ABSTRACT
The United States is not unique in its multilingual, multicultural composition. As in other multilingual countries, some parents want rapid assimilation for their children, and they reject any instruction in the home language; others do not want their children to lose the family and community closeness, and they choose one of the home-language programs. Each country has established national policies, developed education programs, and expended major resources in the promotion of a pair of basic and worthy goals: first, teaching the official or majority language so as to bring minorities into the mainstream of national life. Second is to supporting retention of the mother tongues or native languages of these people for ethnic self-pride and the maintenance of minority cultures. The Soviet Union is unique in the world in the scale and complexity of its linguistic and ethnic composition. A centralized government such as the Soviet Union's, unlike the US government, can effect social engineering to a high degree.
