Publisher's Synopsis
This volume is a compendium of articles on linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, namely Austria, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Baltic countries (mainly Latvia), Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Romania and Slovakia. The introduction discusses a theoretical framework of the contextual situations of language maintenance and shift in which we find linguistic minorities and bilingualism. The intention of the other chapters is basically descriptive where each chapter stands alone and can be read simply for the information it contains. If the chapters are considered together, trends and generalizations emerge, with possibilities for model building and theory testing. Our sociolinguistic ignorance of this part of the world is quite astounding and this book is a first step to remedy that situation.
