The authors of the present article are engaged in a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council. In this project the language policies of Tanzania and South Africa, as well as the practices of these policies in the classroom are analyzed. The article gives some preliminary results from the project. While the language policies of…

With reference to Kenya, the paper shows that although linguistic rights have been eloquently articulated in various charters and declarations, their implementation has been problematic. In Africa this has led to an imbalance of status between the former colonial languages and the indigenous ones. This imbalance is evident in the educational…

This paper reports on a study conducted with children belonging to a rarely studied minority group, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, an extremely religious group that endorses patterns of voluntary segregation. The research population also demonstrates linguistic segregation, as they use only Yiddish for daily communication with…

A discussion of new language policy in South Africa, creating 11 official languages and terminating the privileged status of English as sole or co-official language, looks at a number of issues in language policy creation. The framework for this analysis is that language may be viewed from four perspectives: as a problem, a right, a resource, or a…

An analysis of the status of Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP) looks at its origins and evolution in Nigerian history, its location in the Nigerian language situation, and its current sociolinguistic status. It is concluded that ANP possesses linguistic structures that have stabilized enough to give the speaker an impression of good and bad grammar.…

The bibliography contains over 1,000 citations of books, ERIC documents, government documents, journals, magazine articles, newspaper articles, unpublished works, and videotape recordings on the debate over establishment of English as the single official language of the United States. Citations are listed alphabetically by author within each of…

The volume is one of a series of six listing language-related legislation around the world. It contains the texts, in French, of laws of Algeria, Austria, China, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Morocco, Norway, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Tunisia, Turkey, and the former Soviet Union. The laws concern official languages,…

The development of literacy in selected bilingual societies was investigated. Historical and comparative studies were conducted of medieval Jewish communities, the Navajo community, a northern New Mexico village, and the countries of Paraguay and Tonga. The goal of the case studies was to develop a model for the development of literacy in the…

The "Official English" (OE), or "English Only," movement claims that the United States is threatened by the use of languages other than English in schools, government, and business. The OE movement is contrary to a national tradition of recognition and respect for the contributions of immigrants to American life. Restrictions…

A 1985 survey of Swiss military recruits, aged about 20, and a 1987 survey of comparable Swiss women concerning their attitudes toward English as a possible lingua franca for their multilingual country are reported. Samples consisted of responses from German-speaking Switzerland (1,930 males, 324 females), French-speaking Switzerland (1,133 males,…

In most industrialized countries, especially in urban areas with a heavy concentration of cultural minorities, teaching a standard second language to schoolchildren is a misleading concept and an ambiguous enterprise. In a country that fosters official unilingualism, schoolchildren have to learn a standard second language as if it were a first…

The most developed supra-national language-based movement today is la Francophonie, the movement representing all of the populations of the world that speak French. French is an international language and is spoken in many parts of the world, although the exact number of francophones is not known. La Francophonie has a number of major…

The English and French languages have been in everyday use in some part of what is now Canada for almost 400 years. The constitution of Canada states that they have equal status in the Parliament and courts of Canada and in the legislature and courts of the province of Quebec. In 1969 Parliament passed the Official Languages Act, which declared…

This paper reports on the language question in the Philippines in light of the New Constitution of 1973 and the language policy of the Department of Education and Culture. The linguistic, social and legal problems involved in creating a national language based on the existing native languages are discussed. Available from 39 East 83rd St., New…

ASSUMING A MASTERY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE "BASIC COURSE IN KURDISH" (BY THE SAME AUTHORS), THIS READER PRESENTS A VARIETY OF 28 ARTICLES SELECTED FROM THE IRAQI NEWSPAPERS "ZHIN" AND "KHEBAT." EACH LESSON BEGINS WITH A SELECTION WRITTEN IN KURDISH (MODIFIED ARABIC-PERSIAN) SCRIPT, FOLLOWED BY PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION…