Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe, 16th-19th Centuries 9789048530007

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Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity

Languages and Culture in History This series studies the role foreign languages have played in the creation of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Europe, both western and eastern, and at the individual, community, national or transnational level. At the heart of this series is the historical evolution of linguistic and cultural policies, internal as well as external, and their relationship with linguistic and cultural identities. The series takes an interdisciplinary approach to a variety of historical issues: the diffusion, the supply and the demand for foreign languages, the history of pedagogical practices, the historical relationship between languages in a given cultural context, the public and private use of foreign languages – in short, every way foreign languages intersect with local languages in the cultural realm. Series Editors Willem Frijhoff, Erasmus University Rotterdam Karène Sanchez-Summerer, Leiden University Editorial Board Members Gerda Hassler, University of Potsdam Douglas A. Kibbee, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, Utrecht University Joep Leerssen, University of Amsterdam Nicola McLelland, The University of Nottingham Despina Provata, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Konrad Schröder, University of Augsburg Valérie Spaëth, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle Javier Suso López, University of Granada Pierre Swiggers, KU Leuven

Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries

Edited by Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène Sanchez-Summerer

Amsterdam University Press

Translations into English were made possible by the generous support of the G.Ph. Verhagen Stichting, Rotterdam, Bettina Brandt as translator and Mary Robitaille-Ibbett as translator and corrector.

Cover illustration: Erasmus en Rumi, Erasmusstraat 137 in Rotterdam, by Ahmad Reza Haraji, 2008. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 061 7 e-isbn 978 90 4853 000 7 doi 10.5117/ 9789462980617 nur 616 / 695 © Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle and Karène Sanchez-Summerer / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

Languages and Culture in History

A New Series Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène Sanchez-Summerer

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Part I  Approaches to Multilingualism in the Past 1 Codes, Routines and Communication

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2 Capitalizing Multilingual Competence

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Forms and Meaning of Linguistic Plurality in Western European Societies in Former Times Willem Frijhoff

Language Learning and Teaching in the Early Modern Period Pierre Swiggers

Part II  Multilingualism in Early Modern Times: Three Examples 3 Plurilingualism in Augsburg and Nuremberg in Early Modern Times 79 Konrad Schröder

4 Multilingualism in the Dutch Golden Age An Exploration Willem Frijhoff

5 Literacy, Usage and National Prestige

The Changing Fortunes of Gaelic in Ireland Joep Leerssen

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169

Index 183



Languages and Culture in History A New Series Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène Sanchez-Summerer Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/intro

Language variety has played an important, even an essential role in the creation of the cultural heritage of Europe, and indeed of the world as a whole. Admittedly, linguistic unity as a basis for universal understanding is one of the oldest dreams of humankind, expressed in the biblical myth of the Tower of Babel, and the repeated attempts throughout the centuries to create a universal language, not to speak of the pretensions of some major languages to embody universal values, from Latin, French and Spanish to (American) English or Mandarin Chinese. Yet linguistic variety is the rule and the background of such dreams. Ever since the actual appropriation of languages by nations, states or political regimes, many centuries ago, languages have been identified as ‘vernacular’, ‘domestic’, ‘regional’ or ‘national’, owned by specific social groups and cultural communities. They distinguish themselves from ‘foreign’ languages or idioms used by speakers who do not belong to the in-group of native speakers and those who have joined them in the course of history. The distinction between ‘own’/‘native’ and ‘foreign’/‘acquired’ has no linguistic foundation, but is of a social and cultural nature. This distinction is at the basis of the series on languages and culture in history inaugurated by this volume. The scope of this series is to explore the multifarious relations between language and culture in history. Some definitions are required. In this series, we will consider language in its very broad definition as a tool, system and symbolic form of communication among persons, communities and peoples. However, there are hundreds of definitions of culture. Taken broadly, they all amount to one general conception, worded as follows by the cultural historian

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Peter Burke in a definition that has acquired authority among historians: culture is ‘a system of shared meanings, attitudes and values, and the symbolic forms (performances, artefacts) in which they are expressed or embodied’.1 In this broad, social and societal sense, recognizing formally its symbolic expressions, culture goes well beyond the traditional normative or aesthetic conception and applies to the larger field of social and cultural anthropology. In a discussion of the role of language in history, Graham Dunstan Martin has called this the socioculture as opposed to the value culture.2 In this series, the perspective on culture is therefore that of a mode of historical discourse rather than that of culture as a product or an object. We understand culture as a universe of social and cultural practices, ideas, symbols and values, and of the forms, ways and moments of their appropriation, that continually develops through agency, negotiation and representation, and may tend either towards unity and unification or towards variety and distinction.3 Consequently, the study of languages and culture in history must be distinguished from historical linguistics, considered as a scholarly discipline in its own right with its own object, theoretical foundations, methods and discourse. 4 In our view, historical sociolinguistics is a neighbouring and sometimes overlapping field that has developed during the last two decades as a branch of general sociolinguistics, which is some decades older.5 However, our purpose is wider ranging. Our field of enquiry encompasses not only the literary studies that have been its privileged object ever since the rise of historical sociolinguistics, but culture in the broadest possible sense. It is true that, in recent decades, historians and historical sociolinguists have started to speak to each other. Predecessors in linguistics, such as the late Joshua A. Fishman (1926–2015) or Richard W. Bailey (1939–2011), 1 Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London: Temple Smith, 1978; 3rd ed. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), xi; see the variants in Peter Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997). 2 Graham Dunstan Martin, The Architecture of Experience: A Discussion of the Role of Language and Literature in the Construction of the World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), 135–166. 3 This definition has been at the basis of the research initiative Cultural Dynamics, conducted by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, ongoing since 2007. Accessible at the Cultural Dynamics website, . See also Willem Frijhoff, Dynamisch erfgoed (Amsterdam: SUN, 2007). 4 For the different approaches taken by historical sociolinguistics, see Terttu Nevalainen, ‘What Are Historical Sociolinguistics?’, Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 1/2 (2015), 243–269. 5 Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy & Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

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and present-day cultural historians such as Peter Burke have made seminal contributions to the development of these interdisciplinary encounters.6 However, despite the repeatedly sung praise of their works, they have in fact generated few followers. In past and current historiography, the social history of language is mostly either ‘social’ in the strong sense of the word, which is an easier option than the sociocultural approach, or focused on literary sources, thus benefiting from a long tradition of textual scholarship. Much has already been written about language policy in the past, about the codes and rules of social groups, much less about the penetration of language into the very way of dealing with life and reality in history. Therefore, the object of this series concerns essentially language as a tool of the cultural universe, high and low, native and foreign, elitist and everyday taken together, used by individuals, groups or communities. This includes, of course, the fields of study mentioned above, but its purpose is to go beyond whenever possible. The volumes we welcome in this series should not simply use sociolinguistic paradigms and their application to historical contexts, or only those of linguistics itself, of dialectology and pragmatics. They should also focus on linguistic import and export, on the impacts and spread of language, on the historical reconstruction of past language use and valuation, not to mention multilingualism in history which, as a substantial dimension of past cultures, is one of the topics of this first volume. We must avoid still another misunderstanding. Indeed, the so-called ‘linguistic turn’ in the historical discipline itself – inaugurated by theoretical historians such as Hayden White, and involving for instance linguistic change (Reinhart Koselleck) or linguistic contextualism (Quentin Skinner) – is much more about discourse on history than about the use and perception of language.7 Of course, all historical writing involves language as a social and cultural tool and expression. However, it is normally concerned more 6 See, for instance: Joshua A. Fishman, Language in Sociocultural Change (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972); Richard W. Bailey, Images of English: A Cultural History of the English Language (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991); Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe, 2002 Wiles Lectures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), particularly the ‘Prologue: Communities and Domains’, 1–14; Peter Burke & Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (eds.), Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). As a theme of European cultural history, language was put on the agenda as early as 1988: Willem Frijhoff, ‘Langues nationales, langues de contact, langues de culture’, in Europe sans rivage: Symposium international sur l’identité culturelle européenne, Paris, janvier 1988 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1988), 76–83. See also the essays in this volume. 7 See Georg G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (London: Wesleyan University, 1997); Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Kaya

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with language as a cognitive dimension of historical writing than as a wider cultural phenomenon. It is more about ideology in language than about language. Yet, language is always closely linked to culture. It expresses culture, and is generated by culture. Such links are at the heart of our concern. Language is able to cross borders of all kinds. The interplay between vernacular and foreign language has determined not only the linguistic reality of virtually every country in world history; it has also been and still is a major source of cultural dynamics. The transnational history of language use, as well as the comparative approach, is central to our series. Foreign languages may be borrowed from neighbouring countries or remote continents, but also from a distant past. Think of Latin in the western European tradition, of old forms or varieties of native languages in other regions or continents, or of the language of the original population whenever new rulers from outside gain political power. In all these situations, foreign languages have enriched the receiving countries and their vernaculars with new forms of expression, new vocabularies, new concepts, new ideas and new visions of reality. They have made it possible to cross boundaries, physical as well as mental, and widened the horizon of the host communities, sometimes compelling them to reflect on their own heritage, identity and future. Foreign languages may be old, and yet not perceived as ‘foreign’, as for example scholastic Latin in western European history. They may dominate whole domains of cultural perception and transmission, and interfere with the linguistic structure, vocabulary and social position of the vernacular languages without substantially affecting their development. However, even within traditional linguistic unities, such as the national languages, language variety plays an essential role in the cultural organization of the community or the nation. Language variety is expressed in dialects, regiolects, ethnolects, sociolects and, when spoken, in local accents, colloquial idiom and other forms of variation from the standard language as perceived by the community or imposed by political or cultural authorities. Language has played a groundbreaking role in the development of scholarship, as an instrument of perception, analysis and understanding, of course, but also as a subject itself. Remember that philology, the science of the relation between language and literature – at first limited to the Holy Scriptures, then gradually extended to all forms of literary expression – is the cultural origin of linguistics, and continues to be its privileged variant in the realm of the humanities. Language is not only an instrument of expression but also a social, Yilmaz, ‘Introducing the “Linguistic Turn” to History Education’, International Education Journal, 8/1 (2007), 270–278.

