The authors are drawn from nine different countries, and each article is followed by a commentary and response that provide actual dialogue about the issues in the field, thus representing world-wide discussion of issues in the history of English. The essays recognize the different audiences for historical variation and change - formal linguists, sociolinguists, and lexicographers - and specifically address the interests and discourse in those areas. The volume shows how historical studies of English are increasingly engaged with contemporary trends in linguistics, at the same time as demonstrating how empirical and other methods can bring classical philology fully into the sphere of contemporary linguistics without abandoning its traditional concerns.