This monograph aims at providing an up-to-date account of the situation of community languages in Australia. It has three types of readers in mind:

• linguists and students of linguistics in Australia;

• linguists overseas who wish to become more acquainted with the Australian situation, which may bear some similarities to that in their own country; and

• more general readers and colleagues in other disciplines in Australia.

For the benefit of the last-mentioned group, definitions of linguistic terms are provided in the text and in the Glossary. Note that terms followed by an asterisk when first used in the text are explained in the Glossary.

Chapter 1 provides an historical treatment of the tension between monolingualism and multilingualism in Australia, which is fundamental to much of the later chapters. Chapter 2 uses as its starting point data on languages, derived from recent censuses. This is applied to correlate various factors with language maintenance and shift. Theoretical implications of the correlations are considered. The spheres and situations in which community languages are employed in Australia are presented in Chapter 3. The fourth chapter examines the changes to which some community languages are being subjected in contact with English, and the implications of this for the study of language change. Australian language policies, in particular the National Policy on Languages, are the subject of Chapter 5. Many of the issues treated in this book have been discussed elsewhere, in articles in academic journals and other periodicals or in volumes that are not very generally accessible. I am drawing together work done by others as well as myself to present a general overview of community languages in Australia.