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political and indeed a cultural tool in its own right. Political frontiers and territorial limits tend to create linguistic borders. Language policy has been developed and used as a way of imposing another culture, a different ideology, a new world view. As a means of discovering and dealing with other cultures and new policies, as ethnocultural markers, native and foreign languages may also be in competition with each other. Language teaching and didactics have strong cultural features. Almost insensibly, they insert themselves into structures of political domination and influence social behaviour. Therefore, language conflict has a long history worldwide. Language policy is often perceived as a way of imposing one’s world view, cultural discourse and social order and, on the side of the receivers, either as a chance to achieve acceptance by rulers or as an intolerable infringement upon one’s own sacrosanct identity. Conversely, the perception and use of language may have a major political function for the underdog. Everywhere within and outside Europe, political resistance has adopted and still adopts the linguistic method to express itself, by promoting the use of native languages or those of the oppressed, as a privileged way of liberating themselves from cultural, social and political domination, often interpreted and understood as an assault on the community’s soul, history and identity. For the observer, many forms of cultural riches stem from the rejection of linguistic uniformity or homogeneity. Yet, throughout the centuries, the cultural enrichment realized by language variety has often been either forgotten or obscured on purpose. From the early modern period to the twentieth century, nationalism, for instance, has promoted throughout Europe the exaltation of a single national language as a guarantee of the unity and indeed the identity of a people, the language often being interpreted and praised as the purest expression of a nation’s soul. Many countries have invested heavily and deliberately in the standardization and codification of a national language, by normative prescriptions, appropriate actions for identity formation, sociocultural policies and educational policy, even measures for the unification of religious idiom by imposing specific translations of the Bible or prayer books. Language policy has therefore quite often taken on the colour of a political ideology and the taste of a cultural conquest. The same holds, of course, for variations of ‘standard’ language, and dialects. Besides their linguistic properties, they refer also to cultural interpretations and forms of perception, and occupy their own place in the wide range of cultural and political classifications of the available means of expression. As a consequence of deliberate language policies, the cultivating, speaking, even reading of other languages, though being of native origin or concerning older layers of the population, have often been forbidden and attacked, sometimes harshly. Indeed, rulers have

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realized quite well the disruptive force of the use of a forbidden tongue for the unity of culture or of the nation as such. Precisely this cultural dimension of language use in history is at the heart of our interrogations. On the background of a nationalistic view of monolingualism, we perceive and want to emphasize the cultural importance of linguistic variety, and indeed its cultural impact in history. This may take the form of an interrogation of the national, dominant or standard language as an element and instrument of culture in history. It may be an enquiry into the historical forms of multilingualism or plurilingualism. We understand by multilingualism the simultaneous presence, availability or use of several languages in a given place, territory or nation; by plurilingualism, the simultaneous knowledge of, and acquaintance with, several languages by a given person or a given community, and the use of, or competence in, more than one language in thinking, speaking, writing and/or reading. This may take the form of diglossia or polyglossia, i.e. the use of two or more distinct languages by individuals, groups or communities for distinct domains in a given unity of time and place. Some examples are the difference between scholastic Latin and the vulgar languages in the early modern period; or, more simply, forms of code-switching within a particular act of speech. Another distinction may stem from cognitive motives: a plurality of languages may be conceived as a range of vehicles for discourse, rhetoric and scholarship. Finally, still other classifications invoke aims more pragmatic, and purely down-to-earth objectives for contact or understanding. It is true that monolingualism or, at best, bilingualism is the current option of many nations of Europe and the Americas, thus leaving aside the impact of dialects, both social and regional, in cultural history; they ignore the historically legitimated sociocultural claims to the linguistic identity of whole population groups today. However, outside the continents of Western civilization, multilingualism is most often the rule. Native European citizens do not always realize that immigrants or refugees are as a rule multilingual, not only because of the need to conform to the standard language of their new homeland, but quite often because of their earlier life in a multi-ethnic and/or multilingual home country. In any case, the study of language variety involves a wide variety of forms and techniques of communication, of symbolic positions and meanings; in other words: of culture. A final word must be said on the temporal dimension of studies in this series. The historical dimension, understood as development in time or as a process of change between two or more instants or stages, is immanent in every study of languages, their use, impact, symbolic position and representation. However, we want to take ‘history’ here in its strong sense, not simply as a brief developmental moment, or as a short-term explanation of

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the present, but as a temporal domain involving broad cultural movements with historical depth and geographical visibility. As instruments of collective activities, expressions and concerns, languages evolve slowly over a long time, despite rapid changes of vocabulary or the quick impact of political measures. This complex temporal regime must be the focus of our work. Therefore, the studies we wish to welcome in this new series must privilege the links between languages and culture. Not culture or historical linguistics as such, taken for their own sake, but precisely the way in which culture shapes or transforms the use and perception of languages, and vice versa, the impacts language use and perception have on culture. The focus will be on an interdisciplinary approach to the historical evolution of linguistic and cultural facts, movements and policies, internal as well as external, and their relationship with linguistic and cultural identities. The symbolic, cultural, social, political, even economic dimensions of languages may be as important as linguistic features, lexical-statistical research, the structure of a language or linguistic heritage. Culture has a community dimension and plays a leading role in the social processes of identification. Yet, culture is also expressed and appropriated as an individual asset of persons or groups of persons in history. Therefore, micro levels of analysis may be as important as macro studies; we welcome them both. Volumes or monographs in this series may therefore address any form of relation, use or perception of such elements, approaches and study of languages and culture in history, including language contact, historical semantics and attitudes towards languages, provided that the focus is on such relations in a clearly discernible temporal depth, and not only on language, culture or history as such. The essays brought together in this first volume show the way we want to develop the series.

About the authors Willem Frijhoff (b. 1942) studied philosophy and theology in the Netherlands, and history and social sciences in Paris. He obtained his PhD (social sciences) in 1981 at Tilburg University, and received an honorary doctorate (history of education) at the University of Mons-Hainaut (Belgium) in 1998. Between 1983 and 1997 he was professor of cultural history and history of mentalities of pre-industrial societies at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and from 1997 to 2007 of early modern history at the Free University (VU-University), Amsterdam. From 2003 to 2014 he chaired the research program ‘Cultural Dynamics’ of the Dutch National Research Organization (about 50 projects). After retiring (2007) he was visiting professor at

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Antwerp University and Radboud University Nijmegen, and presently holds the G.Ph. Verhagen Chair in Cultural History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is the 2011 recipient of the Descartes-Huygens Award for Franco-Dutch Scientific Cooperation. His research turns around problems of education, language, universities, religion, memory and identity in history. Among his publications are a survey of Dutch culture in the Golden Age, with Marijke Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Assen/Basingstoke 2004), and Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus 1607–1647 (Leiden/Boston 2007), and he co-edited Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations (Amsterdam/Albany 2009). At present, he is preparing a monograph on the economic, social, religious and cultural strategies of a large Franco-Dutch family network in Amsterdam, Rouen, Cologne, Oslo and North America in the early 1600s, provisionally entitled A Different Golden Age. Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, Associate Professor in French Cultural history and Intercultural Communication at Utrecht University until her recent retirement, is a member of the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Utrecht University). Her scholarly interests include the cultural role the French language has played in the Netherlands, especially 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 at Leiden University. She studied at Paris IV Sorbonne, École Pratique des Hautes Études, INALCO and at Leiden University (history, religious studies and oriental languages). Her research considers the European linguistic and cultural policies in the Levant (1860-1948), with a focus on French heritage in a comparative perspective in Palestine. Among her publications are ‘Linguistic diversity and ideologies among the Catholic minority in Mandate Palestine. Fear of confusion or powerful tool?’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies BJMES special issue coordinated by J. Tejel and B. White, ‘The Fragments imagine the Nation’, vol. 43, issue 2, 2016, 191-205; ‘Preserving Catholics of the Holy Land or integrating them into the Palestine nation? Catholic communities, language, identity and public space in Jerusalem (1920-1950)’, in Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East, H. Murre-van den Berg & S. Goldstein-Sabbah (eds.), 2016, 121-151, Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands; ‘Education, Linguistic Policies and Identity building process under pressure- The impacts of the French Catholic Schools in Palestine (1908-1968)’, ARAM Periodical, vol. 25, Peeters, 2016, 195-214.

Part I Approaches to Multilingualism in the Past

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Codes, Routines and Communication Forms and Meaning of Linguistic Plurality in Western European Societies in Former Times Willem Frijhoff * Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/ch01 Abstract The rise of the nation states has been accompanied by the elaboration and the gradual imposition of unique and distinctive national languages. However, former societies of the West were much less marked by linguistic exclusiveness. A given political unity could encompass several colloquial or even literary languages, linguistic standards were still in the making, and for different domains of social and cultural life, including such diverse fields as economy and religion, various lingua francas could be in use. This introductory essay intends to explore briefly the broad issue of multilingualism in former times, by identifying the main fields, forms, practices and uses of linguistic plurality in western Europe, and focusing on some specific cases and cities. Keywords: Lingua franca, communication, linguistic performance, cultural diversity, Amsterdam, Leiden, Rome, Latin, Pentecost

*

Erasmus University, Rotterdam

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Linguistic unity or plurality?1 Historians mislead us.2 Massively. Just as film-makers and many novelists do. Take any history book, textbook, monograph or collection of articles, look at any historical film or swashbuckling TV programme, whether it concerns the accession of Louis XIV, the pleasures and problems of Sissi of Austria or the exploits of the pirates of the Caribbean, you will be confronted with a narrative which automatically presents societies in the past as stable, fundamentally united within a dominant culture and, most of all, perfectly monolingual. Each and every inhabitant speaks the same language, uses the same idioms and everyone understands each other. People from Marseilles and from the Basque country are understood in Paris with no problem, Swedes talk directly with Germans, Estonians, Serbs and other peoples they meet during their wars, the Castilians and the Catalans are always on the same wavelength, and the Sicilians seem to have assimilated the language of Dante even before he was born. No dialects or sociolects, except to introduce some local colour by getting a member of the so-called lower classes to speak patois. This does not concern the effective removal of the linguistic minorities that made up the Austrian, Russian or even German empires, and the British Commonwealth, or the many dialectal variations which in any European country undermined mutual understanding under the ancien régime right up until well into the nineteenth and even the twentieth century. The protagonist of Patrick Süsskind’s novel Le Parfum (The Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 1985), Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the olfactory emanations and nursed by the idiomatic particularities of the Paris fish market had no difficulty making himself understood in Grasse, a town in the south of France. In his abundant historical output, Abbé Grégoire seems to have waged an unnecessary war with his defence and promotion of a national language against patois, under the Revolutionary regime. Similarly in such a 1 A reworked version of the introductory talk given at the University of Granada (Spain) on 5 November 2008 at the conference, Las relaciones entre lenguas en los contextos educativos en Europa: meditaciones, circulaciones, comparaciones, rivalidades (siglos XVI–comienzos XX) (Relations between languages ​​in educational contexts in Europe: Meditations, circulations, comparisons, rivalries (16th to early 20th century)), organized by five partners (Sociedad Española para la Historia de las Enseñanzas Lingüísticas, Associaçaô Portuguesa para a história do Ensino das Línguas e Literaturas Estrangeiras, Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sulla Storia degli Insegnamenti Linguistici, Société Internationale pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde, and Peeter Heynsgenootschap). 2 For a more global approach to the subject, see Frijhoff, ‘L’Usage du français’, ‘Le plurilinguisme des élites’, and ‘Des origines à 1780’.

