Introduction

Abstract

Questions of language have not, it must be admitted, occupied a central place in the work of the ICSEES/ICCEES World Congresses. In spite of the best efforts of the organisers, panels devoted to different aspects of language and linguistics barely reached double figures in either Harrogate or Warsaw, and although a volume of papers on language topics did appear after the 1990 Congress,¹ it did not form part of the main series of publications. Here is perhaps not the place to dwell on the reasons for this exile to the periphery, except to note that it is to some extent self-imposed and that no organisation, however universal its geographical and thematic aspirations, can ever hope to keep all areas at the centre of its attention. Be that as it may, a small but significant group of linguists did gather in Warsaw in August 1995, and it is a source of pleasure to the present writer that it has proved possible to present at least some of their papers in written form in this collection.

J.I. Press and F.E. Knowles (eds), Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies (Harrogate — July 1990): Language and Linguistics, Papers in Slavonic Linguistics, III, London, 1996.