Exploring the Yiddish language of my father, grandmother, her grandmother, and beyond, this autobiographical article frames language as an ever-changing space where identities are negotiated, formed, and contested. Placing the history of Yiddish alongside my own familial relationship to the language, I explore how the stories of individual lives…

In recent years, the rapid growth and unprecedented dominance of the English language has transformed the world's linguistic ecology and promoted anxiety and debates about its future. The language has developed into a leading international lingua franca used by millions of speakers in different linguistic and cultural contexts worldwide. This…

The present work is a historical/linguistic account of an unprecedented fact regarding the existence of two English Speaking Communities [British English and American English], in our country the Dominican Republic, where Spanish is the official and most used language, to the extent of being considered a monolingual nation or country. It is…

In São Tomé and Príncipe, the language shift toward Portuguese is resulting in the endangerment of the native creoles of the island. These languages have been considered of low value in Santomean society since the mid-twentieth century. But when Santomeans are members of a diaspora, their perceptions of these languages, especially Forro, change in…

Although the Igbo are one of the most widely travelled people in Nigeria, little is known about the sociolinguistic impact of migration (international or internal) on their language. Based on interview data collected from 24 Igbo youth in Ibadan, this study explores the space available for young Igbo migrants and the role of language in accessing…

French colonies were created for the benefit not of the indigenous conquered peoples but of the home country. Their borders were set for political convenience and produced a jumble of ethnicities, languages, and cultures. Exploitation came first, and there was generally no attempt to find a workable educational solution to the local diversity.…

The most widely used language in research, business, politics and other areas of life in our contemporary world is the English language. The exploration of the world by the British people through colonization and their conquest of North America contribute immensely to the spreading of the language. This paper traces the historical spread of…

In this article we examine ideologies of English in present-day China with a special focus on textbook discourse. The research framework is informed by critical theories on language and education. Critical discourse analysis is applied as a methodological approach characterized by a socially committed attitude in the explanation and interpretation…

The adoption of the English language paradigm and the subsequent implementation of bilingual policies worldwide are generating new linguistic hierarchies. These have an effect on the linguistic diversity at the sub-national level and on individuals' linguistic human rights. This article reports the results of a case study on an individual's…

This dissertation is focused on analyzing phonological contact between Slavic and non-Slavic languages in southeastern and northeastern Europe, with the particular goal of describing how the social context of language contact interacts with linguistic factors to shape the outcome of contact-induced change. On the basis of case studies drawn from…

This dissertation develops a theoretical and empirical framework for the model of metalinguistic community, a community of positioned social actors engaged primarily in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language. Building upon the notions of speech community (Duranti, 1994; Gumperz, 1968; Morgan, 2004), linguistic community…

Discusses points made in a previous paper, arguing that the presence of the basic word order Agent-Verb-Patient in the Basic Variety (BV) may reflect the salience of this word order in the target language as suggested by comparable data from creoles. Although the BV may serve the communicative functions of true languages, they may not fulfill…

This volume is a prepublication edition of four papers presented at a briefing held for representatives of government agencies, foundations and other organizations, November 12, 1970 at the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution. "Linguistics as a Pilot Science," by Joseph H. Greenberg, examines the impact which…

A fair number of empirical, scholarly studies of West African languages have been published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the study of West African languages was in these years overtaken and nearly overwhelmed by a racist reaction. In the 1930's linguistics began to assume its substantially modern form and scholars…

Discusses the presence and significance of linguistics in Italian departments at universities in Australia and worldwide against the background of multiculturalism, the politicization of the Italian population in Australia, and the emergence of Italy as a major economic and political power. Argues that the boundary lines between linguistics and…