The present volume is a collection of papers presented at the international conference "Linguistic Awareness and Dissolution of Diglossia" held in July 2011 at Heidelberg University. The aim is to reevaluate and compare the processes of dissolution of diglossia in East Asian and in European languages, especially in Japanese, Chinese and in Slavic languages in the framework of the asymmetries in the emergence of modern written languages. Specialists from China, Japan, Great Britain, Germany and the U.S. contributed to the volume by introducing their research focusing on aspects of the...