This is a collection of articles that examine sociolinguistic issues in many of the countries of Western Europe. Lanugages do not exist in a vacuum but are affected by the social and political changes that affect their speakers. Such changes can lead to modifications both in the structure of a given language and in how much or how little it is used by the community. The volume deals with the linguistic repercussions of social and political change in Western Europe in a series of articles, by specialists in each area, that range from general surveys to detailed studies of one linguistic variety in a particular historical context. Although the main focus is on the present and on the prospects for the future within a more closely-integrated Europe, the volume also contains several contributions that illustrate the far-reaching effects of social and political developments in language use and structure in past centuries.