Since writing the foreword for this remarkable work, I realise how quickly time flies by and how research accumulates. It is difficult, except for the dedicated, to keep up to date and to realise that research has branched out into new and unpredictable domains. One can't help but get a broader education from a book like this one because it brings the reader up to date on bilingualism with a realisation of the depth of the subject, from old to new research. However, what may surprise the reader most is that bilingualism has become something more than multidisciplinary: it reviews in detail how psychologists, sociologists, ethnographers, linguists and informationists each present their views of the phenomena of bilingualism.

What is new is that the field has become interdisciplinary, that is, even though all sorts of specialists are focusing on the bilingual and the processes of bilingualism, only a few keep up with and know about more than one or possibly two neighbouring disciplines. Few think about bilingualism in an integrated, interdisciplinary manner.