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picture, little sense can be made of the great thesis of Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (1976), which links the rapid growth in the modernization of France and an effective national identity in part to collective education and the spread of a standard language. This research is only a sideline of historical description, suitable for specialists but without interest for real history, such as the history we want to show and that the reader or spectator really wants to see. This is in many ways an exaggeration, of course, for the sake of argument, but the reader will recognize the tendency. Moreover, we must also recognize that it is a stylistic device, for the laws of a well-crafted narrative, whether textual or visual, require a fluid form of communication, with no sudden jerks or unnecessary barriers – unless, of course, linguistic misunderstanding is part of the scenario. However, it is not only the skill of a theatrical performance that comes into play here. To absorb the rich heritage of the past, without becoming mired in an excess of complications, which get in the way of understanding, we need to simplify our image of human communities by establishing convenient equivalences, which take no notice of real differences. One of these common equivalences is that of nation and language: the French speak French, just as Germans speak German, the British English and the Spanish Castilian. In the hierarchy of useful but artificial equivalences, that of nation and language occupies a predominant place, so much so that, outside of a small group of linguistic specialists, almost no one is surprised by its fallacious nature. Every one accepts the device, to the detriment of any historical representation close to real life and human experience. However, there have been no lack of historians to criticize this facile reductionism. I shall just quote one of them, but one of the most prominent. In his famous lecture in 1882 at the Sorbonne, under the title Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (What is a nation?), the orientalist Ernest Renan warned his audience against an equivalence – both irresponsible and too convenient – between language and nation, or between language and ethnic group: The political importance attached to languages comes from the fact that they are regarded as signs of race. Nothing could be further from the truth. Prussia, where people only speak German, spoke Slavic a few centuries ago; Wales speaks English; Gaul and Spain speak the primitive idiom of Alba Longa; Egypt speaks Arabic […]. Languages are historic formations, which indicate little about the blood of those who speak them, and which, in any case, would not imprison human liberty when

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it is a question of determining which family one joins for the rest of one’s life.3

If we overlook the way Renan forgot Welsh, this salutary evaluation expresses well what the relation between language and education is about: languages are born, flourish, cross paths and sometimes die, but they are not inherent to a given society. Quite the contrary, towns, even whole regions, can lose their everyday languages by fair means or foul sometimes only to retrieve them later, as happened in Catalonia or the Italian Tyrol. They may even change their language, as Mulhouse did, when it passed from Switzerland to France under the French Revolution and where only the proud German inscriptions on the old town hall are still proof that it once was, and no longer is, German-speaking, or those parts of present-day Poland which belonged to Germany before the Second World War or again, as in Brussels, where the community was imperceptibly overrun by a different linguistic population, endogenous as much as exogenous, to the extent of its being no longer convenient to remain in one’s original linguistic community. The international conference where this introductory chapter was first presented meant to link together history, linguistics and didactics around the phenomena of linguistic plurality. Although having a broad multidisciplinary background it is as a historian that I will consider the question of linguistic plurality. It will necessarily be a partial, even a disjointed consideration. While the examples that I have analysed during my research over the years often concern the Netherlands and the surrounding countries during the ancien régime, I shall highlight here the overall meaning that they could have. Historians, particularly those like myself who are specialists in culture and mentalities, are apt to question the past, to shake up certainties and the obvious and to evade myths, legends and clichés. They want to suggest richer images of human interaction that not only better explain the realities and values of the past but allow us to go further in the analysis of what has hitherto remained obscure. My question goes back to the first one on the agenda of the aforementioned conference: the relation between different languages in their social use and in an educational context. If the 3 Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?, 25–26: ‘L’Importance politique qu’on attache aux langues vient de ce qu’on les regarde comme des signes de race. Rien de plus faux. La Prusse, où l’on ne parle plus qu’allemand, parlait slave il y a quelques siècles; le pays de Galles parle anglais; la Gaule et l’Espagne parlent l’idiome primitif d’Albe la Longue; l’Égypte parle l’arabe […]. Les langues sont des formations historiques, qui indiquent peu de choses sur le sang de ceux qui les parlent, et qui, en tout cas, ne sauraient enchaîner la liberté humaine quand il s’agit de déterminer la famille avec laquelle on s’unit pour la vie et pour la mort.’

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examples that follow are taken from my own research on Dutch culture, my conclusions should always be tested in other linguistic contexts.

A multilingual destiny: Brussels For a speaker from the Netherlands, there is one town that remains a classic example of multilingualism past and present. That town is Brussels, already mentioned above. Initially an industrious (though ‘pre-industrial’) trading town, whose original population was Dutch-speaking but could not avoid the use of French for trade with neighbouring French-speaking areas, she was deeply influenced, from the Middle Ages onwards, by administrative and literary French imported by the court of Burgundy which established itself there permanently. The position of French was strengthened among the elite by the prestige of the language and civilization of the sovereign, including among the courtiers of Dutch- or German-speaking origin. Lacking a university which could have counterbalanced with a scholarly Latin the progress of everyday French among the elite, the latter had however to take into account the breakthrough of Castilian during the period of Spanish government in the seventeenth century, which, with its successful printing industry, had a certain influence there, and then to a lesser extent German, with the Austrian government of the eighteenth century. The Brabant Revolution and the French occupation once more reinforced the place of French in the administration and among the elite, both bourgeois and noble. When the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in 1815, imposed a certain renaissance of the Dutch language, both cultural and linguistic, the reaction of the elite, as reasoned as it was deep-rooted, was violently anti-Dutch, leading to the splitting up of the kingdom and the independence of a Belgium in which the French-speaking elite set the tone. Nevertheless, Brussels remained quietly bilingual. After a narrow victory of French, the election of Brussels as the seat of the European institutions now strengthens an obvious dominance of English-speaking among European officials, including indirectly through the social life of the town. Yet, the original Dutch manages to hold up, making Brussels a trilingual metropolis, where someone trilingual must at each moment make a polite choice as to which language to use to address the person they’re speaking to at the moment. The case of Brussels can seem unusual because of its history, but it is far from unique. All the capital cities and metropolises of the past, big or small, have experienced a certain degree of multilingualism. Sometimes it was a question of the linguistic minorities of the state congregating in particular

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areas or in separate suburbs, where their high numbers drove away the natives or other minorities. This was the case to a varying extent in London, Prague, Cracow, Vienna, St Petersburg or Berlin, but just as much in the big industrious and trading towns of the past, which attracted large quotas of immigrant workers, such as Rouen, Lyons or Bordeaux, Seville or Barcelona, Genoa or Florence, Norwich, Rotterdam or Leiden. This is without even mentioning the cultural melting pots and linguistic ‘hybrids’ of most towns in central and eastern Europe, with their mixed populations of natives, of ethnic minorities, of intellectual elites imported by the overlords of past or present, of small groups of German or Russian traders, of Ashkenazi talking Yiddish, even perhaps a local Greek or Turkish diaspora. Sometimes, in addition, the division clearly had a more cultural and social character, the different languages, dialects and sociolects spreading over different social strata and cultural occupations. This was the case of the Latin Quarter in Paris, where the French of ordinary life was overlayed by the everyday Latin of university life, both inside and outside the lecture halls and colleges, not to mention the languages imported by the foreign students grouped together in permanent associations, geographically or linguistically, the famous university ‘nations’.

Multilingual sites in history: Amsterdam, Leiden, Rome To illustrate the subject, we will consider three urban cases of multilingualism: Amsterdam, Leiden and Rome. First Amsterdam. Throughout the ancien régime, the city of Amsterdam was without a real university. But, without even considering the regular teaching managed by the town in the Dutch and French primary schools and in the two Latin grammar schools, Amsterdam, as a world-class entrepôt and financial centre, encouraged all sorts of initiatives in language teaching. These ranged from the Dutch Academy to the Athenaeum (an ‘illustrious school’, a semi-university without graduation rights); from the private establishments where Spinoza learned Latin, to the language teachers of every nation; from the interpreters of the East and West India Companies, to the private tutors in families whose wealth came from the regency or from trade, or to scholars who like Comenius educated gilded youth with new methods. In fact, Amsterdam showed a model mix with both a spatial and a social division of multilingual practices. 4 The numerous French-speaking im4 For Flemish and Walloon immigration into Holland, see Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek.

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migrant Walloons – refugees on account of their religion or simply followers of the dominant economic trends – gathered in the outskirts, such as the Jordaan. The Scandinavian immigrants, hardly less numerous, chose to settle in the streets near the port behind St Anthony’s Gate, where they found work. The Jewish immigrants gathered in the new areas near the centre of the old town, around the great Sephardic and Ashkenazi synagogues that the town council allowed them to build, repeating by this double authorization not only the geographic origin but also the very different social and linguistic character of this dual immigration. The small Portuguese- and Castilian-speaking Sephardic community felt that they were above the large mass of poor Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe speaking Yiddish. This hybrid language was soon to fuse with the Amsterdam dialect of Dutch to form a very particular sociolect, to such an extent that the familiar name of the town of Amsterdam would adopt the Yiddish form Mokum, current even among the non-Jews. Thus, the spatial division was coupled with a social division. In the same way, we know that thousands of Scandinavian immigrants straightway split up according to gender. The men looked for work with the fleets of the trading companies, private shipowners or the navy, while their wives, who had to provide for everyday existence during the long periods when their husbands were at sea, at war or in the colonies, got work as domestic servants in the wealthy or bourgeois families of the town. They exercised minor trades or resorted to prostitution – a profession where spoken language plays a limited role. The domestic sector in particular, so little known from all points of view, must have functioned as an informal school of language learning and of multiculturalism, in both directions. To the imperceptible, but inevitable, opening up of the families of employers to another reality represented by the domestic servant with his or her cultural practices and exogenous values, corresponded on the other hand to the just as subtly realized acculturation of the employee, who gradually became a citizen of two countries. The role of languages, both vernacular and foreign, in this two-way process, remains unwritten. It will probably never be described correctly for lack of direct sources, if we except the texts of literary fiction and satirical theatre. Yet, one can easily imagine it as a sort of proceeding by trial and error, leading the masters and the domestics alike to acquire a minimum intellectual, psychological and idiomatic knowledge of the other. This resulted in the creation of a terse multilingualism whose profound historical sense consisted less in the spread of languages than in the moderating of their cultural pretensions and the setting up of a greater receptivity concerning cultural plurality.

