A subject of increasing importance in sociolinguistic research is language dominance and its relation to minority languages within and across nation-states. Language dominance can be best understood in terms of the notion of ‘linguistic hierarchy’ and of the social, political, and ideological dimensions of attributing power and prestige to particular language varieties and their speakers (Grillo 1989; Gal 1989; Woolard & Schieffelin 1994; Silverstein 1998). Minorization can be understood as a social process occurring within and across nation-states, which constructs minority groups that have less political, economic, and social power than some dominant group. Dominant or minority status is, thus, attributed not on the basis of numbers of speakers, but rather on the basis of the social positioning of particular social groups within a hierarchical social structure. Social categorization plays a key role in the construction of minority groups. This includes the imposition of social categories such as class, race, ethnicity, and gender, and the formation and maintenance of these categories through interactional and other social processes. Categories are thus constructed through a complex interplay between social structure and human agency, in which language use plays a constitutive role. Both minority and dominant social groups are formed and maintained through language and other markers of social identity, which serve to construct boundaries that define, include, and exclude members of particular groups (Barth 1969). Social boundaries are, however, not fixed; and subjectivities (the constitution of subjects or ‘selfhood’) and the complex identities of speakers can lead to a range of allegiances and even contradictory stances with respect to minority and dominant group status. Dominant language varieties include official and national forms of language, which are legitimised within states and institutions (including the media, schools, the courts, government services, and international organizations) and through their association with particular forms of political, economic, and social power. Minority languages and language varieties become salient in relation to dominant languages within particular geographical regions and institutional spheres. In such regions and spheres, there can be overt exclusion of and discrimination against minority language varieties and their speakers; and such processes often lead to political and social struggles for inclusion and social justice. The following paper will examine the rise of language dominance and its ‘naturalization’ through processes such as nation-building and colonization, industrialization, language standardization, the rise of public education and other social institutions, and the emergence of transnational economies and globalized communicative relations. The process of ‘naturalization’, whereby language dominance comes to be taken for granted, arises through the production of related hegemonic ideologies, including the notion that a ‘national’ language (e.g. English) unifies citizens into ‘one nation’; and that one variety of this language (e.g. standard English) is ‘better’ for official and textual purposes because it is more suited, for example, to scientific thought, modernization, or international communication. Thus, in national contexts, language dominance often coincides with the promotion of monolingualism and monoculturalism. In transnational contexts, the dominance of a ‘global’ language — most notably English, but also French, Spanish, and Hindi-Urdu, among other languages — has also favoured monolingualism among speakers from the dominant language metropoles. However, for speakers of other national languages, who wish to engage in transnational communication, multilingualism has become the norm. This paper shall also be discussing processes of minorization and the linguistic debates as well as political, economic, ideological, and social struggles that speakers of minority languages become involved in. Processes of language domination and minorization, in which both national and global languages play a part, are rooted in the nation-building associated with the colonial and post-colonial eras. These processes are thus relevant to the discussion not only of the history of colonization, annexation, modernization, and social stratification, but also of the development of modern nation-states and global economies. Finally, the paper shall be discussing the category of ethnicity and how this cuts across social class, producing groups that, historically, have had little social or economic power within nation-states. Linguistic minorities have often been constructed as homogeneous entities and marginalized as culturally and linguistically ‘different’ from, less educated than, or more ‘traditional’ (i.e. less modern) than the ruling, dominant group. Nevertheless, they have been provided with a range of ‘social spaces’ — or opportunities within nation-states — to confront these inequities and to mobilize for recognition, rights, and representation in the national arena. International processes, originating from organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), have played a major role in providing the discursive and legal forums in which minority groups can act. It is important to note, however, that this spread of universal language rights discourses through globalization is not in itself unproblematic. Among the new difficulties that it creates is that in recognizing the rights of any one ‘group’, one puts aside not only the heterogeneity and overlapping allegiances of the speakers of this ‘group’ but also the legitimacy of other possible ‘groups’. Although the paper will be treating dominant and minority languages as separate entities, it is important to remember that each is constructed only in relation to the other. Existing alongside dominant groups within and across nation-states are minority indigenous, immigrant, and other ethnic groups, which have found themselves in particular political, social, and economic relations with the dominant group, through colonization, annexation, enslavement, migration, or globalization. The paper will be looking more closely at some of these minorities as they exist within nation-states, in particular, how they have been constructed by different nations and how they themselves have often rallied around issues of language, culture, and ethnicity to voice their desire for increased recognition and social justice.