Multilingualism and History

Shattering the cliché 'our world is more multilingual than ever before', this book offers the first comprehensive history of our multilingual past.

Aneta Pavlenko (Edited by)

9781009236256, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 2023

375 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.6 kg

We often hear that our world 'is more multilingual than ever before', but is it true? This book shatters that cliché. It is the first volume to shine light on the millennia-long history of multilingualism as a social, institutional and demographic phenomenon. Its fifteen chapters, written in clear, accessible language by prominent historians, classicists, and sociolinguists, span the period from the third century BC to the present day, and range from ancient Rome and Egypt to medieval London and Jerusalem, from Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires to modern Norway, Ukraine, and Spain. Going against the grain of traditional language histories, these thought-provoking case studies challenge stereotypical beliefs, foreground historic normativity of institutional multilingualism and language mixing, examine the transformation of polyglot societies into monolingual ones, and bring out the cognitive and affective dissonance in present-day orientations to multilingualism, where 'celebrations of linguistic diversity' coexist uneasily with creation of 'language police'.

1. Multilingualism and historic amnesia: an introduction Aneta Pavlenko
2. Greek meets Egyptian at the temple gate: bilingual papyri from Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (third century BCE – fourth century CE) Anastasia Maravela
3. Language shift, attitudes, and management in the Roman West Alex Mullen
4. Languages at war: military interpreters in antiquity and the modern world Rachel Mairs
5. How multilingualism came to be ignored in the history of Standard English Laura Wright
6. Multilingualism and the attitude toward French in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem Jonathan Rubin
7. Why colonial Dutch failed to become a global lingua franca Roland Willemyns
8. How unique was Russia's multilingual elite? Gesine Argent
9. Language ideology and observation: nineteenth-century scholars in northwestern Siberia Susan Gal
10 Studying historical multilingualism in everyday life: the case of the Habsburg Monarchy in the nineteenth century Jan Fellerer
11 Multilingualism and the end of the Ottoman Empire: language, script, and the quest for the 'modern' Benjamin Fortna
12. 'Multilingualism is now a must': discourses on languages and international cooperation at the Council of Europe Zorana Sokolovska
13. The presence of the past in language revitalization Pia Lane
14. Historic reenactments in contemporary Spain: fiestas de moros y cristianos Yasmine Beale-Rivaya
15. Multilingual ghost signs: dissonant languages in the landscape of memory Aneta Pavlenko.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], General & world history [HBG], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Bilingualism & multilingualism [CFDM]