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The history of the town of Leiden draws attention to the importance of the spatial division of language use of large numbers of immigrants, but at the same time it underlines the structural multilingualism of the old university world. Leiden, an industrious town from the Middle Ages onwards, grew rapidly after the fall of Antwerp in 1585, which inaugurated the movement of the Protestant masses from the Spanish Low Countries towards the north. With more than 70,000 inhabitants, thanks chiefly to the immigration of Flemish and Walloon textile workers, Leiden was one of the largest towns in Europe in the second half of the seventeenth century. It was the capital of the new cloth trade, but also the seat of a prestigious university attracting students from all over Europe, at least from its Protestant areas. The actual number of members of the university in the town was restricted, limited to barely 2,000 people at the height of its growth, that is to say 3 or 4 per cent of the urban population. Nevertheless, the university strongly marked the linguistic landscape because of its huge presence in the public arena and the financial potential of its clients. The better off among them brought with them a small court of servants and tutors, bought books and objects, took classes in languages, fencing and music, and gave the town a cosmopolitan complexion that indirectly created a welcoming atmosphere for foreigners as well as linguistic diversity. In Leiden we can observe a triple division of the urban area, marked by basic linguistic differences which partially tallied with cultural differences. First the space in the town centre for people of Dutch stock; then in the new areas of the town, those of the Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloon immigrants, but also German and English speakers having fled war or religious persecution in their regions; and finally the university area where Latin prevailed. French progressed in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although it was mostly a scholarly and cosmopolitan French, that of the world of letters and then of the Enlightenment, with its newspapers such as the famous Gazette de Leyde and its great printers and publishers such as the Elsevier family and their rivals.5 This French had very little in common with the dialects of people from Liège, Lille, the provinces of Brabant and Hainaut, and other forms of Walloon speech that were predominant in the old community of migrants. The internal cohesion of this complex demo-linguistic community was guaranteed by the network of autonomous districts, the gebuurten or neighbourhoods. They brought together the inhabitants of a few adjacent 5

Bots & Waquet, La République des Lettres.

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streets. Their small size made it possible to safeguard ethnic unity while favouring the linguistic identity of the group. There was a sophisticated system of joint management of conflicts between the bourgeois under the watchful eye of the ‘peacemakers’ (vredemakers) appointed by the town, whose threshold access was quite low and who respected as far as possible the forms of organization of social life and the linguistic particularities that had crept in over time. The old medieval town of Leiden, established on both arms of the Rhine, continued to house its native population of shopkeepers, craftsmen, merchants and entrepreneurs, mainly Dutch-speaking, although the internal movements of population and the never-ending inflow of Low or High German speakers nuanced slightly this idyllic picture of a monolingual society. However, these contributions remained of secondary interest. Moreover, just as was the case in the other Dutch towns, the urban charter excluded ‘foreigners’ from access to government and administration offices, often also to the town militia. The term ‘foreigners’ includes in fact all those who were not sons of burgesses or who were born outside the town or even, for certain functions, outside the province of Holland itself, the exogenous. It introduced a basic segregation which closely followed the linguistic divisions between native Dutch speakers and the others. The new extensions to the town, which were made necessary by the enormous inflow of immigrants, remained in fact the preserve of the minorities from Flanders and Brabant using the Flemish or Brabant dialectal forms of the Netherlandic language and seeking the company of their compatriots. They lived also separated from the Walloons, the immigrants from the bishopric of Liège and other French speakers who kept their own language, married among themselves (the so-called connubium) and went to the Walloon church, the French-speaking counterpart of the Dutch Reformed church. The third linguistic sector, the university, stood along just one lateral canal, the Rapenburg, with its auditoriums, the Theological College of the States of Holland (Statencollege), the Walloon college, the university’s library, its laboratories and its botanical garden. Nor must we forget the long succession of private houses of professors which served at the same time as private class rooms and boarding houses for the foreign students who chose this option.6 Because many professors were of German origin, as were the majority of foreign students who formed more than half of those attending the university, German must have been used side by side with Dutch and a simple everyday Latin that is to be found in scholarly correspondence 6 Otterspeer, Groepsportret met Dame, I.

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and the alba amicorum. In these small notebooks of friends, the foreign students signed their names; they put their coats of arms, and a maxim often chosen from a collection of anecdotes, witticisms that the ancien régime was so partial to. They included a mark of friendship in one of the languages they more or less mastered, often Latin or French, sometimes Italian or German, even Spanish, Greek or Hebrew, or a puzzle or a line of music whose notes revealed the letters of their name.7 These alba were not only used as a sign of friendship, but they also formed an acknowledgement of membership of a group of intellectual or cultural interest. For us they are proof of a particular sociability through education, the existence or persistence of cultural groups and linguistic communities that we can compare to the ‘nations’ which in the university towns of France, Italy and Germany gathered together compatriots and helped them to feel at home while practising their domestic culture and speaking their own vernacular language. Language was, in fact, at the heart of any journey during the ancien régime. It was necessary to learn languages to be able to travel, whether vernacular languages or a lingua franca. At the same time, one of the central requirements of education of the elite was the educational journey or Grand Tour (or, for the less moneyed travellers, the petit tour to Paris and the Loire valley) that young people completed, its primary aim being to learn modern languages. Their mastery was, in fact, the necessary condition for the working of the governing elites in the field of international relations.8 Thus the basic handbook for the perfect student on his travels, published in 1631 by Thomas Erpenius, professor of Hebrew in Leiden, sums up the purpose of these travels in a Latin expression, as concise as it is eloquent: ‘Finis peregrinationis sit notitia sextuplex: linguae, regionis, religionis, rerum gestarum, morum, clarorum virorum.’9 In other words, the purpose of the educational journey is to learn the local language, to visit the country, to discover its religion, history and culture, and to visit famous people. The latter could be divided into two categories: the powerful, that is to say the king, the courtiers and the aristocrats, and in this case the common language was of course that of the court; on the other hand the scholars within or without the university, in salons or even living in secluded retirement, who 7 Stammbücher als kulturhistorische Quellen; Stammbücher des 16. Jahrhunderts;  Alba amicorum. 8 Frijhoff, ‘Éducation, savoir, compétence’, in Grand Tour, 609–635. This collection of articles, particularly the conclusions by Werner Paravicini, gives a useful view of the Grand Tour since the Middle Ages and provides numerous bibliographical references. 9 Erpenius, De Peregrinatione gallica, 2.

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would bring Latin into play. However, in grammar schools too, French was usually learned under the direction of a teacher (a praeceptor) outside the strictly Latinized school time itself and in return for an additional payment. Given the widespread presence of French at many levels of Dutch social life, all the travelling students must have been able to cope at least in French. Other purposes could be added to the journey. However, surprisingly enough, in Erpenius’s formula there is an absence of any express reference to studies or grades. It was a journey of linguistic, social and cultural education more than an academic training that he had in mind, and we must not forget that learning a language came first for him. What is more, we know how important this was from the many remarks in travel diaries, which often mention the supposed linguistic quality of a town or a region. Besides, it is worth noting that most travellers stayed only in the northern regions of France whose language was easily accessible to them, avoiding lengthy stays in the Midi with its linguistic and dialectal variations, where more often than not people just passed through with a close group of fellow countrymen. The Grand Tour itself was always very well organized. Its course, recommended to young people in detailed travel guides rather like our Michelin or Hachette guides, was sometimes modified or diverted by them in order better to satisfy their needs for language learning. Thus the young Pieter de la Court, future political thinker but at the time still the simple son of a cloth manufacturer from Leiden, originally from Wallonia and French-speaking by birth, felt the urgent need during his Grand Tour in 1642 to perfect his French. Though he had practised it during his stay at the homes of teachers in Saumur, he still went to Geneva for eight months to take more lessons in French and develop his theological awareness in the Calvinist community of that city.10 The third example of a multilingual town to be examined is Rome. It is true that it is rather a special case, for its functional bilingualism was combined with a vocational multilingualism. The complex relation between Latin and Italian was for a long time a mark of this city. Latin was the official language of the church, which managed the state, as well as the language of formal work and external communication of the Roman Curia, but Italian, language of the people, remained the everyday language of human contacts including within the offices of the Curia. The papal nuncios whose vernacular language was most often Italian, used this freely for the reports they sent to the Pope – that is why, after having been the language of banking and princely courts, Italian became a diplomatic language that 10 Frijhoff, ‘Pieter de la Courts reisjournaal’.

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the local representatives of the Catholic hierarchy had to learn to master. It needs to be determined more precisely how fast the newcomers to the Curia assimilated the basic bilingualism that reigned in Rome, and at what moment they went from the Latin of their priestly training to the everyday Italian of their environment. Whatever the case, the linguistic plurality of Rome was obvious mainly in another field, i.e. among the many travellers, pilgrims and tourists, whose stay varied between the richness of the multilingual experience and the monolingual security of their community of origin. As soon as they arrived in the holy city pilgrims went, or were directed, straight to the church or hospice of their nation, such as ‘Saint Louis des Français’, ‘Saint Anthony of the Portuguese’, ‘the Trinity of the Spaniards’, ‘Santa Maria dell’Anima’ of the Dutch and the Low and High Germans, or ‘Saint Julian of the Flemings’. In the Italian- and Latin-speaking world of Rome, these churches with their hospices assured the foreign pilgrims a haven where, within the limits imposed by the management of crowds constantly on the move and the particular aims of their own stay, their culture was more or less respected in a linguistic environment they could trust. According to travel journals or pilgrimage diaries that have reached us, foreigners went to Rome armed with an address book of inns, craftsmen or shopkeepers, run by fellow countrymen, or a list of memorized references at least, so that they could make themselves feel at home as fast as possible in a form of linguistic sociability.11 What is true for pilgrims is also true for students and artists. Thus, from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, numerous Flemish and Dutch draughtsmen, engravers, painters and architects met in Rome in a private fraternity called De Bentvueghels, that is to say ‘the band of flown birds’. Once the group had adopted the newcomers in an initiation ceremony, this community assured them not only of a welcome and of support, both moral and physical, but also of cultural, linguistic and festive conviviality. We still find traces of this in the dozens of Flemish and Dutch names scratched by the initiates on the inner walls of their chapel in the former Mausoleum of Constantina, the disused church of Santa Costanza where they held their rituals, debauchery and drunken revels, and on the altar considered to be the tomb itself of the god Bacchus.12 The escape into the linguistic intimacy

11 Boutry & Julia, Pèlerins et pèlerinages dans l’Europe moderne; Boutry, Fabre & Julia, Rendre ses vœux. 12 Verberne, ‘De Bentvueghels’, with drawings of initiation rituals.

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of a community of fellow countrymen must not mislead us. It was only a starting point, to gain a foothold and protect their rear. The sources at our disposal show the intermingling of travellers, pilgrims, students and pupils with the local populations, even when they preferred to lodge at a compatriot’s house. Many came back with a veneer of Italian culture and the ability to speak or at least to read fluently and understand Italian. In the inventories of libraries but also in collections of aphorisms, sonnets or songs and other forms of music, we can see a vogue for Italian references and literature during the first part of the seventeenth century. It preceded the keen interest in French literature, which in turn had to give way to English and German literature, in the second half of the eighteenth century. It was not only a consequence of the success of the Italian model of court life we mentioned earlier, but it should also be seen in the context of the everyday intermingling of language. This took place in the most practical aspects of everyday life, in accommodation, the hospices, the inns, the shops and stalls, or the ever-busy streets of a large city. After a year or two in Italy, the traveller knew not only how to express himself in Italian but he had assimilated a certain way of seeing things that would stay with him forever. The ‘Italianists’ thus existed before the ‘Francophiles’ and the ‘Anglomaniacs’.

