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An estimate of the total number of the world's ''living'' languages in 2005 was 6,912. Since there were concurrently 192 members of the United Nations, it is obvious that very few of these states could be homogeneous, linguistically speaking. Indeed, there may be only one: North Korea. Linguistic pluralism, or heterogeneity, among the world's countries is thus close to being universal. 1 This paper is concerned with how three particular sovereign states accommodate linguistic pluralism among their peoples in the daily operations of their national, state, and provincial governments. I am especially interested in whether-and, if so, how-two or more languages regularly function as the acknowledged official languages of such governments, or alternately just one language fills this role, or perhaps, legally speaking, none at all do. 2 And then further, I will seek to identify which of various possible contextual ''factors'' (as I shall refer to them) appear associated with each such result. My three contemporary cases are the United States, Canada, and South Africa. Each is decidedly plural linguistically. 3 The US is listed as having 311 distinct languages spoken within its population of now 301 million persons. One hundred and sixty-two of these languages are indigenous; the remainders are then linguistic ''imports.'' English obviously is predominant in the US, but the second most