Abstract
The idea of publishing a special edition of the 'International Journal of Anthropology' with a focus on languages arose during talks with Professor Brunetto Chiarelli (Università degli Studi di Firenze) at the conference 'Multilingualism across Europe: findings, needs, best practices', which was held at the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen on August 24th to 26th, 2006. The goal of the conference was to discuss various facets of multilingualism. There was, however, not enough time to reflect upon the very important topics of languages, minorities, and migration. In the present volume this thematic constellation is being put into a wider context, and will be discussed by experts from different research fields under the title 'Old and New Minorities: Linguistic Approaches to Growing Complexity'.