English And Celtic In Contact

English and Celtic in Contact provides the first comprehensive account of the history and extent of Celtic influences in English. Drawing on both original research and existing work, it covers the earliest medieval contacts and their linguistic effects as well as the reflexes of later, early modern, and modern contacts.

Highlights the complexity of contact-induced language change throughout the history of English by bringing together cutting-edge research from historical linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, pidgin/creole linguistics and language acquisition. With contributions from leading experts, the book offers fresh and exciting perspectives as well as an up-to-date overview of the respective fields.

This volume brings together eleven studies on the history of language and writing in the North Sea area, with focus on contacts and interchanges through time. Its range spans from the investigation of pre-Germanic place-names to present-day Shetland; the materials studied include glosses, legal and trade documents as well as place names and modern dialects. The volume is unique in its combination of linguistics and place-name studies with literacy studies, which allows for a very dynamic picture of the history of language contact and texts in the North Sea area. Different approaches come together to illuminate a major insight: the omnipresence of multilingualism as a context for language development and a formative characteristic of literacy. Among the contributors are experts on English, Nordic and German language history. The book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students working on the history of Northern European languages, literacy studies and language contact

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1, University of Marburg, 80 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The perceived lack of Celtic loanwords in English has generally been seen as proof that the Anglo-Saxon invaders made short notice of their Celtic predecessors when they took possession of Britain during the fifth century. Thus, the Celts simply would not have had the chance to leave their mark on the English language as they were either killed, driven into the sea or had to take refuge in the mountainous West and North of Britain. The possibility of any Celtic influence on the very structure of English has been discounted altogether. In recent years, this view has met mounting opposition from different fields of study. New archaeological evidence as well as a methodological reassessment have called for a examination of the history of the Anglo-Saxon immigration. Besides, new advances in contact linguistics provide tools with which a more detailed look on the history of the English language has become possible.

Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.

The second edition of the definitive reference on contact studies and linguistic change—provides extensive new research and original case studies Language contact is a dynamic area of contemporary linguistic research that studies how language changes when speakers of different languages interact. Accessibly structured into three sections, The Handbook of Language Contact explores the role of contact studies within the field of linguistics, the value of contact studies for language change research, and the relevance of language contact for sociolinguistics. This authoritative volume presents original findings and fresh research directions from an international team of prominent experts. Thirty-seven specially-commissioned chapters cover a broad range of topics and case studies of contact from around the world. Now in its second edition, this valuable reference has been extensively updated with new chapters on topics including globalization, language acquisition, creolization, code-switching, and genetic classification. Fresh case studies examine Romance, Indo-European, African, Mayan, and many other languages in both the past and the present. Addressing the major issues in the field of language contact studies, this volume: Includes a representative sample of individual studies which re-evaluate the role of language contact in the broader context of language and society Offers 23 new chapters written by leading scholars Examines language contact in different societies, including many in Africa and Asia Provides a cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world The Handbook of Language Contact, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for researchers, scholars, and students involved in language contact, language variation and change, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language theory.

This volume provides a comprehensive account of Early Modern English, organized by linguistic level. In seventeen individual chapters, written by recognized experts in the field, this volume not only presents detailed outlines of the traditional language levels, such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. It also explores key questions and debates, such as do-periphrasis, the Great Vowel Shift, pronouns and relativization, literary language (including the language of Shakespeare), and sociolinguistics, including contact and standardization.