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Language Adaptation examines the process by which a speech community is forced to adopt an active role in making its language suitable for changing functional requirements. This wide-ranging collection of essays looks at this phenomenon from a variety of historical and synchronic perspectives, and brings together the work of a number of leading scholars in the field. Several different languages are examined at different stages of their history, including Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Kiswahili, German and Hindi. This well-informed book is a significant contribution to the existing literature on language planning, and is the first to use one theoretical concept to deal with the relationship between natural and deliberate language change. It shows that language adaptation is a particular aspect of language change, and thus establishes a link between the social and the historical study of language. It will appeal to graduate students and professionals in linguistics and the social sciences, as well as to practitioners of language planning.