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The Languages of Los Angeles Project will be the first comprehensive linguistic investigation of a multilingual and multicultural metropolis. The project will identify, document, and analyze features of all linguistic groups in Los Angeles County, giving particularly attention to institutions that may play a role in the maintenance or disintegration of a linguistic community. The project will establish the methodology of urban linguistics as an appropriate tool for investigation of the ever increasing linguistic diversity in America's large cities, providing scholars with a proven framework for linguistic studies of other cities or individual language groups. Graduate student field workers, trained in the methods of this project, will continue to make valuable contributions to this field long after the project has been completed. The data collected by the project on public, social, and cultural institutions and the analysis of their importance in terms of linguistic and cultural identity and cohesion will be of use to scholars in a variety of fields, as well as to public officials, media organization, teachers and others. The Language of Los Angeles Project is a huge undertaking that will require three years of extensive field research and data analysis. The resulting materials -- a printed linguistic atlas; a CD-ROM data-base with the capability to generate unique maps and statistical analyses suited to the needs of scholars in a number of fields; and a multi-media CD-ROM for public schools and libraries -- will document and analyze a phenomenon that is taking place throughout the United States. The increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of the modern American city is an established fact and there is no doubt that the effects of these changes are felt in every sector of society, but to date there have been no concrete, comprehensive studies of this phenomenon. The Languages of Los Angeles Projct will be the first, and it will establish the benchmark for future investigations of this type. Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov |