Much of the research on the language forms and language behaviours of immigrants in North America focuses on the mutual impact of speakers' native and adopted languages on their language use in social contexts. This book studies the role played by language ideology and language politics in the language forms and behaviours exhibited by Tamil-speaking immigrants in their adopted land: Quebec. This study brings the political context to the centre stage of immigrant language studies. The methodology is ethnographic.

The book convincingly shows that language ideologies—belief systems about specific languages—of the home country and the adopted country explain the conflicting language behaviors of two groups of Tamil immigrants.

The immigrants in question are from Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, India. Das discusses the differences between the two groups in the first few chapters. She explains that the Sri Lankan Tamils in the study are refugees fleeing a civil war, and the Indian Tamils are seekers of greener pastures; however, the castes and classes of these two groups are different. Sri Lankan Tamils are composed of Catholics (the predominant religion of Quebec) and Hindus, whereas Indian Tamils are predominantly Hindus. In chapter 2, we learn that Indian Tamil speakers perceive Sri Lankan Tamil to be a sister language like Malayalam. The language ideology of both groups, however, suggests that Sri Lankan spoken Tamil is closer to literary Tamil and is thus considered classical, while Indian spoken Tamil is the colloquial variety; it is considered modern, marked by changes from the literary variety and by its mixing with English. That the former is not empirically true is borne out by the fact that teachers have to ‘translate’ sentences from textbooks into Sri Lankan spoken Tamil so that students can comprehend them. Das points out that the Indian Tamils use the spoken variety used in the textbooks, which is more of an exception than the norm.

In chapter 3, Das explains that, for immigrants, the perceptual difference between the Tamil spoken in these two geographical locations seems to parallel the difference between Parisian French and Quebec French and their political values, though she is aware that this has no comparison with the Tamil situation. For both groups, the literary Tamil of the present is a shared value, and the classical Tamil of the past is a marker of cultural pride. Nevertheless, both groups are drawn behaviorally into Anglo-Franco rivalry in different ways in terms of their choice of medium of instruction, their preference of language in casual encounters, and in shopping, as well as with friends, as chapter 3 demonstrates. Choice of Tamil, which is restricted to the variety of their home country, is also thrown into this mix. Das demonstrates that there is code-switching and code-mixing between Tamil on the one hand and French and/or English on the other. Linguistic rivalry, or accommodation, in communication closely relates to the group's linguistic histories. The author points out that the Sri Lankan immigrants come from Tamil-medium schools in their home country, and the Indian immigrants come from English medium schools, a hangover from British colonialism. These histories are reflected in differences in attitude towards French and English in communication, as well as language choice in education. Such historical ideological differences towards language result in Tamil schools being segregated among the two groups.

The book shows that immigrants do not leave behind their ideologies about languages, nor do they insulate themselves from the language ideologies of the adopted land.