Advances in Historical Orthography, c. 1500–1800

Introducing a range of empirical approaches, this book traces the development of historical orthographies across a number of European languages. It will be of interest to historical linguists, students of Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, and those interested in language documentation and description, and lexicography.

The early modern period is a key historical era for the standardisation of languages in Europe, in which orthographies played an important role. This book traces the development of European spelling systems in the early modern era, and is unique in bringing together several strands of historical research, across a diverse range of Germanic, Romance and Slavic languages, including Polish, German, French, Spanish, Lithuanian, Czech, Croatian and English. Whilst each chapter includes a case study on a particular language or script, the volume in general follows a broad thread of discussion based on models and methods relevant to many languages, showing how empirical approaches can be applied across languages to enrich the field of historical orthography as a whole. The first volume to diachronically explore the standardization of spelling systems from a cross-linguistic perspective, this is an invaluable resource for specialists and those interested in historical European studies more broadly.