[Over the last fi fty years, language policy has developed into a major discipline, drawing on research and practice in many nations and at many levels. This is the fi rst Handbook to deal with language policy as a wholeand is a complete ‘state-of-the-fi eld’ survey, covering language practices,beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for languagemanagement. It provides a historical background which traces the development of classical language planning, describes activities associatedwith indigenous and endangered languages, and contains chapters onimperialism, colonialism, effects of migration and globalization, andeducational policy. It also evaluates language management agencies,analyses language activism, and looks at language cultivation (includingreform of writing systems, orthography and modernized terminology). , Over the last fi fty years, language policy has developed into a major discipline, drawing on research and practice in many nations and at many levels. This is the fi rst Handbook to deal with language policy as a wholeand is a complete ‘state-of-the-fi eld’ survey, covering language practices,beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for languagemanagement. It provides a historical background which traces the development of classical language planning, describes activities associatedwith indigenous and endangered languages, and contains chapters onimperialism, colonialism, effects of migration and globalization, andeducational policy. It also evaluates language management agencies,analyses language activism, and looks at language cultivation (includingreform of writing systems, orthography and modernized terminology). ]