Variation outside the United Kingdom

The Outer Circle represents the regions of the world formerly colonized by Britain and the USA; in those regions English was the language of empire building.

The term 'New Englishes' is primarily used for the varieties of English which have developed in the Outer Circle.

The use of the term 'new' is a misnomer; in a historical and linguistic sense these varieties are not new. In South Asia, English was institutionalized in 1835 with the Minute of Thomas B. Macauley (1800-59). English also has a long history in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. The 'new-ness' of these varieties lies in the recent recognition of their linguistic and literary institutionalization.

All the countries in the Outer Circle, for example, India, Nigeria, Singapore, Zambia, and the Philippines, are multilingual and multicultural, and English has official status in their national language policies as a language of wider communication across ethnic and linguistic groups. The Indian Constitution recognizes English as an 'associate' official language; in Nigeria and Zambia, English is one of the state languages; and in Singapore and the Philippines, English continues to be a major language of education, the legal system, and administration. In all these regions English, in various forms, plays an important role in interpersonal interaction and in literary creativity

The new Englishes have thus acquired distinct linguistic and cultural identities. This has resulted in the expansion of the literary and sociocultural canon of English. In certain ways all the New Englishes share several productive processes. The following characteristics are illustrative.