For the individual languages discussed in this Handbook, language institutions have, to varying degrees, promoted debate surrounding the cultivation, standardisation and critique of the language. Language academies such as the Accademia della Crusca or the Académie française are, without question, among the most well-known and, in a certain sense, most symbolic of language institutions. However, not only language academies but also linguistic societies may promote a language-critical, and partly puristic agenda and thus fulfill a standardising function.