The English language stretches around the world - from Australia to Zimbabwe, over 300 million people speak it as their mother tongue alone. And yet, despite its astonishingly widespread use as a medium of communication, every profession and every province - indeed, every individual person - uses a slightly different variant. In this guided tour, David Crystal describes the common structures that unify the language, and outlines the major variations that separate the English of Britain, America, Ireland, Australia, the Caribbean and other parts of the world. He explores the "dialects" of chemists and the clergy, lawyers and truckers, poets and punsters, and offers a survey of how our language developed from Caedmon to computerese. Author Biography David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is one of the most highly respected commentators on the English Language. He lives in Holyhead. His titles for Penguin include Words on Words, Language Play, Listen to Your Child. He is currently working on The Penguin Shakespeare Glossary for publication 08/02.