The necessity to learn multiple languages to function in one's society is, in fact, nearly universal, and Edwards presents the polemic that ensues. The book is written in a very accessible tone and assumes little formal knowledge of linguistics.

Edwards begins by explaining the gradual change of a single language into a whole family of multually unintelligible tongues, the process that gives us multiple languages. He then explains how bilingualism works, how one learns a second language whether as a child or as an adult learner. Code-switching, borrowing, and interference are some important themes here.

The meat of the book is how multiple languages interact not just in the brain of the individual, but among the greater society. Language spread and, closely related, language decline is depressingly reported, while the difficulties of language revival are presented. For Edwards, multilingualism is not just the co-existence of multiple languages within a given society, but even the presence of multiple forms of speech. Very fascinating is his description of prescriptivism, which in seeking to uphold "pure" language asserts that other variants are necessarily impure. And even within a single-language group, men may speak strikingly different than women, as among the Gros Ventre of Montana where men say "jatsa" for bread while women say "kjatsa".

 

 

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For those wishing to study the Roman city in Egypt, the archaeological record is poorer than that of many other provinces. Yet the large number of surviving texts allows us to reconstruct the social lives of Egyptians to an extent undreamt of elsewhere. We are not, therefore, limited to a history of the public faces of cities, their inscriptions, and the writings of their elites, but can begin to understand what the transformations of the city meant for ordinary people, and to uncover the forces that shaped the everyday lives of city dwellers. After Egypt became part of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, Classical and then Christian influences both made their mark on the urban environment. This book examines the impact of these new cultures at every level of Egyptian society. Richard Alston uncovers the distinctive features of Classical and Byzantine urbanism, and exposes the radical differences between the modern and ancient experience of city life. The result is a new and fascinating insight into the creation of a specific urban society in the Roman Empire, as well as a case study for the model of urban development in antiquity.

The African-American literary tradition arose in part from a desire to challenge the assumptions of race and culture that have dominated American society from the colonial era to modern times.