Volume 33, Number 16 · October 23, 1986
The Bilingual Blur
By Howard Gardner
Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism
by Kenji Hakuta
Basic Books, 268 pp., $18.95
Today there are perhaps four thousand spoken languages, about thirty times as many languages as there are countries in the world. Over half the world's population is at least to some extent bilingual. These facts help to insure that bilingualism remains—as it has long been—an intellectually provocative and a socially charged issue. Why do human beings have so many mutually incomprehensible tongues? Should citizens be allowed to maintain their native language in an alien culture? Both questions have always been controversial. Thus, even before the United States came into existence, Benjamin Franklin complained about the prevalence of German in the province of Pennsylvania:
Review, 4968 words
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