Various facets of the general topic of multilingualism have been dealt with in previous ARAL volumes and as a major substantive focus in Volumes 6 and 14. Nonetheless, it does not seem at all surprising that we return to the topic in Volume 17 given the worldwide incidence of the phenomenon and the attention, and often controversy, which it arouses. Despite pressures and influences toward commonality from a seemingly pervasive mass media, the residents of the world continue to speak an amazing array of mutually unintelligible languages (see, for example, Bright 1992, Cheshire 1991, Comrie 1987, Edwards 1995). These languages vary in typological characteristics, geographical spread, and number of speakers. If written, they also vary in terms of the type of system that is used to record them (e.g., alphabetic, logographic, syllabic-alphabetic).

Contests over human rights as claims or entitlements to state assistance are how a major, if relatively recent, feature of the socio-political processes and institutions, of modern societies (Turner 1993). Within this wider debate about human rights, the subject of minority rights has long been of concern (Dinstein and Tabory 1992, Sigler 1983). A widely held, but not unanimous, view has emerged which argues that minorities have group or collective rights which cannot be reduced to their human rights as individuals. Linguistic and cultural rights are seen by many scholars as two such overlapping dimensions of collective minority rights (de Varennes 1996, Kymlicka 1995a, Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas 1995). In a world of multicultural and multilingual states, so the argument runs, these collective rights can only be guaranteed by the active involvement of states in the implementation of policies which support linguistic and cultural rights, just as in the case of more universally recognized and accepted social and economic rights (Stavenhagen 1990).

The position of minority groups and the maintenance of their languages are very much in the news today. For (largely) indigenous minorities, consider the case of continental Europe: As it moves—sometimes erratically—towards federalism, its minorities and its “stateless” peoples are pressing for increased and improved recognition. In October 1981, the European Parliament adopted the Arfé resolution, providing such recognition. A number of further developments have occurred, important among which was the establishment in 1982 of the Dublin-based Bureau for Lesser Used Languages. Its Secretary-General recently observed that:

If our languages have been ignored in the past by European institutions this is no longer the case. The European Community is positive towards the cause of our languages and now includes in its budget a provision of 3.5 million ECU to promote regional and minority languages and cultures (Breathnach 1993:1). (See also Baetens Beardsmore 1993; 1994, Edwards 1994a, Sikma and Gorter 1991.)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce noneconomists to the economics of multilingualism. This area of research is relatively little known among economists, and until recent years, few of its methods and results had been published in the journals usually read by language specialists, although sociolinguists and applied linguists had for many years been pointing out the importance of economic dimensions in their research field. It is therefore useful to begin with a brief review of the literature which, owing to limitations of space, does not report specific results, but lists the major issues that have been examined to date. More extensive surveys are available in Vaillancourt (1985a) and Grin (1994c; 1996e).

This survey includes studies published mainly—but not exclusively—during the 1990s and focuses on literature that brings to the debate on world Englishes theoretical, conceptual, descriptive, ideological, and power-related concerns. The concept “world Englishes”—its genesis and its theoretical, contextual, and pedagogical implications and appropriateness—has been discussed during the past two decades in several programmatic studies and conference presentations (see B. Kachru 1994a). The concept, though not necessarily the term “world Englishes,” gradually evolved during the post-colonial period after the 1960s. It refers to the recognition of a unique linguistic phenomenon, and particularly to the changing contexts of the post-1940s. It was during this period that post-Imperial Englishes were being gradually institutionalized in the language policies of the changed political, educational, and ideological contexts of what were earlier the colonies of the UK and the USA. The earlier tradition of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic acquisition of English, its teaching, and its transformations were being reevaluated by some researchers. The major concerns of this reevaluation include the implications of pluricentricity (Clyne 1992), the new and emerging norms of performance, and the acceptance of the bilingual's creativity as a manifestation of the contextual and formal hybridity of Englishes. In other words, a critical evaluation of earlier paradigms was slowly initiated.

The Soviet Union was a country with one of the most complex language situations in the world. Over one hundred nationalities were listed in its last 1989 census, ranging in size from 145 million Russians (50.8 percent of the population) to the ‘26 Peoples of the North’ who together numbered only 184,448. For most of these nationalities, the majority claimed that their national language was their mother tongue. However, knowledge of Russian as first or second language was claimed by about 62 percent of the non-Russians. Only 4.2 percent of the Russians reported fluency in one of the national languages, though among the Russians living outside the Russian Federation, bilingualism was about 19 percent (Anderson and Silver 1990, Arutiunian, et al. 1992, Goskomstat 1991, Haarmann 1992).

