Viv Edwards, Multilingualism in the English-speaking
world: Pedigree of nations. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. viii,
253. Pb $29.95.
Amid widespread talk about the dominance of English across the world,
this volume is a reminder that even at the core of the English-speaking
world, English monolingualism is not as universal as is often assumed. The
book's subtitle, Pedigree of nations, conveys that, in fact,
multilingualism is not only an important element of contemporary daily
life in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and
Aotearoa/New Zealand, but also an essential thread in these
nations' ancestral lines, indeed part of what has made them what they
are today. In this comprehensive effort to dispel the “myth of
monolingualism” (p. 3), Viv Edwards has assembled copious evidence
of the use and significance of minority languages in English-dominant
countries. Readers will find themselves better equipped to counter not
only this general misconception but also the pervasive corollaries that
position other languages and their speakers as problematic, outside the
mainstream, and therefore outside the range of what is valued.