Braj Kachru

Braj Bihari Kachru (1932-2016) was an Indian-American linguist who served as Jubilee Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and conducted extensive research on the Kashmiri language. He is best known for developing the influential three-circle model of English usage, which categorizes English speakers worldwide into an Inner Circle of traditional English-speaking nations such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Canada; an Outer Circle of countries where English holds institutional importance, such as India, Nigeria and the Philippines; and an Expanding Circle of nations that use English as a foreign language, such as China, Japan and Russia. His book The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models of Non-Native Englishes won joint first prize in the Duke of Edinburgh Book Competition in 1987, and his three-circle model reshaped how linguists understand World Englishes as a dynamic, multi-centered phenomenon rather than one defined solely by native speakers.