Abstract
This review will link the development of coherent, positive and comprehensive language policy in Australia with changes in the self-perception of the Australian nation. It will encompass English and the other languages of Australia and account for policy shifts. In 1991,14.8% of the Australian population, 26% of people in Melbourne and 25% of those in Sydney used a language other than English (LOTEs) at home, the most widely used being: Italian, Greek, Chinese, Arabic, Croatian/Serbian/Serbo-Croatian, German, and Vietnamese. There were also 44,000 home users of Aboriginal languages. Of about a hundred such languages still extant, only 20–30 are used in everyday situations and acquired by children (Dixon 1989), not including English-based Creoles (see the review by Corson on pp. 77–87).
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