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.

Only A couple of decades ago, few could imagine that one of the most powerful countries in the world – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) – would collapse, and Russian – the most prestigious and predominant language of the Soviet people – would be overtaken by English, the language once considered ‘the language of Western imperialism’ (Dushku, 1998:372). Today, because of both its unique international role and the fall of the Iron Curtain, English has become the most popular foreign language taught in schools and other educational institutions in former Soviet republics. The present paper will focus on the teaching and learning of English in Uzbekistan – a Soviet republic until 1990. In addition, issues related to foreign-language curriculum innovations, to teacher training, and to teaching resources will be discussed.

This article will not try to describe the whole Wikimedia galaxy. It will stick to Wikipedia in English, and that's ambitious enough. The English-language Wikipedia, by far the biggest of them, now (28th November 2006) contains 1,506,659 articles. The German Wikipedia reached 500,000 articles on 23rd November (note in passing: the English Wikipedia has added that many articles to its total in just six months), while the French Wikipedia reached the 400,000 milestone on 27th November. The newest and smallest Wikipedia, number 250, is in the Lak language of Dagestan, in the Caucasus, with one article and 20 users.

One more statistical measure will show how much Wikipedia matters. People who Google already know that for a great many Google searches one or more Wikipedia entries will turn up high on the first page of the results. They don't all know that Wikipedia now comes eleventh in alexa.com's traffic ranking of world websites. For a strictly non-commercial site with relatively academic content, that is astonishing success; what's more, the trend is steadily upwards, though it will be hard to overtake the top four: yahoo.com, msn.com, google.com, and the highly popular Chinese search engine, baidu.com.

WE FACE the task of editing ET with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Trepidation because our editorial efforts will follow those of Tom McArthur who has been editor of English Today since its inception, and who has made such an immense contribution to scholarship in this field. Indeed, it is no small measure of Tom's stature and capabilities that it has been decided at least three new editors are required to take his place. We have large shoes to fill.

A further tale of language and education in New York City.

It was over 30 degrees centigrade on the 16th of June 2006, but hundreds of people from various backgrounds embraced the heat and patiently queued to enter the S. H. Ho Sports Hall at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Many had been waiting since early morning, because Professor Stephen Hawking – perhaps the best known and most influential living scientist – would be giving a lecture (‘The origin of the universe’) for the newly established Institute for Advanced Study. The IAS is dedicated to ‘the advancement of knowledge to meet the great challenges of the 21st century’, and will ‘bring together the world's most brilliant minds to drive cutting-edge discovery and scholarship for the betterment of mankind’ (IAS, 2006). The inaugural event was announced a month prior to the lecture and – despite its being broadcast live on both the TVB News Channel and Cable TV Live, as well as transmitted via an intranet relay to the seven other tertiary institutions in Hong Kong – the response for tickets was overwhelming.

A new utopian lexicography – online? Today, dictionary users are Web users: they imagine that a static paper text is necessarily less richly informative than a hyperlinked megatext. They expect to move among texts as interest and curiosity direct, not to be constrained by linear, editorially directed matter of the old-fashioned kind. The nodes of an infinite hyperlinked search may map a universe of small, classically organized texts, but those who travel the Web for information and ideas expect to click around on impulse. Further, they often expect to participate in the public construction of know-ledge, contributing and editing Web content whenever they feel competent to do so. They are hyper-Romantics who have conflated their imaginations and the scapes of human know-ledge into a hypertextual hyperuniverse. Future dictionaries of English should acknowledge these new user inclinations to the extent compatible with the highest lexicographical standards. These ideas are discussed further.

In traditional English lexicography, individual dictionary editors have had ultimate control over the selection, meaning, and illustration of words and extensive collaboration with contributors has been limited. However, Internet technologies that easily permit exchanges between a user and a database have allowed a new type of dictionary online: one that is built by the collaboration of contributing end-users, allowing users who are not trained lexicographers to engage in the actual making of dictionaries. We discuss here a popular online slang dictionary, UrbanDictionary.com (UD), to illustrate how traditional lexicographic principles are joined with Web-only communication technologies to provide a context for collaborative engagement and meaning-making, and to note the many characteristics and functions shared with traditional print dictionaries. Significantly, UD captures what most traditional English dictionaries fall short of: both recording ephemeral everyday spoken language and representing popular views of meaning. By relying on the users of language to select and define words for a dictionary, UD – which defines more than one million words – has in effect influenced both access to and formulation of the lexis.

Jesperson (1904:16–17) described phraseology as an ‘indispensable’ dimension of language competence, but in 1965 Chomsky banished idiomaticity to the fringes of linguistics, giving pride of place to syntax. It seems, however, that time has vindicated Jespersen's prioritizing of formulaic language. In recent years, the area of phraseology has evolved from its peripheral Chomskyan status to a fundamental role in language discussion, description, and acquisition that can be said to focus on ‘creative idiomaticity’.

