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9780415120111

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'Read this book and you will go to bed content. You too can be a multilingualist, if not a linguist.' - Times Higher Education Supplement 'Using multilingualism as an umbrella, John Edwards explores, with impressive erudition, a whole host of interconnected topics ranging from language origins and language death to the bilingual brain and the question of individual and collective identities.' - Lynn Williams, University of Exeter 'John Edwards takes a broad approach to the question of languages in contact...in depth and scope...primary among the strengths...is the historical depth and richness in detail' - Juliet Langman, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism

This excellent introduction, first published in 1994, aims to combat ignorance of the scope of multilingualism in a world where thousands of languages compete. The social life of language is very much to the fore - languages in conflict, at school, language and identity are among the issues examined. Packed with fascinating anecdote, a strong sense of history and social context, the book is of interest to both academics and general readers. Read all about linguistic 'murder and suicide', the first important body established to protect a language - the Accademia della Crusca in Florence, and the Arkansas school superintendent who refusued to have foreign language teaching in his school saying 'If English is good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you'. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

John Edwards is Modern Languages Faculty Research Fellow in Spanish at the University of Oxford. His books include The Spanish Inquisition, Ferdinand and Isabella and Mary I: England's Catholic Queen. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Correspondiente de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid).

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