The agony and the ecstasy of editing a professional English-language journal.

The history and nature of Sanskrit and its complex relationship with English in present-day India

‘One day last month Linda Hiwot, a Brooklyn junior high school teacher, got a surprise when she phoned her bank for a credit-card balance. Instead of the familiar human teller, she was answered by a computer-generated voice that told all callers with Touch-Tone phones to “press I now”, thus beginning a series of steps that would eventually lead to her balance. When she called the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] about an overdue tax check, another computer voice directed her to “push 9” for refunds. Even a local department store had acquired a robot operator, which like an overeager clerk insisted on taking Hiwot on a guided tour of the entire store (“For furniture, home decorating or major appliances, push 3”). Desperate for human contact, she finally dialed a friend, only to be invited to leave a message at the sound of a tone’ (Philip Elmer-De-Witt, ‘Hello! This is Voice Mail Speaking’, Time 22 May 89).

An interim report on the influence of the Maori language on English

Do Ghanaians have, or even want, a distinctive ‘Ghanaian English’?

Following on from Robert J. Baumgardner's article on English in Pakistan in ET21, a consideration of the nature of Pakistani English vocabulary

To follow Philip Benson's account of Malaysian English in ET24, a review of the position of English in what was once the Dutch East Indies.

Two further comments on Thomas Clayton’s Real and unreal teachers in ET23 (Jul 90), from Man-Siu Yau in Hong Kong and Barbara Weissmann in Macau.

In ET12 (Oct 87), John Dougill described kinds of decorative but usually meaningless bits of English on Japanese commercial products. Now, MARK N. BROCK, in Hong Kong, indicates that ‘ornamental English’ has become widespread in East Asia.