Cultural practices and multilingualism In the past – as today – cultural and linguistic reality was thus quite different from the common equation between language and nation that the popular narratives of history show us. Against the background of political monolingualism, linguistic pluralism was, and remains, an omnipresent fact. It may take two principal forms. On the one hand, it is the active or passive knowledge of several languages simultaneously, assimilated by formal language teaching at school or with a master, or through informal learning from private study. On the other hand, it is the need to adapt to multiple languages to ensure smooth communication in a group where no language has a monopoly and where the knowledge of the other’s language is not reciprocated. The first form refers to the multilingualism acquired through a sequence of learning. Put in place consciously in a situation of verbal, textual or visual contact, the foreign language is then learned as such, that is to say with the background of a dominant language which serves as a reference to the speaker, whether it is a vernacular or national language or a lingua franca.

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The second form refers rather to a fortuitous context, marked by conviviality or a succinct intimacy, where contact requires the rejection of any pretension to monolingualism and a pragmatic attitude if one wants to be sure of maximum communication. This multilingualism is a case of ‘making do’ rather than ‘doing’, but with the help of the context, it can be just as creative and lasting. This ‘making do’ does not refer so much to a precise place of learning as to a cultural practice whose analysis will consider the conditions and the context. This practice can be individual or collective, bilingual or multilingual, customary or erratic. It can be witnessed in the intimacy of individual reading or amorous relations, in public conversation, debate or dispute, in a place of business, big or small, or simply in passing contacts between people who meet by chance and discover in addressing each other that they need to do an ample amount of translating to be able to understand one another. To get to the heart of the matter, the analysis of a few precise situations of language use is necessary. We shall consider three of these briefly: the inventory of a library, with reference to the owner’s diverse reading practices; a multilingual scene depicted in a pamphlet; and a collection of anecdotes that illustrate the everyday use of foreign languages. For the library, the example is the inventory made after the death of Johan Chrysostomus de Backer (1604/1605–1662), a Dutch priest, son of a Remonstrant lawyer (in other words of a liberal Reformed persuasion) from The Hague, and through his mother, grandson of the president of the Supreme Council of the Dutch Republic.13 After his literary studies in Leiden, he converted to Catholicism before he was twenty-four, was ordained a priest, and from 1628 to 1638 was part of the priestly congregation of the Oratory in Louvain, in the Spanish Low Countries. Due to the extra-marital relationship that his sister Deliana maintained around 1620 with the stadtholder Maurice of Orange – from which came the bastard branch allied to the barons of Pöllnitz – he had the favours of the princely family of Nassau and was able, thanks to their protection, to obtain the deanery of the collegiate church of Eindhoven. Wealthy from birth and having increased his fortune by the printing and sales of engravings made by artists in vogue at the time, he was able to avoid pastoral service under the pretext of frequent migraines, at the same time undertaking several trips abroad, of which his library retains many traces. On his death, the inventory of his possessions revealed a superb collection of paintings, among them the famous Trinity by Albrecht Dürer, now in Vienna, and several thousand engravings (his business), but also a well-supplied library. 13 Frijhoff, ‘Vier Hollandse priesterbibliotheken’: catalogue of his library, 223–238.

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Contrary to his priestly colleagues, whose libraries were three quarters full of theological and spiritual works in Latin, and for the rest vernacular books used chiefly for their pastoral work, as well as a few devotional works in French, the library of this worldly priest, De Backer, passionate about the new French civility, included works in no fewer than seven languages. During his Grand Tour or his later journeys in Italy, he must have bought his twenty-three books in Italian. Among them are the famous Vocabulario degli accademici della Crusca, published in Venice in 1612 and in 1623; popular Italian authors such as Trajano Boccalini with his political satire Ragguagli di Parnasso (1614); the caustic satire of the pontifical court at the time of Urban VIII and the Barberini Il Divortio Celeste (1643) by the young canon Ferrante Pallavicino (which earned him the death sentence at the age of twenty-six); Il Pastor Fido (1590) by Gian-Battista Guarini; the Tredeci piacevolissime notti (The facetious nights, 1550–1555) and still another collection of stories by Giovanni Francesco Straparola; the philosophical Dialoghi d’amore by the cabalist Leo the Hebrew (Abravanel); an Italian translation (from the French) of the love story of the French Dauphin by Giulio Filoteo di Amadeo; another Italian translation (from the Spanish) of the popular novel Calisto y Melibea (1499) by Fernando de Rojas, governor of Salamanca, not to mention ecclesiastical works such as the Historia del Concilio Tridentino (1619) by the Servite Pietro Sarpi, the Historia ecclesiastica delle Rivoluzione d’Inghilterra (1591) by the Dominican Girolamo Pollini, which is in fact a history of the Anglican schism, an Italian translation (from the Spanish) of the spiritual works of St John of the Cross, a Spirituale Discorso by the bishop of Venosa, Andrea Pierbenedetti, and the life of St Catherine of Siena in Italian. His linguistic guides were patently the Italian–French dictionary and the textbook for learning Italian, the Guidon de la langue italienne (1641), both by Nathanael Dhuez or Duez, a French language teacher in Leiden, not to mention Cardinal Pietro Bembo’s Italian grammar (1525), a Guide to Modern Rome (1638) and a Guide to Italy that indicate why and where he was travelling. The Schola italica in qua exempla bene italice loquendi proponuntur (1605) by the grammarian and language teacher Catharin Le Doux (Catharinus Dulcis) bears witness to his determination to speak Italian well and fluently. But he read Machiavelli and Matteo Bandello’s erotic short stories in Dutch translation, just as he had Virgil at his disposal in a brand new translation by the Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel (1660). However, he owned the Emblemata of Andrea Alciato (1531) in Latin, even though it was translated into several modern languages, just as he read in the 1640 Latin translation the satire Lapis Lydius politicus by Trajano

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Boccalini of whom he had another work in the Italian version in his library, while he possessed both a Dutch translation of Boccaccio’s stories and the Italian edition of his geographical work (1598). How should we interpret this kaleidoscopic collection in light of our subject? The first interesting point is that De Backer did not read regularly in all the languages with which he seemed to be familiar. Hebrew, Greek, Spanish and English are represented in his library by books of grammar and dictionaries, but not by reading books. John Rider’s Latin–English dictionary (1589) and a Dutch–English dictionary are both there, but not a single other work in English. There is a Greek grammar and a trilingual dictionary (Latin–Greek–Dutch), but apart from a New Testament in Latin and in Greek, a compulsory subject in a theology faculty, he apparently only read Homer in Latin and Dutch, and the Greek prose writer Heliodorus in Dutch and in French. His trilingual Spanish dictionary did not tempt him to buy books in Spanish, although they were easily obtainable in the nearby Spanish Low Countries where, moreover, he used to stay. He bought the spiritual works of Spanish authors in Latin or, like St John of the Cross, in Italian. The extremely popular chivalric novel of Spanish origin Amadis de Gaula is in his library in a Dutch translation. The Spanish dictionary was probably a backup for De Backer during his stays in the Spanish Netherlands in case he found himself unexpectedly faced with a Spanish speaker or had to consult a book in Castilian. However, besides multilingual dictionaries, the multilingual context is clearly manifest in a type of work that was very popular at the time and of which De Backer possessed several different titles, that is to say collections of sayings, witticisms and commonplaces, either borrowed from several languages or printed in several languages together. Of the latter, he possessed for example the Gemmulae linguarum latinae, graecae, italicae et germanicae (1610), published by Philippe Garnier, a French tutor in Giessen and Leipzig. These books refer to precise cultural practices. The quotations and examples contained in these collections were woven into official speeches for the public, they filled preachers’ sermons to rouse attention, or they embelished the exchange of stories during the long evenings, or with good companions, during long journeys by coach or barge. We know from books and pamphlets which depict episodes of everyday life such as courting, organized disputation on a topical theme of theology or politics, or simply the exchange of news and ideas, that these conversations took a playful multilingual route. In order to dazzle the reader, they used the whole available linguistic arsenal, from the detailed circumstantial use of foreign languages, from local dialects or functional sociolects (the jargon

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of lawyers or doctors for example, or the pedantic language of tutors) to borrowed words and maxims in Latin, Greek, French, Italian or German. These littered the conversation and coloured it, helping memorization by recalling things already heard, and demonstrating the scholarship or the worldly experience of the speaker. The knowledge of foreign languages, or rather, their socially efficient command, was a formidable arm in verbal exchange and increased the prestige of the exchange partner. One of the Dutch pamphlets of the mid-seventeenth century – the second example – stages a scheepsraad, a ‘council’ of the crew meeting on board a ship, including nine individuals from as many different countries, under the leadership of the Dutch captain Bouwen Krijnssen – a made-up name of course.14 This sort of meeting was the rule when there were serious navigational problems. The officers were all invited as well as the most important passengers. The fictional council depicted in this pamphlet was held on a Dutch boat and concerned the rather dramatic situation in the colony of New Netherland (that is to say the present state of New York and the surrounding areas), where a deadly war with the Indians on the island of Manhattan had threatened the very existence of this Dutch colony. According to the speakers, the director of the colony appointed by the West India Company, at that time the renowned Peter Stuyvesant, had not been up to the task or else represented a different ideological tendency, neglecting the interests of the homeland. What strikes us in this pamphlet is the linguistically modulated introduction that presents each of the nine individuals who will take part in the discussion. Each one is stereotyped by his first name and social position, using a linguistic gibberish with which they must have been familiar in order to be understood in the multilingual space that was (and still is) a transatlantic ship. Because of this, the pamphlet shows a credible picture of what multilingual communication was like in the past. This is how they introduce themselves: — Alfonso, a Portuguese soldier in the service of the States General in Brazil: Al spreeck kicke quaet Duys, met praten, wy sijn hierre vreembt, soo hoore wat nieuws, en van een ander.15 [I speak Dutch badly. The language is not usual for us, but we want to hear from each and every one what is new.] — Carel, a Swedish student: Daer ben ick oock elogieert. Is dat goet Hollantsch, schipmaet? [Thank you for the compliment. Is that good Dutch, sailor?] 14 Breeden-Raedt. For the context: Frijhoff, Fulfilling God’s Mission, 336–340. 15 My translations cannot account for the rather fantastic spelling of the original Dutch phrases.

