The linkage of Canadian language ideologies with ideologies of nation & state & with sociolinguistic practice is examined with focus on three interlocking processes in evidence during the period since the 1960s: Quebecois political mobilization; the effort of the federal government to maintain legitimacy; & the varied role of academics, particularly linguists & sociolinguists, in the first two processes. A review of the rise of Quebecois nationalism traces the history of institutional separation, linguistic purism, & church-centered national identity prior to WWII & attributes the "Quiet Revolution" that began in the 1950s to self-reinvention by the French Canadian lay elite. The Quebec language charter of 1977 is analyzed in light of the complex situation of Francophones outside Quebec - who by the logic of Quebecois nationalism contradict their own existence by supporting Quebec - & the federal government's attempt to foster a new image of Canada as a bilingual, pluralistic nation. The importance of linguistics as a cultural & political tool is stressed in connection with a tendency to treat language as a unified given.