This edited book examines the multilingual culture of medieval England, exploring its impact on the development of English and its textual manifestations from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The book offers overviews of the state of the art of research and case studies on this subject in (sub)disciplines of linguistics including historical linguistics, onomastics, lexicology and lexicography, sociolinguistics, code-switching and language contact, and also includes contributions from literary and socio-cultural studies, material culture, and palaeography. The authors focus on the variety of languages in use in medieval Britain, including English, Old Norse, Norn, Dutch, Welsh, French, and Latin, making the argument that understanding the impact of medieval multilingualism on the development of English requires multidisiplinarity and the bringing together of different frameworks in linguistics and cultural studies toachieve more nuanced answers. This book will be of interest to academics and students of historical linguistics and medieval textual culture.
Arvustused
This book provides a practical guide to current theories and methodologies in medieval English multilingualism, as a response to the growing interest in the multilingual culture of medieval Britain and its impact on the development of English (p. 1). This wide-ranging volume is designed to complement recent advances in the field ... . The detailed bibliographies at the end of each chapter will also be of use to researchers or teachers looking for further information. (Christine Wallis, English Language & Linguistics, Issue (2), August 19, 2025)
This excellent volume contains individually strong chapters that have been thoughtfully curated by editors Sara M. Pons-Sanz and Louise Sylvester . this is an impressive collection that moves the field forward in exciting ways while also making clear the rich potential for future studies. The chapters are uniformly of high quality and interest . Medieval English in a Multilingual Context is a valuable contribution to the field in far more than a linguistic context. (Lindy Brady, SELIM - Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature, Vol. 29 (1), 2024)
Chapter 1: Introduction Part I Research Contexts Chapter 2: Contact
Theory and the History of English
Chapter 3: From Original Sources to Linguistic Analysis: Tools and Datasets
for the Investigation of Multilingualism in Medieval EnglishPart II Medieval
Multilingualism and Lexical Change Chapter 4: Contact-Induced Lexical Effects
in Medieval English
Chapter 5: The West Germanic Heritage of Yorkshire English
Chapter 6: Reframing the Interaction between Native Terms and Loanwords: Some
Data from Occupational Domains in Middle English
Chapter 7: Cheapside in Wales: Multilingualism and Textiles in Medieval Welsh
Poetry
Chapter 8: Caxtons Linguistic and Literary Multilingualism: English, French
and Dutch in the History of Jason Part III Medieval Multilingualism and
Morphosyntactic Change
Chapter 9: An Overview of Contact-Induced MorphosyntacticChanges in Early
English
Chapter 10: Traces of Language Contact in Nominal Morphology of Late
Northumbrian and Northern Middle English
Chapter 11: Origin and Spread of the Personal Pronoun They: La Estorie del
Evangelie, a Case Study
Chapter 12: Language Contact Effects on Verb Semantic Classes: Lability in
Early English and Old French
Chapter 13: Exploring Norn: A Historical Heritage Language of the British
Isles Part IV Textual Manifestations of Medieval Multilingualism
Chapter 14: Textual and Codicological Manifestations of Multilingual Culture
in Medieval England
Chapter 15: Adapting Winefride in Welsh, Latin and English
Chapter 16: Let Each One Tell its Own Story: Language Mixing in Four Copies
of Amore Langueo
Chapter 17: The Materiality of the Manières de langage
Chapter 18 Afterword
Sara M. Pons-Sanz is Reader in Language and Communication at Cardiff University, UK. She led the AHRC-funded network Medieval English (ca600-1500) in a Multilingual Context and co-led the AHRC-funded Gersum Project. She is the author of The Lexical Effects of Anglo-Scandinavian Linguistic Contact on Old English, and other books and articles on medieval English.
Louise Sylvester is Professor of English Language at the University of Westminster, UK. She co-edited the Bilingual Thesaurus of Everyday Life in Medieval England and the multilingual database Lexis of Cloth and Clothing in Britain c700-1450. She has published widely on the effects of contact with French on the vocabulary of Middle English.
