This book looks at language in unexpected places. Drawing on a diversity of materials and contexts, including farewell addresses to British workers in colonial India, letters written from parents to their children at home, a Cornish anthem sung in South Australia, a country fair in rural Australia, and a cricket match played in the middle of the 19th century in south India, this book explores many current concerns around language, mobility and place, including native speakers, generic forms, and language maintenance. Using a series of narrative accounts – from a journey to southern India to eating cheese in China, from playing soccer in Germany to observing a student teacher in Sydney – this book asks how it is that language, people and cultures turn up unexpectedly and how our lines of expectation are formed.