Abstract
Our cities have become increasingly diverse and multilingual, constituting fascinating cases of superdiversity (Karel Arnaut, Jan Blommaert, Ben Rampton, and Massimiliano Spotti, eds. Language and Superdiversity. Routledge, 2016). As part of the Routledge Multilingual Asia Series and framed within a backdrop of globalisation, this fascinating book edited by Peter Siemund and Jakob Leimgruber zooms in on the topic of multilingualism in post-colonial major global cities from an interesting comparative perspective, representing a major contribution to a rapidly growing line of research over the years that looks at the sociolinguistic aspects of language in our increasingly multicultural and multilingual urban spaces.
Front and centre of this book are three post-colonial global commercial hubs: Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. These three Asian cities are different yet are also similar in various ways. More or less sharing a similar (colonial) history, Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai were all at some point part of the then dominant British empire. For historical reasons and due to their strategic geographical locations, these places have transformed themselves from sleeping fishing villages to major international business and commercial hubs. Furthermore, these three locales are also multilingual and multicultural global cities featuring great ethnolinguistic diversity so much so that such languages as Chinese, English, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Nepali, Tamil, Bengali, and Malayalam can be heard. For instance, Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai notably all feature a significant number of South Asians, who traditionally settled in these cities during the colonial period as indentured workers, sailors, merchants, soldiers, policemen, etc., and more recently as labourers, businessmen, and professionals in a broader context of globalisation. Similarly, their shared (colonial) history and current status as global hubs have also given rise to the primacy of English as an important official and/or unifying language, bringing together people from different ethnolinguistic groups.
Front and centre of this book are three post-colonial global commercial hubs: Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. These three Asian cities are different yet are also similar in various ways. More or less sharing a similar (colonial) history, Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai were all at some point part of the then dominant British empire. For historical reasons and due to their strategic geographical locations, these places have transformed themselves from sleeping fishing villages to major international business and commercial hubs. Furthermore, these three locales are also multilingual and multicultural global cities featuring great ethnolinguistic diversity so much so that such languages as Chinese, English, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Nepali, Tamil, Bengali, and Malayalam can be heard. For instance, Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai notably all feature a significant number of South Asians, who traditionally settled in these cities during the colonial period as indentured workers, sailors, merchants, soldiers, policemen, etc., and more recently as labourers, businessmen, and professionals in a broader context of globalisation. Similarly, their shared (colonial) history and current status as global hubs have also given rise to the primacy of English as an important official and/or unifying language, bringing together people from different ethnolinguistic groups.
Original language | English |
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Journal | Journal of Linguistic Anthropology |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 9 Nov 2022 |