%0 Journal Article %A Bekker, Ian %T South African English as a late 19th-century extraterritorial variety %D 2012 %J English World-Wide %V 33 %N 2 %P 127-146 %@ 0172-8865 %R https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.33.2.01bek %K koinéization %K extraterritorial Englishes %K START-Backing %K dialect contact %K BATH vowel %K Johannesburg %K new-dialect formation %K South African English %K 19th-century English %I John Benjamins %X This article argues that the external history of South African English (SAfE) points towards the merits of conceptualizing SAfE as the product of a three-stage koinéization process, the last stage of which takes place contemporaneously with the establishment of Johannesburg. This is at odds with the standard position, which views SAfE as an early-to-mid 19th-century variety with its characteristic features having been fixed during the earlier colonization of the Cape and Natal. This reconceptualization is, in turn, usefully employed to solve Trudgill’s (2004) so-called “South African puzzle’’: in essence, the postulation of SAfE as a late 19th-century English explains why START-Backing has occurred in SAfE but not in the closely related Australasian varieties. %U https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.33.2.01bek