Issue 2(11) includes articles on the phenomenon of polyglossia. The possession of several languages, albeit to varying degrees of perfection, has traditionally been one of the attributes of empires and multinational states, although even monoethnic state-formations are home to groups of other  ethnicities who retain their own spoken, written, and/or literary languages. The articles cover the period from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day; they examine polyglossia as a communicative function in the everyday practices of peoples living from the Carpathian-Danuban basin to the Adriatic Sea, and from the foothills of the Alps to Russia. Particular attention is paid to the use of languages in the public sphere and education in modern and contemporary history; to metalinguistic reflections in fiction, memoirs, and materials from ethnolinguistic expeditions; and to languages as markers of ethnic and social identity in postmodern literature and art.