This volume is a collection of articles dealing with African, in particular West African, varieties of English, including English-based Pidgins and Creole languages, some of which have received only scant attention so far. A wide range of different aspects are highlighted: the role of the varieties discussed in their respective linguistic situations, evidence of the acculturation of English in an African context, lexical and grammatical characteristics, questions of language and education policy, and – for the first time – a lexical comparison of two developing national varieties.

The Editors: Peter Lucko studied English and German at Humboldt University, Berlin. He received his Dr. phil. in 1981 and his Dr. sc. phil. in 1987. Lothar Peter studied the same subjects at Humboldt University and received his Dr. phil. in 1985. Hans-Georg Wolf studied linguistics, German and education at the University of Frankfurt/Main and at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He received his Dr. phil. in linguistics from Frankfurt University in 1994 and his habilitation at Humboldt University in 2000. All three are teaching in the Department of English and American Studies at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Contents: Hans-Georg Wolf: The Contextualization of Common Core Terms in West African English: Evidence from Computer Corpora – Francis O. Egbokhare: The Story of a Language: Nigerian Pidgin in Spatiotemporal, Social and Linguistic Context – Efurosibina Adegbija: Idiomatic Variation in Nigerian English – Herbert Igboanusi: Semantic Dislocation in Nigerian English – Hans-Georg Wolf and Herbert Igboanusi: A Preliminary Comparison of Some Lexical Items in Nigerian English and Cameroon English – Anne Schröder: Aspect in Cameroon Pidgin English – Augustin Simo Bobda and Hans-Georg Wolf: Pidgin English in Cameroon in the New Millennium – Lothar Peter and Hans-Georg Wolf: Aku in The Gambia: Terminological Problems, Functional Distribution and Popular Attitude – Lothar Peter: English in Sudan – Peter Lucko: Is English a «Killer Language»?