As postcolonialism turned its attention to African literature, culture, and intellectual history, a number of very productive alliances between postcolonial theory and theories of globalization, subaltern studies, decoloniality, and transnational cultural studies emerged, but the relationship to poststructuralism has always been an ambivalent one. Taking Sunday Anozie’s debt to structuralism as a point of departure, the shift from structuralist to poststructuralist readings – with specific reference to Homi Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, and Achille Mbembe – is seen as indicative of a general move from a relatively static model of analysis to a more dynamic one. Using the case studies of Sony Lab’ou Tansi and Abdelkebir Khatibi, the chapter argues that the theoretical richness and dynamism of poststructuralism, as evidenced by the proliferation of its tropes and strategic gestures, demonstrates clearly its value and potential for contemporary African contexts.

The numerous multilingual texts from medieval to modern times have only recently received the recognition as serious linguistic data that they deserve. They provide important testimony of medieval and early modern multilingualism and have increasingly been seen as written records of early code-switching and language mixing, which can be analysed on the basis of modern code-switching theories. This chapter discusses this assumption with historical data from England, addressing questions like syntactic, functional and visual approaches to the data, the distinctiveness of languages in multiligual texts. A related, but special type of multilingualism is attested in medieval mixed-language administrative texts which show a principled but variable use of Latin, French and English. Other issues are the increasing use of manuscripts and electronic corpora as data for linguistic analysis. The chapter finishes with a small selection of multilingual historical texts from England with brief comments to illustrate some of the issues discussed.

This chapter demonstrates how the definition of Anglo-Norman has evolved over the last fifty years, and how this has led to a better understanding of the pervasiveness and longevity of the impact of insular French on British culture. It demonstrates the Anglo-Norman Dictionary’s response to this development in its inclusion and treatment of different types of ‘new’ sources, and discusses the problematic nature of some of these. As a digital platform, the Anglo-Norman Dictionary has introduced a range of additional dictionary-wide features and search tools that highlight the growing awareness of the multilingual context of Anglo-Norman lexis. This chapter shows how these tools provide new data for etymological research, while emphasising the implications of how the term Anglo-Norman language should be interpreted.

Shifts in the perception of the role of language users in the history of standardisation in the early periods of the language are evident as the scholarly narrative develops across time. This chapter begins with the notions of standardisation in Old English. The main focus is on the Middle English period, and Samuels’s (1989 [1963]: 66) suggestion that the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English could be used to classify the less obviously dialectal forms of language, and thus might offer a way to discover the sources of the emerging standard language in fifteenth century English writing. This chapter notes the long shadow cast by this aperçu. It then examines more recent work spearheaded by Wright (1994, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2013, 2017, 2020), which has re-evaluated the narrative of standardisation in early English, focusing on multilingualism and the rejection of a single ancestor of Standard English.

English historical sociolinguistics traces the transition of a ‘small’ language into a ‘big’ one. Old English was a small language in terms of its regional coverage and number of speakers, whereas Present-day English is a comprehensively documented world language with hundreds of millions of first-language speakers. Its 1500-year history involves gradually developing social structures of different timescales, but it was also affected by abrupt changes brought about by forces such as invasions and pandemics. Sociolinguistics highlights the agency of language users in shaping and changing their language and, consequently, the society they live in. Written records on individual language use are sparse from the earliest periods but multiply as people from different walks of life become literate and pass on data on their linguistic practices. With time, increasing efforts are, however, also expended on regulating usage with the aim of language standardisation.

The background to English lies in the forms of Germanic taken from the North Sea rim to the island of Britain in the fifth century. In this introduction the chapters of this volume dealing with the roots of this input, both in earlier Germanic and in more distant Indo-European are discussed. Contact with Latin, Celtic, Scandinavian and northern medieval French in the several centuries after settlement in England by the Germanic tribes is a major focus among the chapters of the present volume as is the nature of the contact situation, which is regarded as responsible for the transfer effects which can be observed. The typological reorientation which English experienced is a further focus in the volume as is the later development of the history of English as a subject of academic research. In addition, there are several ‘long view’ chapters which present overviews of linguistic areas and levels for the entire history of English.

This chapter presents one of the most recent additions to the historical sociolinguistic toolkit, a community of practice (CoP). The discussion of definitions and delimitations of this concept places it in the ‘three waves’ of sociolinguistic research and builds comparisons and contrasts with two neighbouring frameworks: social networks and discourse communities. The focus moves on to the applications of CoPs in historical sociolinguistics. The dimensions of practice – joint enterprise (or domain), mutual engagement, and shared repertoire – are redefined for the purpose of historical sociolinguistics and illustrated with examples from studies which engage with the sociohistorical and cultural context of communication. We show how language change – or, indeed, resistance to change – may be observed through a CoP lens. Prolific contexts where the concept of a CoP has been fruitfully employed include letter writing, the production of manuscripts and early prints, professional discourse, trial proceedings, multilingual practices and online blogging.

The chapter considers the nature of lexical borrowing and the challenges of identifying the contribution that it has made to the lexicon of English. It looks at the major sources of data, especially historical dictionaries. It considers the importance of identifying by whom a word is used, and in which contexts. It also examines phenomena of discontinuity and multiple inputs in the histories of words, and the challenges that these present for constructing linear histories of English words, and larger-scale narratives of the history of the lexicon.