As elements of interethnic relations, multilingualism and language contact have always played important roles. Only in recent years, however, have problems of multilingualism come to the attention of the wider public and state authorities. This attention is due partly to the spread of information about multilingual affairs and partly to the demands, expressed increasingly vocally by speakers of minority languages, that their status be safeguarded. The majority of the countries in the world have a multinational and multilingual population (Mackey 1976: 68 ff., Grimes 1992:10 ff.), and the major industrialized states are no exception. The United States of America, India, China, Britain, Spain and the former Soviet Union are commonly known to be multilingual states, but the fact that France, Germany, and Japan also fall into this category, is not as commonly known.

Israel's geographical position as a land bridge connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, its resulting long history of conquest and reconquest, and its status as the point of focus of four major world religions (the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, and significant to Islam and Baha'i), all assure it a long tradition of complex and ever-changing multilingualism. By the beginning of the Common Era two thousand years ago, a pattern of triglossia had emerged, with Hebrew, Judeo-Aramaic, and Greek all playing meaningful roles (Spolsky 1983). This model of language organization became the norm for the Jewish people during most of their dispersion, with separate defined functions for three languages. Hebrew (actually Hebrew and Talmudic Aramaic) was used for religious and literacy purposes; a Jewish language like Yiddish, Judeo-French, Ladino, or Judeo-Arabic was used for most other community and home functions (Rabin 1981); and one or more “co-territorial vernaculars” was used for communication with non-Jews (Weinreich 1980).

In this survey, the demographic and linguistic consequences of recent processes of migration and minorization in Western Europe are reviewed, and a case study of the Netherlands is presented to illustrate and detail the effects of these processes on an individual European Union country. After a discussion of demographic data and criteria in a European context, linguistic issues are addressed in terms of L1 and L2 studies on immigrant and ethnic minority groups. Major demographic trends in Dutch society and education derived from these cross-national perspectives is then outlined. Specific attention is given to research and policy in the domains of Dutch as a second language and ethnic minority languages within the context of primary education.

In his keynote address to the 1994 conference of the Southern African Association of Applied Linguistics, Adegbija (1994a) identified three problems faced by applied linguists in the African multilingual context. First, apart from the vibrant work in South Africa, there is very little focus on applied linguistic research in Africa, and what there is tends to focus on the ex-colonial languages rather than the indigenous languages. Second, applied linguists in African countries other than South Africa tend to have very limited research facilities. In some cases, teachers struggle to acquire the most basic resources such as typewriters and stationery. Third, political, social, and economic instability in many parts of Africa seriously undermines the work of applied linguists: A program of work begun in one political era can be summarily cut off in another.

Although English fulfills many of the functions of an official language in Australia, the Australian Constitution does not declare it to be the official language. Instead, it serves as the lingua franca of a culturally and linguistic diverse population. It is the language of Parliament and Administration, and the language in which official records are kept. Only on one occasion was a federal government bill passed multilingually, the Report and Recommendations of the Review of Programs and Services for Migrants (in 1978), which was written in ten languages other than English.

In addressing Canadian language management and planning in terms of bilingualism and multiculturalism, it is essential to contextualize these topics within the recent historical policy events and periods of change. This history includes the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism of 1965, the Official Languages Act of 1969, official bilingualism and multiculturalism since 1971, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988, the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region for Canada during the 1990's, and the increased probability of Quebec's separation. The above stages of evolution have taken place during an era which has seen the growing dominance of English internationally in all spheres of academia, economics, and communication technology, and an equally rapid decline of French internationally in these same spheres (Carey 1991; 1996).

A great deal has happened in the study and understanding of multilingualism in England since it was last considered in ARAL (Reid 1985). To examine these changes, this review will concentrate on the dynamic and contested relationships among 1) educational policy, 2) academic discourse, and 3) everyday sociolinguistic practice. Our account is limited to England and to its newer heritage languages; due to limitations of space, it also does not provide any detailed discussion of particular languages. For fuller sociolinguistic discussion of thirty one of these, we refer the reader to Alladina and Edwards (1991), a major step forwards in the documentation of linguistic diversity in the British Isles which provides an idea of the wide but uneven spread of multilingualism across a range of institutional sites (including, for example, press and broadcasting as well as education).

The scope of this paper is limited to an overview of mutilingualism in the U.S. from 1980 to the present. During this period, discussions of language diversity in the U.S. have been largely dominated by an effort to exert the hegemony of English. This effort has been brought on by changes in the demographic makeup of the U.S. population and supported by a commonly held belief that the economic strength of the U.S. in the international sphere is declining. A dramatic increase in the number of immigrants from Central and South America and the Pacific Rim, coupled with increasing economic competition from industrialized European and Asian nations, has resulted in widespread support for the exclusive use of English in the U.S. This emphasis on English is seen as a way to minimize the threat of the “foreign” influences that are believed to be undermining both the internal unity of the U.S., and its economic world dominance. Whereas nativism is nothing new in the U.S., its current intensity has been fueled by global aspects of migration and economic trade.