National Languages and Languages of Wider Communication in the Developing Nations 1

The past quarter century has brought into the constantly fluctuating family of nations several score new members, formerly colonies of the Western capitalist democracies, referred to variously as new or developing nations. ² However, 28not only is their political independence recent but their search for sociocultural integration, ¹ on the one hand, and for operational self-management (i.e. for effectiveness in the realms of public order and public service, as well as industrially, commercially, educationally, diplomatically, and militarily), ² on 29the other hand, are often of even more recent vintage and of greater uncertainty than is their political independence per se. These nations have been subjected to a huge amount of social science attention—and, in very recent years, also to sociolinguistic scrutiny—so that the contours of their similarities and 30dissimilarities (with respect to the paths that they have adopted in coping with the problems of socio-cultural and political- operational integration) are now beginning to be recognized.