Western Language Ad 100 1300

This book is a cultural history of European languages from the invention of printing to the French Revolution.

Written as a text, this book looks at the external history of French from its Latin origins to the present day through some of the analytical frameworks developed by contemporary sociolinguistics. French is one of the most highly standardized of the world's languages and the author invites us to see the language as heterogenous, rather than a monolithic entity, using the model proposed by E. Haugen as a useful comparative grid to plot the development of standardization. After an introductory section which examines the dialectalization of Latin in Gaul, the four central chapters of the book are constructed around the basic processes invoved in standardization as identified by Haugen: the selection of norms, the elaboration of function, codification and acceptance. The concluding chapter deals with language variability and the wide gulf that has now developed between French used for formal purposes and that used in everyday speech, with particular reference to Occitan speaking regions. Emphasizing the ordinary speakers of the language, rather than the statesmen or great authors as agents of change, the book combines a traditional history of the language' approach with a sociolinguistic framework to provide a broad and comparative overview of the problem of language standardization.

The Church was the central institution of the European Middle Ages, and the foundation of medieval life. Professor Lynch's admirable survey (concentrating on the western church, and emphasising ideas and trends over personalities) meets a long-felt need for a single-volume comprehensive history, designed for students and non-specialists.

First Published in 1959 The history and origin of language deals with one of the most important and most fascinating subject matter of all human historical problems-that of the origin and development of language. It is the first attempt to solve it, not by a priori methods, but by marshalling and analyzing the whole of the evidence. It is a work of great originality by a scholar who has written other well-known sociological works, and the treatment is that of the sociologist. Dr Diamond writes for the intelligent layman as well as the linguist. He first seeks the true nature of language and its true function and structure in modern society and traces the paths along which language has developed and changed in its known history, both in the forms of its words and in their meanings, examining for this purpose many languages of civilized and primitive peoples. These paths he then pursues backwards with the aid of data from human physiology, the language of children, and observations of animal behaviour, and shows how all these paths converge to one beginning and deduces how language originated-both the form of its first words and their meanings. He finally shows relics of these earliest words and meanings in languages which still survive. The arguments are cumulative and many sided, and the case made is convincing. This is a must read for scholars and researchers of linguistics.

Examines a wide variety of the aspects of knighthood, ranging from its emergence as an identifiably noble estate to the appropriation of chivalric trappings to serve bourgeois interests.

The second edition of this highly successful textbook analyses the structure of later medieval society in Europe, identifies its main groups and their political programmes, and examines their impact on the political, economic and social history of the major European states. There are many additions and expansions in this new edition, and the important chapter on the Central Monarchies (of Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Rumania and Lithuania) has been newly contributed by Professor J M Bak of the University of British Columbia.