Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History (review)

The volume under consideration here addresses the impact of multilingualism on the history of various European languages. Following an ‘Introduction’ (1–13) written by both editors, which discusses the importance of multilingualism in European languages and outlines the various contributions, David Trotter’s article, ‘Oceano vox: You never know where a ship comes from. On multilingualism and language-mixing in medieval Britain’ (15–33), addresses issues such as the relationship between the shipping trade and language and the impact of multilingualism on the language of shipping. Elin Fredested discusses ‘Language contact and bilingualism in Flensburg in the middle of the 19th century’ (35–59), focusing largely on contact-induced changes in Danish and German as reflected in letters by various townspeople. Agnete Nesse (‘Written and spoken languages in Bergen in the Hansa era’, 61–84) concentrates on contact between Low German and Norwegian in Bergen, a major shipping center. Marika Tandefelt (‘Vyborg: Free trade in four languages’, 85–104) suggests that the long multilingual history of the city of Vyborg (which previously belonged to Sweden and Finland, and currently belongs to Russia) makes Vyborg an excellent place for research into language contact and supports this claim by examining the impact that the city’s languages (Finnish, Swedish, German, and Russian) have had on each other. Unfortunately, it seems that it will no longer be possible to do such research there, since Vyborg is now largely a monolingual city.

The scene shifts somewhat for Björn Wiemer’s detailed discussion of ‘Dialect and language contacts on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 15th century until 1939’ (105–43). This paper is followed by the rather curiously titled ‘Swedish and Swedish: On the origin of diglossia and social variation in the Swedish language’ (145–71), by Lars Wollin, which discusses issues such as the stratification of language and also offers a careful evaluation of two texts revised at a monastery. Diana Chirita then returns to one of the classic problems of historical Germanic linguistics in ‘Did Latin influence German word order? Aspects of German-Latin bilingualism in the Late Middle Ages’ (173–200). Chirita tentatively concludes that written German was certainly influenced by Latin, but notes that various issues remain unclear.

The next two articles, ‘From unity to diversity in Romance syntax: Portuguese and Spanish’ by Ana Maria Martins (201–33) and ‘Sardinian between maintenance and change’ by Rosita Rindler Schjerve (235–60), offer insightful discussions of problems in Romance linguistics. The final paper of the volume by Alexandra Vella looks at ‘Language contact and Maltese intonation: Some parallels with other language varieties’ (261–83).

This is an interesting, useful book. The articles are generally well done and readable, although a few of them could have benefited from a careful editing by a native speaker of English. It will certainly be valuable for those interested in the subject matter.