THE ENGLISH curriculum in China – including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) – has traditionally been dominated by native-speaker (NS) based pedagogical models. This is a source of many problems, ranging from learning outcome to teaching performance, and from cultural inappropriacy to speaker identity. Research in World Englishes (WE), in English as a lingua franca (ELF) and an international language (EIL), and to a lesser extent in second-language acquisition (SLA) has shown that a curriculum informed by a deficit model (by measuring learner performance using the yardstick of native-speaker-based standards) is by its very nature disempowering, and should be replaced with a model of difference, whereby learners' L1 identities and ownership of English are both respected.

THIS STUDY investigates the extent to which English is used in shop signs and windows as part of the names of businesses and other premises, and of notes, advertisements, and slogans in the city of Veles, in Macedonia: a country in south-eastern Europe established in 1991, after the disintegration of Communist Yugoslavia. It is situated in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, and borders on Serbia, Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria. Macedonian, a Slavonic language, is its official tongue: the native language of around 66.5% of the population, while Albanian is native to approximately 22.9%. Other languages used in Macedonia are Turkish, Serbian, Romani, and Rumanian.

WITH ONLY a few exceptions, such as then and why, English adverbs are categorized as content words that express referential meanings in both the physical and abstract worlds. Like nouns and verbs, they belong to the ‘open’ class of lexemes, in which new words can be created through processes that include compounding, derivation, and borrowing. From compounding come adverbs such as hopefully (formed from the noun hope and the adjective full, plus the suffix -ly), and upstage (from the preposition up and the noun stage). By derivation, adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding -ly (as in economical-ly, sufficient-ly, and final-ly). As for borrowing from other languages, we have for example taken a range of expressions from Latin and used them as adverbs (as with ipso facto, ad nauseam, and ad infinitum).

Readers of ET may recall two papers, the first by the late Sidney Greenbaum (‘ICE: the International Corpus of English,’ ET7, 1991, 3–7), the second and by Akiva Quinn & Nick Porter (‘Investigating English Usage with ICECUP’, ET10, 1994, pp. 21–24) which introduced the International Corpus of English (ICE) and its search facility ICECUP (the ICE Corpus Utility Programme). The present paper has a two-fold aim: to (re-)acquaint readers with ICE and discuss the latest developments in ICECUP – including its recent release on CD-ROM. The International Corpus of English was initiated by Sidney Greenbaum, whose aim was to set up a number of identically constructed corpora (for the purpose of grammar research) in the world's various English-speaking countries.

A report on a survey of seven multinational companies in Germany. Since the 1990s, there has been a dramatic change in the structure of many large European companies. While previously many were ‘particularly solidly established in their countries of origin’ (Truchot 2002:14), they have now become multinational and are less identifiable with a particular country. A case in point is DaimlerChrysler, formed in 1998 through the merger of Daimler-Benz (a German manufacturer of motor vehicles) and the Chrysler Corporation (a US automobile manufacturer). A side effect of the rise of such corporations has been that English has become a key language of international business. This has certainly been true for DaimlerChysler, which has given English official status in the company

Some observations on what words associated with Islam are in, and what might yet go into, current ELT dictionaries. Muslims constitute a vast number of speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL) and a Foreign Language (EFL). As a consequence, many expressions associated with Islam have been introduced into contemporary English and its dictionaries – both general and ESL/EFL. The present paper focuses on three particular works: the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE, 2003), the Macmillan English Dictionary (MED, 2002) and The New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE, 1998), in order to discuss how Islamic terms are being used. It was found that few phrases or sentences are provided to illustrate such terms – even those in common use among English-speaking Muslims. The present paper therefore (1) suggests sample sentences for these terms, so that users of such dictionaries can set them in context, and (2) offers a list of common Islamic words for possible inclusion in future editions.

Life among the language bugs. Further tales from New York City.

Some observations on using motion pictures to teach Business English. THE USE of motion pictures or other captioned films as part of teaching English as a foreign language has markedly increased in recent years in China. Because of this, we undertook a four-year experiment to determine how effective the use of English-language movies has been in the teaching of business. From this experiment it became clear that a cavalier use of movies in effect misused them. The appropriate and effective use of motion pictures requires a range of elements: (1) movies that are at one and the same time educational, informative, and entertaining; (2) a workbook linked to such movies that enables students to get ready beforehand; (3) most importantly, a range of classroom activities to induce and elicit timely and optimal output from the students, so as to make talking and writing about communication easier and more effective. Activities such as dubbing, story retelling, acting, discussing, debating, and role playing are only a few of the effective techniques a teacher can employ to engage the students.

Italians' zeal for lacing their language with English words is well-known and on-going. Both everyday conversation and the mass media make widespread use of English terms and expressions, but their unphonetic spelling and pronunciation – full of insidious traps round every syllable – can create misunderstanding, confusion, and much humour, because Italians often tend to pronounce these international imports as they are written, much as they do in their mother tongue: either that, or they over-generalize the rules they they've learnt. A TV programme may be interrupted to announce a news flash that however comes out meatier, as ‘news flesh’. When giving business news, the phrase fiscal drag (whatever that may mean) becomes a truly obfuscating ‘fiscal drug’. And fashion news informs us of an exclusive ‘pullover’ by Missoni, whose stress shift unfortunately turns it into an order (from policeman to motorist): ‘pull over’.