Bilingualism and national development

There are many books dealing with different aspects of bilingualism. Most look at bilingualism as a feature of child development, education or as a relationship between the individual and society there are new books which look at bilingualism as a feature in the national development of a country. In many countries bilingualism is linked to all aspects of development. It is related, for example, to the development of the individual in the education system and to social differences within communities.

However, there is much more to bilingualism and national development than this. This volume takes the study forward and looks at the relationship between the bilingual individual, bilingualism and the nation. By looking at variety of countries and academic disciplines it attempts to convey a link between the planned and unplanned use of languages and how this might affect individuals and a nation's development, both spiritually as well as economically - very often the language planner falls to make provision for both.

The majority of cases in this book lean towards those countries which view bilingualism as a positive, sometimes necessary, feature of national development.