Acculturation and Communicative Mobility among Former Soviet Nationalities

Abstract

As elements of interethnic relations, multilingualism and language contact have always played important roles. Only in recent years, however, have problems of multilingualism come to the attention of the wider public and state authorities. This attention is due partly to the spread of information about multilingual affairs and partly to the demands, expressed increasingly vocally by speakers of minority languages, that their status be safeguarded. The majority of the countries in the world have a multinational and multilingual population (Mackey 1976: 68 ff., Grimes 1992:10 ff.), and the major industrialized states are no exception. The United States of America, India, China, Britain, Spain and the former Soviet Union are commonly known to be multilingual states, but the fact that France, Germany, and Japan also fall into this category, is not as commonly known.