From a historical and cultural point of view, South Africa and Western Europe have much in common. The sociolinguistic commonalities are clearly evident in the status and use of English and Afrikaans, both of which have their roots in an intricate European migration history.This volume aims at capturing new facts about multilingualism in these two multicultural contexts by means of case studies on dominant and dominated languages in two regions in particular, i.e., KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the Netherlands in Western Europe. Through the exploration of local realities offered in this volume, the similarities and differences between the two geopolitical contexts become abundantly clear. This should lay the foundation for the comparative work that is eventually envisaged.
