A survey of the status of language usage in Somalia begins with an overview of the usage patterns of Somali, the official language, and three languages previously used officially: English, Italian, and Arabic. The cultural context that for many years has supported the usage of a single native language for communication and administration is also…

Israel is fertile ground for research in multilingualism. Revitalization of Hebrew resulted in a tendency for ideological and instrumentally-motivated monolingualism to replace earlier multilingual patterns, even in the context of pressure for language shift by Arabic, Russian, Yiddish, and other languages, and Hebrew's competition with English in…

Presents Catalan as a substantial culture and looks at the present social situation of the Catalan language. Topics addressed include legal provisions; the educational system; the influence of mass media and information technology, including computer technology and applied linguistics; the audiovisual field; second-language learning; and future…

A survey of the status of language usage in Singapore begins with an overview of patterns of usage of Malay, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil. The function of English as a primary language along with the official language, Malay, is discussed, along with the history of the dominance of English since Singapore's role as a British colony despite…

A survey of the status of language usage in Zimbabwe begins with an overview of the use patterns of English, Shona, and Ndebele, focusing on communication between ethnic and language groups, the decline in native English speakers and increase in English usage, political issues, educational requirements for languages, illiteracy, and the media. A…

Argues that democratisation, localization, and national identity are indivisible in Taiwan. Explains that social pressure groups, teachers, and parents are empowered in policy making processes, while the power of school officials to respond to these groups is limited. Discusses the role of school curriculum in promoting ethnic cultures and…

A survey of the language usage patterns in Zaire begins with an overview of usage of French as the official language and Swahili, Lingala, Ciluba, and Kikongo as the four national languages used both in their respective regions and as part of the mixture of languages used for official and unofficial communication purposes. The systematic study of…

A survey of the status of language usage in South Africa begins with an overview of the distribution among the population of the official languages, Afrikaans and English, and the principle languages of the Black majority: Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Nothern Sotho (Pedi), Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, and Venda. The influence of apartheid policy on…

Since independence, the government of Botswana has allowed only the use of English in government circles, excluding the other 26 languages represented in the country and allowing only limited use of the national language, Setswana. Since 1995, however, restrictions have been relaxed and non-government organizations are developing the use of other…

Acute intercultural communication problems posed by multilingualism in Papua New Guinea are discussed, and ways in which they are being addressed are examined. An introductory section outlines the language situation in Melanesia. It is noted that the area's language diversity and colonization and missionary activity have resulted in the emergence…

A survey of the status of language usage in the Soviet Union begins with an overview of patterns of usage of Russian, Ukranian, Uzbek, Belorussian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Armenian, Georgian, Lithuanian, Moldavian (Romanian), Tajik, Turkmen, Kirghiz, Latvian, and Estonian. The stability of these languages is discussed in the context of centralized…