Title: Creating languages in Central Europe during the last millennium /
Authors: Kamusella, Tomasz
Year: 2015
Subjects: Language and languages; Language and languages Political aspects; Europe, Central Languages History.; Europe, Central Languages Political aspects History.
Abstract: "Languages are formed into discrete entities, as we know them nowadays, by the technology of writing in the service of power centers, usually state capitals. All the choices made on the way - planned or not - amount to standardization which intensifies as the literate percentage of population increases. Long-lasting extant states and religions decidedly shaped the constellation of written languages across Central Europe. Having emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries, this constellation was dramatically remade during the religious wars and, from the 15th to 17th centuries, by the invention and spread of printing, marking a growing correlation between vernaculars and written languages. After 1918, Central Europe's multiethnic empires were replaced by nation-states, giving rise to the political principle of ethnolinguistic nationalism which holds that the nation-state is legitimate only if it is monolingual and monoscriptural and does not share its official language with another polity. This book provides an overview detailed history and linguistic analysis of how the many languages of Central Europe have developed from the 10th century to the present day, when cyberspace changes the rules of the game"--Publisher.
Contents: Cover; Half-Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction: (Central) Europe and the World; 1 Preliminaries; Language or languages?; The dichotomy of 'a language' (Einzelsprache) and dialect; Writing and ideology; Standard languages and nations; 2 Setting the Stage in Europe; Holy Latin in the West; Vernaculars into languages in the West; Holy languages in the East; 3 The Question of the Middle; Plurality or homogeneity?; What is in the name?; Politics of script; E unum pluribus; 4 From Nationalism to the Internet