ABOUT THIS BOOK
Before the modern nation-state became a stable, widespread phenomenon throughout northern Europe, multilingualism-the use of multiple languages in one geographical area-was common throughout the region. This book brings together historians and linguists, who apply their respective analytic tools to offer an interdisciplinary interpretation of the functions of multilingualism in identity-building in the period, and, from that, draw valuable lessons for understanding today's cosmopolitan societies.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Willem Frijhoff is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at VU University, Amsterdam, and is now G.Ph. Verhagen Professor of Cultural History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. His scholarly work focuses on cultural, linguistic and religious identities in early modern France, the Netherlands and North America.Marie-Christine Kok Escalle has been Associate Professor of French Culture and Intercultural Communication at Utrecht University, and after her retirement she continued as Senior Researcher at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Utrecht University). Her scholarly interests include the cultural role the French language has played in the Netherlands, specially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the development of intercultural competence through foreign language learning and teaching in the past as well as nowadays.Karène Sanchez-Summerer is Assistant Professor of French language and culture and International studiesat Leiden University. Her scholarly interests include the French linguistic and cultural policy in the Levant, the educational impacts of French and British missions in the Middle East, and the relations between language and religion in the Middle Eastern nationalism and identity building processes (mid 19th-mid 20th centuries).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Languages and Culture in History: A New CollectionWillem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, Karène Sanchez-SummererI. Approaches of Multilingualism in the Past1. Codes, routines and communication: Forms and Meaning of Linguistic Plurality in Western Societies in Former TimesWillem Frijhoff2. Capitalizing Multilingual Competence: Language Learning and Teaching in the Early Modern PeriodPierre SwiggersII. Multilingualism in Early Modern Times: Three Examples3. Plurilingualism in Augsburg and Nuremberg in Early Modern TimesKonrad Schröder4. Multilingualism in the Dutch Golden Age: An ExplorationWillem Frijhoff5. Literacy, Usage, and National Prestige: The Changing Fortunes of Gaelic in IrelandJoep Leerssen