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— Domingo, a Spanish barber: Dat farre wel. [Certainly.] Yo non puedo mais. Ha!ha!ha! — Estienne du Chesne, a French merchant: Mon Dieu, hier is ’t rechte folcke bij een om te praeten, wij sel malcander interpreteeren. [Here are the very people for a discussion, we will interpret each other.] — Faustus, a Neapolitan: Bon jorno Singioresi. Par il amor di dios. Dat sal een klucktige praet geeven. [It is going to be an amusing debate!] — Govert, an impoverished English gentleman: Hei wacht wat, ey com bey em bey presentlijck daer ligt min knepseck. [Wait a moment, I have only just arrived, here is my haversack.] — Hans Christopher, a German squire: Was teuffel, diss lumpffen gesinnetge werd mich nit lassen ruhen. [Devil take it, these boors won’t leave me in peace.] — Iud Hans, frome Scandia [a region in the South of Sweden], Chief petty officer: Ick hebb also lang met Hollanders verkeert. Sy sullen lang snacken eer het my verdriet. [I have been with the Dutch for so long, that it would take a lot to worry me.] — Koenraed Popolski, a Pole: Lustig, dat gaet wel om de Melancholije te verdrijven. [A good idea. That will chase away our melancholy.]

To do away with melancholy, a seventeenth-century objective if ever there was one, was the avowed or unavowed goal of many popular collections of anecdotes. To mark the personal character of these collections, part of real multilingual practice, I shall limit myself, for my third example, to a handwritten mid-seventeenth-century collection containing no fewer than 2,440 anecdotes, witticisms, bloomers, tricks and jokes. Aernout van Overbeke (1632–1674), a Lutheran lawyer from The Hague, originally from Frankfurt in Germany, left us this collection under the title Anecdota sive historiae jocosae.16 These anecdotes involve eight languages: as well as Dutch, French and Italian that are predominant, numerous occurrences of the use of Latin, German, English, Spanish and sometimes even Greek are to be found. Moreover, when the anecdotes involve peasants or other representatives of the popular classes, the expressions often switch to local dialects, either by evoking them, or by transcribing whole sentences in peasant or popular diction. One of these anecdotes (no. 518) relates the exchange of merchants’ sons learning trade and the language of trade between France and Holland. A French merchant had sent his son for three years to a merchant of Molkwerum in Friesland, a small maritime port famous for its dialect, incomprehensible 16 Van Overbeke, Anecdota sive historiae jocosae.

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even for the Frisians themselves – which the merchant discovers to his cost. When he introduces his son to Dutch colleagues, the young man proves to be incapable of making himself understood, having learned the language of the country, but not the standard Dutch or Frisian language. More interesting than this linguistic misunderstanding – which must have been more frequent than our sources recognize – and the simple presence of so many languages in the lawyer’s arsenal of rhetoric, is the use made of it. It seems that on many an occasion his contemporaries played with linguistic differences that they mastered sufficiently to be able to grasp the witticisms that were humorous, if not plainly lavatorial. Thus anecdote no. 280 which, written in Dutch, portrays the Marshal of Bassompierre back at the French court after his campaign in Flanders. The Queen asks him: ‘Well, Monsieur Bassompierre, how does one say “soyez le bienvenu” in Flemish?’ Answer: ‘Wellcom’, the lawyer having added a note in the margin with the transcription of how it is pronounced ‘Ou est le con?’ (Where is the c …?). The Queen asks: ‘Et qu’est que dit l’autre’ (And what does the other say?). To which the Marshal replies: ‘Danck u, danck u’ (literally ‘Thank you’, but the pun being in the pronunciation ‘Dans le cul’ – in the ass). Of course, the code-switching implied by the lavatorial puns is also here to arouse the listener’s interest, as it is sometimes used to mask a writer’s predicament or to increase the surprise effect. However, the use of multilingualism can also be quite simply a matter of pleasure. This joie de vivre is obvious in anecdote no. 1334 that portrays the mistress of the narrator who, says he, speaks different languages. One by one she sings the praises of the nicest vowel in each of the languages that she knows: ‘in Italian, the O sounds delicious, in Dutch the E is flexible; the Spanish A is quite open, the English I is soft, and the German U is sharp’. ‘Praise what you like’, answers her lover, ‘but live as you are, I want to live with U’, the Dutch for you. Plurilingualism here is simply a game and serves as a metaphor for the expression of pleasure, but we would be wrong to disregard its impact: it is the language of love, the most intimate language there is, and proof that the multiplicity of languages affects the deepest part of inter-human relations. The same is true for private correspondence and personal diaries. The code-switching from the vernacular to a foreign language or from an everyday idiom to the vocabulary of a different cultural status, often intervenes when leaving the register of ordinary things for the intimate, the foreign language being the domain of the intimate, the secret, the personal, the relation between two people or self-confrontation. Thus in the private journal of count William Frederick of Nassau-Dietz (1613–1664), stadtholder of the provinces of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe, which covers the years from

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1643 to 1654, we can regularly observe two varieties of code-switching.17 The first goes from the base language, which is Dutch, used for state affairs and everything that concerns his public relations, to a more dialectal form of German which he must have inherited from his upbringing in his German noble family and which he uses for his notes on his private life and intimate affairs, including his numerous amorous tribulations. The second concerns ready-made Latin expressions borrowed from his schooling. He uses them to express surprise, the obvious or traditional values, or simply to pass the time. The count apparently speaks French well because he knows how to talk with the French ambassador and other diplomats, goes to the Comédie Française and regularly listens to the preaching of a Walloon minister. Yet, he never writes in his journal in French even though some of the entries are riddled with Gallicisms that were common among the elite of his period. Of course, at the intimate level, non-verbal language must have solved many communication problems. In anecdote no. 703 of van Overbeke’s collection, a baker’s daughter who is pregnant, knowing only her mother tongue, is ordered by her mother to reveal the author of her misfortune. She answered ‘It was the Frenchman! The Frenchman!’ ‘But how did you understand him?’ the mother said. The daughter answered ‘I saw as soon as he came into the shop that it was not bread he was thinking of’. A simple and stereotyped case, of course, but which says plenty about everyday contact in a context of linguistic non-understanding. No mercenary or soldier of the ancien régime was ever held back by language differences from seducing or raping a young girl from a conquered territory. And we know only too well that things have not changed in our times.

Forms of linguistic plurality: Codes, routines and communication It is time to turn to observations that are more general and to a first assessment. We will briefly distinguish three variations or levels of historical density of linguistic plurality: codes, routines and (fields or centres of) communication. By codes I mean situations regulated by one or several precepts, formal or informal, but always accepted as the common rule by the community of users. A code thus refers to a cultural practice that calls on an element of identity: the code says how to behave if one wants to be considered as a participant or as belonging completely to the life of a group. So the code also requires a form of education, formal or informal, 17 Gloria Parendi.

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but always focused. The term ‘routines’ refers not to codified systems but to the field of performance and skills, to lifestyles established in words, gestures, metaphors and images. Used instinctively or after thought, they ensure the satisfactory running of the process of social interaction, without being concerned with its content or purpose. ‘Communication’ is the effective process by which a message passing from a sender to a receiver is appropriated by the latter. Normally the message is transformed during the appropriation process as the structures of reception, the needs and the desires of the recipient decide on his or her capacity for listening and receiving. Communication thus brings into play the cultural value that is confidence in one’s success: without confidence on both sides, there is no efficient communication. Finally, the overall field of communication includes not only the result of the first two levels, but also all the acts, words and gestures which concern incidental contact, unpredictable and irregular. In other words, it is the domain of ‘making do’, of makeshift, even jabbering for the simple need of the necessary inter-human contact, mentioned above. Although it is often very difficult to grasp this last domain in historical sources that favour the regular, structural and normative, it constitutes the main part of linguistic interaction in many specific situations, especially those which are in some way connected with intercultural encounters, multi-ethnic contacts and massive displacements. Many traces of it are to be found in the first decades of the existence of the colony of New Netherland around what is today New York.18 Three large ethnic groups who did not spontaneously understand each other peopled the colony: the original Indians, whose indigenous languages were practically incomprehensible to the other two groups, that is to say the settlers from Europe and the black people. The latter had more often than not arrived as slaves and, as well as the different languages of the Gold Coast, the Congo and Angola, spoke some rudiments of Portuguese in so far as they had already been colonized by the Portuguese and converted to Christianity by them at home in Africa. Portuguese probably served as a lingua franca between them, until the forming of a new creole language, called black people’s Dutch (Negerhollands), through contact with their new masters. The Europeans had settled in the colony for the trade in beaver pelts from which they made the felt that was used for the big hats worn at the time and prominently shown in the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. It was vital for them to get on with the indigenous populations who controlled the movements of hunters in this vast territory and who knew how to trap 18 Feister, ‘Linguistic Communication’; Frijhoff, ‘Hoe talig is groepsidentiteit?’

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wild animals. Very soon, we see traces of the development of an inter-ethnic commercial form of pidgin, a provisional lingua franca. At the same time, elementary vocabularies of the Mohawk language are drafted in 1634/35 by the well-read surgeon Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert and in 1644 by the Protestant minister Johannes Megapolensis. However, the grammatical structures of many Indian languages, very different among themselves, remained so opaque and impenetrable, and the conjugation and declensions so complex, that the colony’s first historian went as far as to suggest that Indians changed their language intentionally every two or three years in order to oppose the power of the white invaders. Nearly twenty years after the founding of the small town of New Amsterdam, present-day New York, the French Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues, tortured horribly by the Iroquois (Mohawk) Indians and killed shortly afterwards – he has since been canonized – found temporary refuge with the Dutch in 1643. The description he left us of this Dutch community of barely 500 souls mentions ‘dix-huict sortes de langues’ (18 sorts of languages) spoken there according to the Dutch director Willem Kieft – Jogues could speak French with this director who had been a merchant’s apprentice and fur trader in La Rochelle.19 What is interesting in this remark is of course that it does not glorify linguistic unity but testifies to the pride in successful cultural communication and social cohesion despite the great variety of languages. It extols the plurality of languages as an asset rather than as a drawback, as people were to do several centuries later. These loose forms of communication that were more or less fortuitous, haphazard, almost in spite of linguistic codes that were unknown or considered too strict and unusable, must not make us forget that linguistic exchange corresponded in the vast majority of situations to relatively fixed codes or routines, passed on by varying educational processes. Historically we need to distinguish between two major varieties of linguistic codes. On the one hand, the standard everyday language, vernacular or vulgar, that is to say the native tongue which through transfer in a given time and place ensures communication within a group. On the other hand, the lingua franca, the language of reference that by common consent between different linguistic communities has to transcend linguistic divisions and frontiers, allowing efficient contacts at the transnational or transcommunity level. These two basic codes correspond to two varieties of multilingualism. Within a coherent and unified linguistic community, there can be internal variations or interference with other linguistic communities that overlap 19 Jogues, Novum Belgium; Jameson, Narratives, 259–260.

