Sociocultural Change and the Development of Vernacular Languages in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

This thematic issue of Linguistica explores the interaction between sociocultural change and the development of vernacular languages in Early Modern Europe. Its scope is deliberately broad in the range of topics, languages as well as in the time span covered from, at one end, the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period in the 15th century to, at the other end, the transition from the Early Modern to the Late Modern period in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leitmotiv of the issue – the development of vernacular languages – is explored from different perspectives, for different languages and at different periods. The languages covered include not only languages which were official or hegemonic in emerging European nation states – English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch – but also peripheral languages such as Slovene, Irish, Welsh, Scots, Low German, Catalan and Franco-Provençal. Several of the articles in this issue also focus on more than one vernacular language, exploring competition or contact between Latin and vernacular languages or between different vernacular languages and cultures.

Keywords

• Europe
• c.1400-c.1800
• vernacular languages