This volume tracks the complex relationships between language, education and nation-building in Southeast Asia, focusing on how language policies have been used by states and governments as instruments of control, assimilation and empowerment. Leading scholars have contributed chapters each representing one of the countries in the region.

This volume addresses the question 'What role does religion play in the maintenance, revival and/or shift, of languages?' It explores the complex and dynamic relationship between religion and the maintenance, revival and/or shift of languages in diverse multilingual multicultural contexts and sociopolitical conditions at different points in time.