Language contact and change occur continuously, whether or not they are noted, recorded, or analyzed. The intensity and frequency vary, and can vary dramatically according to geographic and historic circumstances. Contributions to this volume revisit some of the topics last discussed in the 1997 Annual Review of Applied Linguistics on multilingualism (Grabe, 1997), update them with connections to the ever-increasing bibliography for these subjects, and extend them into some new directions. Many of these topics, and some of the new directions, testify to the vision of Charles A. Ferguson. His comprehensive grasp of the multiple points of intersection between language and society, prominent in the academic literature of the last forty years and epitomized by the selections in Huebner (1996), fully merits the special dedication of this volume.