ABSTRACT
Against this background of English, linguistic diversity in the United States nevertheless prevails (Ferguson & Heath, 1981; Grosjean, 1982; Sagarin & Kelly, 1985). Pacific Islanders, Native Alaskans, and American Indians still maintain a wide variety of languages; and descendants of the French and Spanish colonists, including Puerto Ricans, carry on their linguistic traditions in communities across the country. Immigrants continue to enter the country in large numbers, although at a more modest level than in earlier periods of our history, and contribute to the diversity. The general pattern of immigrants in the century has been for the immigrants themselves to add English to their mother tongue, for the next generation to be bilingual for different purposes, and for the third generation to acquire English only. Nevertheless, many languages are maintained through innumerable individual and community efforts. The 1980 Census reported that nearly 23 million persons five years or older in the population of 226.5 million spoke languages other than English at horne. Of the 23 million, nearly half spoke Spanish and about three-quarters of these spoke English well enough to consider themselves bilingual (Wardhaugh, 1987).
