This second edition of The Handbook of World Englishes has come to be published in the face of more than the ordinary obstacles and frustrations that affect the progress of any such large work. Three professional and personal losses marred what should have been an exciting and ordinarily straightforward project. Originally, the three editors of the first edition had intended to produce the invited second one, and an indefatigable colleague, Larry Smith, was brought on board as a fourth editor. But beginning in the Spring of 2013, the three senior editors passed away, one after the other. The present editors acknowledge, with deepest admiration, respect, and regret, the contributions of Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and Larry E. Smith to this volume as it now stands, and to the field of World Englishes overall.
The 42 chapters in this edition of The Handbook now fall into several categories as to their provenance. The majority, 31 chapters, are from the first edition; most of these have been revised by their authors. Some authors have passed away since the publication of the first edition or were otherwise unable to undertake revisions. Nine chapters were commissioned as new contributions. And two are here reprinted from the journal World Englishes.
The basic issues outlined and commented on in the preface to the first edition are still being dealt with in the field: “capturing the expanding fusions and hybridizations of linguistic forms and the … variations in global functions of world Englishes,” as well as “the cross‐cultural linguistic and literary creativity, language change and convergence, and [issues concerning] education, especially in Asian and African countries” (xvii). More than three decades after the appearance of the edited volumes by Larry E. Smith (1981) and Braj B. Kachru (1982), and over a decade after the publication of the first edition of The Handbook, these broad areas of inquiry are still being explicated in publications and in presentations at international conferences.
Likewise, the acknowledgements noted in the original Preface still hold, with necessary changes having been made. We thank the contributors, without whose efforts this volume could not have come about, and express our personal appreciation for their patience over what became an unusually long wait between their submissions and publication. Professor Kingsley Bolton, a tireless and wholehearted supporter of the World Englishes paradigm, took an active part in the process of producing this edition. And, again, Braj Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and Larry Smith are continually present in our memories and work.