Medieval Textbooks as a Major Source for Historical Sociolinguistic Studies of (highregister) Medieval Greek

Abstract

This article proposes to consider medieval textbooks, designed for the study of Greek, as major sources for historical sociolinguistic analyses on texts written in (high-register) Medieval Greek. It additionally discusses some aspects of the definition of historical sociolinguistics as a discipline, and stresses the importance of recovering the speech community’s perspective on Medieval Greek.

Keywords

• historical sociolinguistics
• high-register / low-register medieval greek
• koine greek