Over the last fifty years, language policy has developed into a major discipline, drawing on research and practice in many nations and at many levels. This is the first Handbook to deal with language policy as a whole and is a complete 'state-of-the-field' survey, covering language practices, beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for language management. It provides a historical background which traces the development of classical language planning, describes activities associated with indigenous and endangered languages, and contains chapters on imperialism, colonialism, effects of migration and globalization, and educational policy. It also evaluates language management agencies, analyzes language activism and looks at language cultivation (including reform of writing systems, orthography and modernized terminology). The definitive guide to the subject, it will be welcomed by students, researchers and language professionals in linguistics, education and politics.

‘Under Spolsky's capable editorship, language policy has come of age, with a book that will be as invaluable to policy makers, implementers and stakeholders as it is indispensable to students and researchers.’

John E. Joseph - University of Edinburgh

‘… explains why administrators promulgate instructional programs in which forgetting exceeds learning, inadequate time insures fractured acquisition, and materials and assessment ignores research.’

Robert B. Kaplan - Emeritus Professor, University of Southern California