and some of the Caribbean territories. The total number of English speakers in the inner circle is as high as 380 million, of whom some 120 million are outside the United States. Next comes the outer circle, which includes countries where English is not the native tongue, but is important for historical reasons and plays a part in the nation's institutions, either as an official language or otherwise. This circle includes India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, non-Anglophone South Africa and Canada, etc. The total number of English speakers in the outer circle is estimated to range from 150 million to 300 million. Finally, the expanding circle encompasses those countries where English plays no historical or governmental role, but where it is nevertheless widely used as a foreign language or lingua franca. This includes much of the rest of the world's population: China, Russia, Japan, most of Europe, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia, etc. The total in this expanding circle is the most difficult to estimate, especially because English may be employed for specific, limited purposes, usually business English. The estimates of these users range from 100 million to one billion. The inner circle (UK, US, etc.) is 'norm-providing'. That means that English language norms are developed in these countries – English is the first language there. The outer circle (mainly New Commonwealth countries) is 'norm-developing'. The expanding circle (much of the rest of the world) is 'norm-dependent', because it relies on the standards set by native speakers in the inner circle. Bibliography The alchemy of English: the spread, functions, and models of non-native Englishes, University of Illinois Press, 1990 World Englishes: critical concepts in linguistics, Volume 4, Publisher: Taylor & Francis, 2006, References External links Faculty Page at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Braj Kachru: A Biographical Sketch 1932 births 2016 deaths Applied linguists 20th-century Indian linguists Scholars from Jammu and Kashmir Indian people of Kashmiri descent Kashmiri people Kashmiri Hindus Kashmiri Pandits Kashmiri writers American people of Kashmiri descent University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty People from Srinagar Linguists of Kashmiri Linguists of Hindi Linguists of English Presidents of the American Association for Applied Linguistics