In the monolingual setting, the concept of "vernacular language" is not too difficult to define, nor is there such a wide variety of sociolinguistic problems connected with education. In the bi- or multilingual setting, however, "venacular language" is a more nebulous concept, and the sociolinguistic problems connected with its representation in education more numerous. Thus, in the wide field of education in bi- or multilingual societies sociolinguistics has an important role to play, first of all in the identification and comprehension of problems, and secondly in the solving of these problems.