This chapter firstly outlines the phonological structure of Gaelic and aspects of phonetic implementation. I then consider methods used so far in the study of Gaelic phonological acquisition and review work in this area. The journey of language acquisition is varied across different sectors of the Gaelic-speaking population, as well as individuals. For example, while some children acquire Gaelic and English virtually simultaneously in the home, other children acquire Gaelic sequentially through a form of immersion schooling known as Gaelic Medium Education (GME). Many lie somewhere on a simultaneous-sequential continuum. Adult acquirers of Gaelic are a hugely diverse population, which naturally leads to a range of differing outcomes in the acquisition of phonology. In this overview of the field, I consider the different factors associated with multilingual phonological acquisition, and how they have predicted or challenged results obtained from data-driven studies of Gaelic. The chapter ends with a discussion about the multiple future directions needed for research in this area, including larger studies of primary-aged populations, and more focus on universities as an important locus of adult language acquisition.

This chapter examines the acquisition of Welsh in its social and cultural context, with a particular focus on how Welsh being a minority language influences how children speak it. The primary perspective taken will be sociolinguistic, that is variation in children’s Welsh. We review the literature on the linguistic effects of language contact between English as the dominant language on Welsh in the speech of children as well as adults, including discussions of code-switching and diachronic grammatical change. Next, we turn to examining the social factors that have been found to affect children’s acquisition of Welsh, especially language exposure and how this can vary considerably from child to child. The next section reviews one of the main methodological approaches that has been used to collect data in Welsh linguistics, namely corpus data, and considers some of the benefits and challenges that such a method provides for researching child language as well as directing readers to relevant corpora and making some recommendations on considerations for future corpora of children’s Welsh. The chapter concludes with ideas for research directions in this field that the reader may find useful.

The material in this section sets the stage for the content in the subsequent chapters. Key notions, including ideology, are pointed out, and the focal geographic area, the Balkan peninsula of Southeast Europe, is identified as a hotspot for multilingualism and language contact, with specific reference to the structural and lexical parallelism seen in the Balkans and to the key construct of the “Balkanism”, i.e., a contact-induced convergent feature. Mention is made as well of the range of handbook-like presentations about the language situation in the Balkans. Finally, in light of the many works on the Balkans, a justification is provided for the present volume, and the place that it aspires to in treatments of the Balkans from a linguistic perspective.

Chapter 3 discusses the key methodological and theoretical issues relevant for Balkan linguistics as a specific manifestation of complex language contact. On the one hand, other proposed linguistic areas are discussed, such as Amazonia, Araxes-Iran, the Caucasus, Ethiopia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Meso-America, the Northwest Coast of North America, and parts of Papua New Guinea and Australia. In that regard, the Balkans represent not only the most studied such case but also the most studiable, in that of all the sprachbunds that have been discussed in the literature, the Balkans offer the greatest amount of, and the longest time-depth for, information on the linguistic history of the area, the social history of the peoples in the region, and relevant reconstructible linguistic prehistory. On the other hand, mechanisms of, and relevant factors for, contact-induced change are presented, including multilingualism, interference, accommodation, simplification, pidginization and creolization, code-switching, borrowing, calquing, and language ideology. Further, other methodologies, including the Comparative Method, linguistic geography, and typological assessments offer additional sources of information for both Balkan linguistic prehistory and Balkan dialectology.

We will look at attitudes and value judgments which speakers and communities have about English dialects and discuss their social relevance of language in general. We will see that language is not only a means to share information but an essential part of social life which helps us organize ourselves and define our identity. There are different levels of usage (regional, social, ethnic, individual) and that variation has regional, social and individual dimensions. We start with a short discussion of general attitudes about language varieties, look at social prejudice based on language usage, find out why some varieties are stigmatized whereas others have high prestige and get a first glance of perceptions about standard and non-standardized varieties. Looking at examples from English around the world, we take a look at perceptual dialectology to demonstrate how views toward dialects affect our ives – not forgetting their negative side effects.

We take a look at fundamental principles that operate when social and/or regional varieties of English are in contact with each other or with other languages. We take a historical look at English and explore various contact settings which have shaped its development, from contact with Old Norse, Latin and Norman French to the present day. We discuss patterns of bilingualism and multilingualism, that is when speakers use two or more languages in their everyday lives. As the product of migration and colonization, different kinds of English have emerged in different locations around the world. We learn how new dialects emerge as a product of new-dialect formation and how contact-derived varieties such as pidgins and creoles develop under conditions of language contact, with emphasis on different theories of origins. Finally, we discuss the so-called Global Englishes which have emerged as a product of second-language learning around the world.

This chapter asks whether there is an Ottoman intellectual history and, if so, what makes it distinct from other forms of intellectual and cultural history. We argue that the answer resides in the methods and questions that Ottoman intellectual historians have asked their sources based on a long intellectual, philological, and philosophical tradition generated by the Ottomans. To do so, we discuss major methods, sources, and challenges of Ottoman intellectual history and how historians have engaged with them. Embracing a flexible and encompassing definition of intellectual history, we aim to highlight the undeniable and necessary place of intellectual history within Ottoman studies in the context of new developments in the field. Last, we discuss current methodological developments in intellectual history and their possible implications for the discipline’s future. With this short contribution, we hope to start a conversation about what is next in Ottoman intellectual history.