Multilingualism, Language Management, and First Encounters in the Roman and American Colonial Experience

Problematic PresentismThe study of multilingualism has grown exponentially since the 1980s, covering numerous subjects, including societal and individual multilingualism, attitudes to multilingualism, language policy and, more recently, language management. 1 Despite sustained interest in ancient multilingualism, inspired particularly by the work of Jim Adams, Aneta Pavlenko regrets that many of the subjects explored in modern multilingualism studies are commonly, unconsciously or consciously, thought to be specific to the period from the rise of Nationalism in the nineteenth century to the present day. 2 This tendency towards "presentism" and the lack of communication across fields have resulted in a construction of the modern world as different from an undefined and undifferentiated "Past": apparently the present day has more language diversity, it is "superdiverse" even, 3 with more tolerance for multilingualism and more complex translingual practices. 4 Commentators contend that the