This book comprises 30 selected papers that were presented at the 5th World Conference of Pluricentric Languages and their Non-Dominant Varieties (WCPCL) held at the University of Mainz (Germany). The conference was organized by the Working Group on Non-Dominant Varieties of Pluricentric Languages (WGNDV). The authors come from 15 countries and deal with 14 pluricentric languages and 31 (non-dominant) varieties around the world. The number of known PLCLs has again been extended. There are now 43 PLCLs in all. Apart from a large number of papers on Spanish, French and Portuguese, "new" and little researched PLCLs are also presented in the contributions: Albanian, Hungarian, Malay, Persian, Somali and Romanian.

This book presents an in-depth comparison of two Romance languages. The authors analyze Spanish and Portuguese at every linguistic level phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, placing a special focus ontheir historical development, their varieties, and their global prevalence."