Critically examines contemporary interactional studies of the cultural specificity of human language. The study is a cross-cultural analysis of misconstrued communications in human interaction, ascertaining whether these interactions are crucially dependent on nonlinguistic variables. (CB)

Ferguson's concept of diglossia and its later extension and coupling with bilingualism is developed further into the concept of polyglossia with multilingualism by a discussion of various speech communities where these phenomena are in evidence. (Author/HP)

Survey supported by the Social Science Research Council in London, the Ford Foundation, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, and the Universities of York and Strasbourg. (VM)

Highlights the reintroduction and renativization of Hebrew in Israel, and examines commonly made assumptions about Hebrew and its place in Israeli life. Topics include linguistic homogeneity, Jewish multilingualism, and Hebraism. (32 references) (Author/CB)

Original version of this paper presented at the Conference of the 7th World Congress of Sociology, Varna, Bulgaria, September 1970. (VM)

Many personal names in Temne (a Mel language spoken in Sierra Leone) are borrowed from other languages, containing foreign sounds and sequences which are unpronounceable for Temne speakers when they appear in other words. These exceptions are treated as instances of phonological stereotyping (cases remaining resistant to assimilation processes).…