Thomas Babington Macaulay's 1835 minute on Indian education is widely held to be representative of the views which underpinned the English East India Company's replacement of Persian with English as the official language of administration in India in 1837, and the promotion of English and Indian vernacular languages as part of colonial educational…

In Romania most Hungarian-speaking children study in their mother tongue, in Hungarian-language classes. Some of these are organised in 'mixed schools', where parallel Hungarian and Romanian classes coexist in the same institution. Although these institutions seem a good solution for inter-ethnic coexistence, no systematic research has been…

The notion of "linguistic minority" not only incorporates the concept of group but also serves to define that group. Yet the relation between language and group can be considered in various ways. The primary function of language being that of communication, this will necessarily play a key role in defining the contours of any group whose…

The current paper describes a study that sought to determine the beliefs, practices, and needs of parents living in Montreal, Quebec, who were raising their children bi/multilingually. The parents (N = 27) participated in a total of nine focus group and individual interviews in which they discussed their family language policies (language…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Philippine archipelago transitioned from nearly 400 years of colonial occupation under the Spanish to imperial occupation under the Americans. This analysis interrogates the dynamics through which the heterogeneous languages of the Philippine archipelago were maintained alongside state-sanctioned languages…

The study explores language maintenance and shift patterns from a family language policy perspective in Azerbaijani-Farsi bilingual families in the City of Zanjan, Iran. The city is the capital of Zanjan province which is surrounded by Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Farsi speaking provinces giving it a specific demographic make-up to explore language…

In the contemporary world, language, at the heart of all human communication, has experienced social change in new ways. Previously distant groups communicate with each other both because of new migrations and as a result of the use of the Internet and digital media. Intimate communication has been shaken to the core as a result of screen usage on…

Language is a contextual factor of an education system as it determines the Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT). In order to provide for diversity in South Africa, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, makes provision for 11 official languages and the Language in Education Policy (LiEP) promotes respect for not only these…

The codeswitching pattern is different in rural Tanzania compared to urban agglomerations around the world. Even in very rural areas people in Tanzania are bilingual in Swahili, the national and local lingua franca, and their own first language. The result of this language contact is understudied and has only recently been focused on. This paper…

This article analyses how language laws favouring French improved the vitality of the Francophone majority relative to the declining Anglophone minority of Quebec. Part one provides a review of Canadian Government efforts to provide federal bilingual services to Francophones and Anglophones across Canada. Using the ethnolinguistic vitality…

The Vanuatu government has recently implemented a policy of vernacular literacy. Children are now to receive the first three years of schooling in a vernacular language. Needless to say, in a country with less than 300,000 people [Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2016 Accessed January 4, 2016. http://vnso.gov.vu/] and more than 100 indigenous…

In the post-apartheid era, South Africa has adopted a language policy that gives official status to 11 languages (English, Afrikaans, and nine Bantu languages). However, English has remained the dominant language of business, public office, and education, and some research suggests that English is increasingly being spoken in domestic settings.…

The focal point of the article is Irish language teaching in the Republic of Ireland. Firstly, we deal with the most significant documents where the status of the Irish language is being defined. In this respect, for the purposes of analysis, we have chosen the document titled "20 Year Strategy for the Irish language" which plays a…

Until now, the picture painted of French second language learning in Canada has tended to focus on successful French immersion. This volume offers a broader representation, in response to the demographic changes that have made the French language classroom a more complex place. Focusing on inclusion and language maintenance, the chapters discuss…

In the Basque Country, Northern Spain, Basque (Euskera) and Spanish are official languages. In recent decades, Basque language revitalization and the efforts to make this an unmarked language (normalization) have co-existed with the rapid increase in immigration from outside the Basque region, and most recently from outside Spain. Given the…