This chapter deals with the process of standardisation as reflected in four major Caribbean dictionaries: the Dictionary of Jamaican English (1967, 1980), the Dictionary of Bahamian English (1980), the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (1996, 2003), the Dictionary of Creole/English of Trinidad and Tobago (2009), and a supplement to the DCEU, the New Register of Caribbean English Usage. In the first part of the chapter, the process of standardisation is discussed and Caribbean English (CE) is defined. The material in each dictionary is analysed with relevant examples reflecting the nature of CE. The fact that the term 'Caribbean English' is confined to the Commonwealth Caribbean in these works is noted, and the reasons that a Dutch island like Saba is mainly English-speaking are provided. Mention is made of the new Dictionary of Saban English, A Lee Chip (2016), and of its main objective as a reference work. The author concludes that all the dictionaries discussed are standardising agents, but that to carry out their role more effectively, they need to be seriously studied and fully incorporated into the Caribbean education system in general.

The English language has been present in South Africa since the end of the eighteenth century. Although regional varieties were established as part of the nineteenth-century development of South African English (SAfE) as its own variety, the general consensus has been that since the mid-twentieth century the ancestral ‘settler’ variety of SAfE has shown a high degree of regional homogeneity and only a limited set of regionalisms. This chapter investigates more recent developments in this regard, drawing on an acoustic analysis of data from upper-middle class male and female speakers of General SAfE from the three largest urban conurbations of South Africa: Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The focus is on vowel quality and the results include (1) greater centralization of KIN in Durban (2) a Cape Town-centered process of TRAP and DRESS lowering accompanied by STRUT backing (the so-called Reverse Short Front Vowel Shift in SAfE) (3) clearly diphthongal variants of PRICE in Johannesburg and Cape Town in comparison to Durban and (4) backed and lowered variants of GOAT in Johannesburg and Durban as compared to Cape Town. Overall the results suggest a growing degree of regional differentiation in South African English.