This is an analysis of the promises and contradictions surrounding contemporary minority language policy. It draws on theoretical and real-world perspectives and interviews with key players within European institutions together with field work undertaken principally in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Canada.

1. The Mask of Piety 2. Managing Official Language Legislative Regimes 3. European Legislative Frameworks and Comparative Language Acts. 4. The Embedded Nature of Language Legislation. 5. From Act to Action: Policy Implications and Recommendations 6. Official Language Strategies in Comparative Perspective 7. The Logic of Best Practice Language Strategy 8. Official Language Commissioners 9. The Mask of Piety and the Faltering Polity

"Professor Colin Williams is one of the world's leading scholars on lesser-used languages. In this book he brings to bear not only a vast store of empirical knowledge of the subject but a passionate plea and moral vision in defence of these languages. The book examines language policies in Finland, Ireland and Wales but places these policies in a much wider perspective including approaches by European institutions such as the Council of Europe and the Canadian experience. The author examines the issues from legislative, policy and legal perspectives all the time teasing out the consequences of the shift to neo-liberalism which has dominated western countries since the 1980s. Williams not only gives a fine analysis of these trends but also provides a realistic set of policy recommendations that will help these often embattled lesser-used languages to survive." - John Loughlin, University of Cambridge, UK "This volume is a comprehensive and stimulating analysis of the challenges arising in relation to the design and implementation of minority language promotion regimes in the early twenty-first century. The book is impressively wide-ranging in its scope, examining closely initiatives in a number of different jurisdictions, and helpfully practical in its approach, so that the analysis is always drawn towards a operative conclusion in terms of best practice." - Wilson McLeod, University of Edinburgh, UK