholarly interest from local researchers.

Language change is inevitable. If it wasn't, English learners would all be trying to sound like King Alfred. There is never a period of stability in language and the only languages which have reached a kind of equilibrium are those like Latin where are there are no longer any native speakers. The pressure for change on English is particularly high because of its global status and the diversity of contexts in which it operates. In 2006 David Graddol (p. 101) stated that in 2010 two billion people would be learning English. The size of the figures involved makes it impossible to verify whether this prediction was accurate but Graddol's most recent publication (2010: 68) states that up to 350 million people may speak English in India alone. Obviously, most of these English users around the world speak it as a second language. Consequently, any discussion of change in modern English must take into account the input of those who have had to learn English. The purpose of this article is to present examples of learner language which demonstrate principles and mechanisms of language change through the much-discussed phenomenon of language play.

We are into the second decade of the twenty-first century, but grammarians still fail to distinguish properly between some and any (and their compounds – something/anything, etc.). This may in itself seem a small matter. But it is symptomatic of flaws in the academic study of language.

Gil (2010) argues that Australia needs to develop proficiency in Asian languages and cultures in order to ‘pursue its interests’ (p. 54) in the region. One of the reasons is that although English is widely studied in Asia few speakers achieve proficiency. However this view is contrary to the way the status of English is perceived in at least one Asian society that will be discussed here, Japan.

The position of ‘E’, for English, has always been at the forefront of all the acronyms of language learning and descriptions of world trends in English language teaching and acquisition, EFL, ESL, ELT, ESP, EIL, ELF, or second only to ‘T’ for teaching, TEFL and TESOL. We have become so used to seeing the letter ‘E’ out there in front, the Theme rather than the Rheme, that we do not even seem to question that position anymore. Despite developments in the study of World Englishes (Kachru, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2005; Jenkins, 2003; Bolton, 2005, 2006; Canagarajah, 2006, 2007, 2009) and a supposedly secondary role for so-called Native English and the Native English speaker, we continue to place the ‘E’ at the front, as though we have no option but to accept its primacy in every concept. If we always place ‘E’ at the beginning though, as the defining Theme, surely we are giving both it and its origin England a leading role in all conceptual beginnings. The Theme after all is always the principal actor, the familiar, whilst the Rheme is the unfamiliar and undefined object (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), but what English is now, in its global context, is exactly that, the unfamiliar and undefined object. In the following article I will argue for a rethinking of our terminology, particularly regarding the use of the acronym ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), and how perhaps we should be thinking more carefully about our choice of acronyms in order to be more precise about our approach to the study of English in the changing world.

As regular readers of English Today would probably be aware, in the early years of the 21st Century, when applied linguists discuss the world-wide significance of the most widely learned and used language, it is not always enough to simply refer to it as ‘English’ or ‘the English language’. On the contrary, it has become almost de rigueur to collocate the word ‘English’ with ‘world’, ‘international’ or ‘global’. Thus, we have the six commonly used expressions set out in Table 1. At the risk of adding further to the crowded landscape of abbreviations in applied linguistics, I will refer to these as ‘CEWIGs’ (Collocations of ‘English’ with ‘world’, ‘international’ and ‘global’).

China's rapid development and growing engagement with the rest of the world have prompted much discussion and debate about the Chinese language, especially its prospects for becoming a global language. A report in China Daily (2004), for example, suggests that: