Edited by Kurt Braunmüller and Gisella Ferraresi
University of Hamburg
This volume gives an up-to-date account of various situations of
language contact and multilingualism in Europe especially from a
historical point of view. Its ten contributions present newly collected
data from different parts of the continent seen through diverse
theoretical perspectives. They show a richness of topics and data that
not only reveal numerous historical and sociological facts but also
afford considerable insight into possible effects multilingualism and
language contact might have on language change. The collection begins
its journey through Europe in the British Isles. Then it turns to
northern Europe and looks at how multilingualism worked in three towns
that are all marked by border and contact situations. The journey
continues with linguistic-historical and political-historical visits to
Sweden and to Lithuania before the reader is taken to central Europe,
where we will deal with the influence of Latin on written German.As far
as southern Europe is concerned, the study continues on the Iberian
peninsula, where the relationship between Portuguese and Spanish is
focused, to be followed by Sardinia and Malta, two islands whose unique
geohistorical positions give rise to some consideration of
multilingualism in the Mediterranean.