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while they are simultaneously given a relative importance, such as for example, Breton and French in French Brittany, Welsh and English in Wales, Frisian and Dutch in the province of Friesland in the Low Countries. If the relation between the two languages is far from fixed, from the ancien régime onwards a hierarchy was established usually reserving the most-spoken language for political administration, formal contacts among the cultural elites and sometimes also for teaching and the church. Besides this almost internal multilingualism, each linguistic community can secure links with the outside by the systematic learning of foreign languages, modern or classical, taken one by one and whose urgency or importance can vary according to the needs of the moment. We must nevertheless distinguish between modern and classical languages, whether dead or otherwise. Under the ancien régime, the utility of learning classical languages was not based on some practical use, although Latin had remained the everyday language for higher education and Hebrew and Greek were the languages of the principal text of the Christian religion, the Bible. In fact, throughout the ancien régime and until the very heart of the Revolutionary period, the argument in favour of classical languages rested essentially on the value of the example of ancient Greece and Rome. To ensure a structured process of imitatio of classical values among the future elite of the nation and state was considered of fundamental importance for modern society. With the replacement of Latin by vernacular French as the lingua franca of the French world of schooling – at first in the grammar schools of the Oratory of Jesus, a teaching congregation in the vanguard of didactic progress – people continued reading Latin authors, but henceforth in French translation. In the eyes of teachers, it was less the dead language that was important than its content, the living message and the morality that it conveyed. This cultural claim was then taken up again by the modern languages of reference.

Lingua franca and universal language Going back to the example of the United Provinces, we can observe the permanence, at the end of the Middle Ages, of a structured and often publicly co-financed apprenticeship of French in practically the whole territory of the Low Countries in the broadest sense of the term. French was of course the everyday language of several provinces or regions south of the territory as well as the language of the court of Burgundy. However, it was above all the language of France, the most important trading partner outside the Hanseatic League,

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and the country of reference for the evolution of cultural values. The university, law, political science, the sciences, literature, drama, spirituality, theology and even philosophy recharged themselves in France, and more particularly in northern France, the France of the French language in its literal sense. It was, however, the commercial interest that counted most in the organized transfer of its learning in special schools which continued to be known, until the second half of the nineteenth century, as ‘French schools’. This primacy of the practical domain also explains the changes in the order of importance of other languages in the syllabuses of this more modern type of school by contrast to schools of classical learning: first Italian, the other language of finance and commerce during the Renaissance; then after the decline of Italian a timid growth of German and English, sometimes of Spanish. It wasn’t before the nineteenth century that the public regulators were to introduce a formal equality between the three modern languages French, German and English, while allowing the optional inclusion of other European languages. The lingua franca by definition appears in a context of linguistic plurality, for it superimposes itself on other languages, even if such a lingua franca is in fact the everyday language of a particular country or territory, which was the case of French and is still the case of English and to a certain extent Castilian. Often, French and English speakers rejoiced prematurely over the international victory of their language, going with Rivarol in his famous discourse De l’universalité de la langue française (1784) as far as celebrating its ‘universal value’, culturalizing its content and ascribing to it a civilizing mission. English speakers for their part have linked the fate of their language to the defence and expansion of democracy and liberalism, going as far as the fantastical fin de l’histoire, the ‘end of history’ advocated in 1992, somewhat lightly by the Japanese-American author Francis Fukuyama. But looking at it more closely and often to the regret of purists, their language as lingua franca has followed its own path, without worrying too much about the mother country. Adapting to the demands of the moment, it invents local pronunciations, idioms, even going as far as simplifying grammatical structures. From franglais to Dunglish, the lingua franca combines itself with the dominant languages of the different linguistic communities to become a semi-multilingual tool adapted to local use and to local needs, category- or sector-based. It was at this price, moreover, that the lingua franca made itself really franca, that is to say, freed from attachments of geographic and national origin to be able to serve as a veritable transcommunity and transnational tool. So too for Latin. From the final centuries of the Middle Ages onwards, classical Latin gradually turned into medieval Latin with modernized

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grammatical structures and a vocabulary adapted to the arts and sciences of the university of the Middle Ages and the new demands of the church and the Christian states. During the Renaissance, it was restructured and became a neo-Latin purified by the humanists but rapidly contaminated again by the Renaissance erudition that made it pedantic and affected, unsuited to serve the evolution of the arts, literature and modern science.20 So it became necessary to return to a living language that could be used as a lingua franca. Yet, there are two main differences between adopting a classical language, semi-dead in everyday use, as a lingua franca, and a living modern language. Firstly, as lingua franca Latin was the sacred language of an international community of faithful who used it as a common symbolic language and thus assured its permanence beyond the contingencies of history. The speakers of the modern lingua francas, French and English, alike tend, each in their own way, to regard their language as a modern sacred instrument in the cause of human universalism, but this sort of universalism is necessarily expressed with the relative contingencies and values of modernity. Secondly, every living community language remains that of a nation. It carries an identity which, without even mentioning wars or imperialisms, interferes with its expansion and limits its appropriation as a universal language. It is nonetheless true that from the Renaissance onwards people wanted a universal language understandable by all and a guarantor for culture, peace and prosperity. Along with the many utopias in their dreams of linguistic unity, they tried to determine which language had the most guarantees, because it was presented as the very language of paradise, the original language (lingua adamica): Hebrew, Chinese, German and even Dutch appear on this board of honour.21 This somewhat utopian research provoked the birth of linguistics, which of course made it fail. Indeed, following Comenius in his thoughts on relations between people, their community and languages, we have to recognize and assume an inevitable linguistic diversity. The desire for unity then was transferred to the effort to raise an existing modern language to the status of a universal language for the civilized world. It was, of course, to be the language of the country that had the position of political and cultural hegemony at the time that would impose itself on the international elite, the cosmopolitans, the ‘jet set’ before the term was invented, and other world citizens. In the modern period, this was French. France entertained three successive illusions that justified its pretensions to the linguistic universality extolled by Rivarol. 20 On the evolution of the status of Latin: Waquet, Le Latin. 21 Eco, La ricerca della lingua perfetta.

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Firstly, the dream of a universal monarchy under the Bourbons; then, the Revolutionary ideal; finally the imperial and colonial adventure – all tinted with a cultural or civilizing missionary zeal justified by a discourse of cultural hierarchization, the prestige of the French language, and indeed its linguistic superiority. Stimulated by its pretensions and successes, other countries took up the linguistic torch: colonial Castilian, the scientific German of the eighteenth century, the victorious English of the British Empire, then American expansion helped by the two world wars. In the routines of everyday speech, multilingualism is consequently coupled with multiculturalism. This is especially true for the major change that took place during the modern period, when the international lingua franca as second language of the elite went from a dead language, Latin, to a living one, French, then more recently to English with its different national and idiomatic variations.22 The main difference between these two phases consists in the ambiguity that results from the use outside of its actual linguistic area of a modern language that has become the standard language and national cultural symbol of one or several countries. The cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment was certainly not exclusively French-speaking, for English played a role in filigree that was more important than people have liked to admit in the canon of the sciences of the Enlightenment.23 German itself attained this status imperceptibly as the first language of science in the eighteenth century when the progress of science in Germany itself was combined with the introduction of the vernacular into German universities, starting with Halle, which was the top university at the time. We know where that led to: the renewal of the university model, first timidly in Halle and Göttingen and other regional centres, then in 1810 in Berlin itself under Wilhelm von Humboldt, an ardent protagonist of intellectual multilingualism, and from there throughout Europe, which moreover was to find it difficult to free itself from the centuries-old hold of Latin. However, on the edges of the French and English cultural epicentre of the Atlantic world, idealists, often from the linguistic melting pot of central Europe or motivated by an ambitious socialism, set to work to find the recipe for a truly universal language. Unphazed by the political setbacks of the great powers and the failure of the civilizing efforts of linguistic imperialism, they suggested the creation of new languages, grammatically pure and, above all, free of any trace of politics. The German priest 22 See Frijhoff, ‘Le Français en Hollande’; Haskins Gonthier & Sandrier, Multilinguisme et multiculturalité. 23 Frijhoff, ‘Cosmopolitisme’, 31–40.

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Johann Martin Schleyer created Volapük in 1879; Esperanto was designed in 1887 by the Polish oculist Ludwik Zamenhof and followed in 1907 by its improved version called Ido; the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen developed Novial in 1928. By assimilating the best of existing languages, these artificial ones were to promote both practical understanding and moral agreement between peoples. Esperanto, which conveys this hope in its very name, is the most perfect example of it, and the only one that has survived until today. Language thus becomes the laboratory of human perfectibility. A vehicle for transfer ensuring contacts just as much as misunderstandings between people, language also symbolizes their unappeased desire for communication, for harmony, even for fusion.

Looking for meaning: Linguistic unity and cultural diversity The diversity of languages, which expresses and governs the diversity of cultures, has always both fascinated and worried humanity. In many myths about our origins, paradise had only a single language, pure and with no division. The loss of universal understanding, broken up into many languages, generating linguistic confusion, has always been felt by the cultured elite to be a social and cultural catastrophe. The nostalgia for a universal language is one of the most remarkable constants in human history, just like the correlative desire to use a secret codified language reserved for an elite, both select and closed, but not limited by national, social or cultural contingencies. Thus, many great civilizations, surprised by linguistic plurality, have tried either to reduce it or to give it full and definitive sense in their myths, legends and identity narratives. In the Old Testament, the story of the Tower of Babel occupies a pivotal place. Effectively, closely linked to the plan of salvation, it gives an explanatory outline for the diversity of mankind and the genesis of nations. Contrary to a common popular version of this myth, it was not human beings who divided themselves into a multiplicity of languages, but their God who divided them. When they gathered to build a great town with a tower whose summit was to penetrate the skies, the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad

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from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:5–9)24

While mankind was tending to get together and agree on a single idiom, symbolized by the great tower – that is to say urban civilization – God saw it as a sign of excessive pride. From then onwards geographic dispersion and linguistic plurality have gone together. Thus, the Babel narrative rationalizes the splitting up of humanity by giving it a moral cause. The desire for the re-establishment of linguistic unity was to belong less to a utilitarian than to a moral discourse, favouring the virtues of human culture, soon called ‘civilization’, and of a universal ethics where human rights and the desire for understanding went side by side. But the unsuitability of this idealist discourse for the real world has, as we know, opened the way to imperialisms and linguistic hegemonies, imposed by utilitarian practice, custom, law, sometimes even by brute force. The story of the Tower of Babel is reflected in the New Testament by two texts just as exemplary, which signify the desire to re-establish, if not linguistic unity, at least universal understanding. I refer to the event of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13) and the promise – or order – repeated six times in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 5:9, 7:9, 10:11, 11:9, 13:7, 14:6) to all peoples, nations, races and tongues to understand each other, to cry with a single voice the praise of the Lamb in preparation for the Last Judgement. The very story of Pentecost is a complex narrative that tells us of the confusion in which linguistic plurality has kept societies, while warning us that these societies were not marked for just any kind of linguistic unity. On the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples were all in the same place: And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:2–6)25

