AbstractThis paper revisits Kachru's views on variability in English and the multilingual contexts in which English came to be used in the Outer Circle. Criticism of his views are considered, and shown to be invalid, often because of partial readings of Kachru's overall set of ideas. Variability arises due to nativisation and indigenisation in new contexts, and not only the failure of learners to acquire the target language. Variants are often selected in a functionally motivated fashion, making English useful to users in the Outer Circle. Multilingualism fosters the emergence of hybrid communicative practices and motivated choices between codes to perform various communicative functions. Overlooking the multilingual context leads to a reductionist view of total repertoire of codes of multilingual users. Kachru maintains the usefulness of the construct of a code that informs language use. Such a code needs to be construed as dynamic and emergent, rather than aprioristic, though.