INTRODUCTION
Road safety signboard in Sbah in the 1960s. Multilingual notices are essential in a country where citizens speak many different first languages.
With some 80 languages spoken in the country, Malaysia represents one of the world's densest language communities. This volume seeks to provide an insight into both the linguistic and the literary complexity of the country. In doing so, account is taken of competing academic viewpoints, while maintaining an objective stance. With so many languages and accompanying literatures, a degree of selectivity has been necessary. While the less widely spoken languages are examined, including those of the Orang Asli and the numerous Sarawak and Sabah ethnic groups, the dominant languages—Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English—and their respective literatures are covered in greater depth.