Illiteracy problems are worldwide, and growing. Political and economic factors are often in conflict over which language to use for basic education and how it should be taught. There is increasing pressure on the resources available for using literacy in coping with the rapid population increase, the spread of disease, and poor development. The editiors and contributors to this volume are members of The International Group for the Study of Language Standardization and the Vernacularization of Literacy (IGLSVL), with personal experience of literacy and language problems in the second half of the 20th century. The contributors take the UNESCO publication, "The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education", as their starting point. This was published in 1953 and was optimistic about the future of literacy. The contributors assess the nature and significance of the events that have taken place since then, providing a global overview. The discussions are supported by case-studies of campaigns to promote vernacular languages and examples of how people relate to their languages in different cultures. Most importantly, they question traditional notions of, and provide a non-Western perspective

This is the second edition of the authoritative Dictionary of Jamaican English, first published in 1967. This edition includes a greatly extended supplement and offers a systematic indexing of the extent to which the lexis is shared with other Caribbean countries: Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, Nicaragua and Belize. The method and plan of the Dictionary are basically those of the Oxford English Dictionary, but oral sources have been extensively tapped in addition to detailed coverage of literature published in or about Jamaica since 1655. A great deal of care has been taken to trace the etymologies not only of English, Scots and Irish but also of African, Portuguese and Spanish, French, Amerindian, general sea-faring and other words. The Dictionary is thus a mine of information about the Caribbean and its dialects, about the history of English and its dialects, about Creole languages and about general linguistic processes.

Originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1967 and then revised as a second edition in 1980, this classic study has never before been available in a paperback edition. The method and plan of the dictionary are basically those of the Oxford English Dictionary, but oral sources have been extensively tapped in addition to detailed coverage of literature published in or about Jamaica since 1655.

The dictionary is a mine of information about the Caribbean and its dialects, about the history of English and its dialects, and about Creole languages and general linguistic processes.

Entries give the pronunciation, part-of-speech and usage labels, spelling variants, etymologies and dated citations, as well as definitions. Systematic indexing indicates the extent to which the lexis is shared with other Caribbean countries: Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, Nicaragua and Belize.