24 RSV. 25 Ibidem.

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The dream of a sort of vernacular glossolalia constitutes the other aspect of the desire to go beyond the plurality of languages. The charisma of ‘speaking in tongues’ is a frequent gift at the start of several religions. Regularly mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, it is a solid value in the arsenal of mystical practices throughout the history of Christian spirituality. In his praise of the mystical body, for example, St Paul evokes the gift of tongues and that of interpreting them (1 Corinthians 12:10). Language and charisma thus merge in a single performance, linguistic plurality being both a gift and good fortune. Of course, it is not just plurality in the strictly technical, idiomatic sense, but first and foremost the plurality of forms of expression and interpretation. Seen from this angle, plurality is simply a blessing. The sacred writings of the Judeo-Christian tradition give us a coherent outline of history which links language and community, understanding and nation in three steps: first geographic dispersion and linguistic plurality, linked to human effort; then a new understanding in a universal mission of peace and gathering of mankind, but without denying the wealth of plural forms of expression; finally the hope of overcoming all divisions between peoples linked to language, race, nation, ethnic group or form of government, through a universal expression of supreme unity in God. There is no need to be a Christian to believe in this ideal however utopian it might remain. Translated by Mary Robitaille-Ibbett

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Briels, J., Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572–1630: Een demografische en cultuurhistorische studie (Sint-Niklaas: Danthe, 1985). Eco, Umberto, La ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea (Rome/Bari: Laterza, 1993). Erpenius, Thomas, De Peregrinatione gallica utiliter instituenda tractatus (Leiden: Franciscus Hegerus, 1631). Feister, Lois M., ‘Linguistic Communication between the Dutch and Indians in New Netherland, 1609–1664’, Ethnohistory, 20 (1972), 25–38. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Cosmopolitisme’, in Vincenzo Ferrone & Daniel Roche (eds.), Le Monde des Lumières (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 31–40. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Des origines à 1780: L’Émergence d’une image’, in Willem Frijhoff & André Reboullet (eds.), Histoire de la diffusion et de l’enseignement du français dans le monde, special issue of Le Français dans le Monde: Recherches et Applications (1998), 8–19. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Éducation, savoir, compétence: Les transformations du Grand Tour dans les Provinces-Unies à l’époque moderne’, in Rainer Babel & Werner Paravicini (eds.), Grand Tour: Adeliges Reisen und europäische Kultur vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert; Akten der internationalen Kolloquien in der Villa Vigoni 1999 und im Deutschen Historischen Institut Paris 2000, supplementary issue, Francia, 60 (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke, 2005), 609–635. Frijhoff, Willem, Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus, 1607–1647, trans. Myra Heerspink Scholz (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007); orig. publ. as Wegen van Evert Willemsz: Een Hollands weeskind op zoek naar zichzelf, 1607–1647 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1995). Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Hoe talig is groepsidentiteit? Reflecties vanuit de geschiedenis’, Taal en Tongval: Tijdschrift voor Taalvariatie, 17 (2004), 9–29. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Le Français en Hollande après la Paix de Westphalie: Langue d’immigrés, langue d’envahisseurs, ou langue universelle?’, Documents pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde [SIHFLES, 1996] 18, 329–350. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Le plurilinguisme des élites en Europe de l’Ancien Régime au début du XXe siècle’, in Daniel Coste & Jean Hébrard (eds.), Vers le plurilinguisme des élites, special issue of Le Français dans le Monde: Recherches et Applications (1991), 120–129. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘L’Usage du français en Hollande, XVIIe–XIXe siècles: Propositions pour un modèle d’interprétation’, Études de Linguistique Appliquée, 78 (1990), 17–26. Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Pieter de la Courts reisjournaal (1641–1643) als ego-document’, in H.W. Blom & I.W. Wildenberg (eds.), Pieter de la Court in zijn tijd: Aspecten van een veelzijdig publicist (Amsterdam/Maarssen: APA-Holland University Press, 1986), 11–34.

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Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Vier Hollandse priesterbibliotheken uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Ons Geestelijk Erf, 51 (1977), 198–302. Gloria Parendi: Dagboeken van Willem Frederik, stadhouder van Friesland, Groningen en Drenthe, 1643–1649, 1651–1654, ed. J. Visser (The Hague: Nederlands Historisch Genootschap, 1995). Haskins Gonthier, U., & A. Sandrier (eds.), Multilinguisme et multiculturalité dans l’Europe des Lumières: Actes du Séminaire international des jeunes dixhuitiémistes, Beugen, septembre 2004 (Paris: Champion, 2007). Jameson, J. Franklin, Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York: Scribner, 1909). Jogues, Isaac, Novum Belgium: An Account of New Netherland in 1643–1644, ed. John Gilmary Shea (New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1862). Otterspeer, Willem, Groepsportret met Dame, I: Het bolwerk van de vrijheid: De Leidse universiteit, 1575–1672 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2000). Overbeke, Aernout van, Anecdota sive historiae jocosae: Een zeventiende-eeuwse verzameling moppen en anecdotes, ed. Rudolf Dekker & Herman Roodenburg, with Harm Jan van Rees (Amsterdam: P.J. Meertens Instituut, 1991). Renan, Ernest, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (1882) (Paris: Éditions Mille et une nuits, 1997). Rivarol, [Antoine de], De l’universalité de la langue française: Discours qui a remporté le prix à l’Académie de Berlin en 1784 (2nd ed., Berlin/Paris: Prault/Bailley, 1785); ed. with commentary by Th. Suran (Paris/Toulouse: H. Didier, 1930). Stammbücher als kulturhistorische Quellen, ed. Jörg-Ulrich Fechner (Munich: Kraus, 1981). Stammbücher des 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Wolfgang Klose (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1989). Verberne, Judith, ‘De Bentvueghels (1620/1621–1720) te Rome: Karakterisering van de groep en presentatie van een nieuw document’, in Peter Schatborn (ed.), Tekenen van warmte: Zeventiende-eeuwse Nederlandse tekenaars in Italië (Amsterdam/Zwolle: Rijksmuseum/Waanders, 2001), 22–32. Waquet, Françoise, Le Latin, ou l’empire d’un signe (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998). Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976).

About the author Willem Frijhoff (b. 1942) studied philosophy and theology in the Netherlands, and history and social sciences in Paris. He obtained his PhD (social sciences) in 1981 at Tilburg University, and received an honorary doctorate (history of education) at

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the University of Mons-Hainaut (Belgium) in 1998. Between 1983 and 1997 he was professor of cultural history and history of mentalities of pre-industrial societies at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and from 1997 to 2007 of early modern history at the Free University (VU-University), Amsterdam. From 2003 to 2014 he chaired the research program ‘Cultural Dynamics’ of the Dutch National Research Organization (about 50 projects). After retiring (2007) he was visiting professor at Antwerp University and Radboud University Nijmegen, and presently holds the G.Ph. Verhagen Chair in Cultural History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is the 2011 recipient of the Descartes-Huygens Award for Franco-Dutch Scientific Cooperation. His research turns around problems of education, language, universities, religion, memory and identity in history. Among his publications are a survey of Dutch culture in the Golden Age, with Marijke Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Assen/Basingstoke 2004), and Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus 1607–1647 (Leiden/Boston 2007), and he co-edited Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations (Amsterdam/Albany 2009). At present, he is preparing a monograph on the economic, social, religious and cultural strategies of a large Franco-Dutch family network in Amsterdam, Rouen, Cologne, Oslo and North America in the early 1600s, provisionally entitled A Different Golden Age.

2

Capitalizing Multilingual Competence Language Learning and Teaching in the Early Modern Period Pierre Swiggers*1 Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/ch02 Abstract As an illustration of historical didaxology – the study of language teaching and learning in the past – this chapter focuses on multilingual teaching in the Low Countries in the sixteenth century. Multilingualism and the teaching of foreign languages were widespread in the Low Countries in the early modern period, as shown by the vast number of private and public teaching establishments, and of language preceptors. This contribution focuses on the didactic tools produced for the teaching and acquisition of foreign languages, i.e. (contrastive) language manuals and (bilingual/multilingual) dictionaries, and on the activity of prolific ‘language masters’, such as Noël de Berlaimont, Peeter Heyns and Gabriel Meurier. In conclusion, a contextualizing interpretation is offered of early modern language communities in terms of their technical-commercial infrastructure. Keywords: Early modern period, foreign language teaching, grammaticography, didactic tools for teaching language, lexicography, Low Countries, multilingualism

*

University of Leuven (KU Leuven)

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Multilingualism as a cultural practice1 In 1551 the Louvain printer Bartholomaeus Gravius (de Graeve/van Graeve, c.1510–1578) issued a quadrilingual edition of the polyglot dictionary and language manual of Noël de Berlaimont (see below), one of the most successful language manuals in the early modern period. In the Louvain edition of 1551, which was the first of four (later editions appeared in 1556, 1558 and 1560), the languages included are Dutch (or ‘Flemish’, as it was then usually called), French, Latin and Spanish.2 The preface, signed by Gravius, is written in French, and contains a dithyramb on the two towns in Brabant that were culturally, intellectually and commercially prominent in those days: Louvain and Antwerp. Apart from stressing the quality of the manual of Berlaimont, now appearing in a quadrilingual version, Gravius addresses his potential readership – more specifically the youth of the (then Spanish Habsburg) Low Countries – pointing out the utility of mastering several modern languages: Comme le painctre de son art aorne & accoustre sa paincture de diuerses couleurs, pour la rendre tant plus excellente, ainsy la nature humaine s’efforce tousiours de soy & son pays ou elle est natiue, honorer & esleuer par toutes vertus, & aultres ornemens honorables & profitables à la chose publique. Dont à cause de diuerses nations, qui sont tant à la court de la Maiesté Impériale, & de son filz Philippe d’Austrice, prince d’Espaigne, et de pays de pardeça: que à la tresfameuse Vniversité de Louuain, là ou sont toutes nations de gens, & en Anuers marchans de tous pays. Sera donc dores-enauant fort vtile & necessaire, à vous ieunes gens d’apprendre & de sçavoir plusieurs langues. Et nous est aduis que ces quatre langues, 1 The underlying source for this contribution is a text presented at the international symposium, Las relaciones entre lenguas en los contextos educativos en Europa: mediaciones, circulaciones, comparaciones, rivalidades (siglos XVI–comienzos XIX), with a thoroughly revised written version published as ‘Les enjeux de l’enseignement des langues aux Temps Modernes: dimensions ludique, politique et idéologique de la didactique et de la didaxologie’, in J. Suso López (ed.), Plurilinguisme et enseignement des langues en Europe: Aspects historiques, didactiques et sociolinguistiques Granada: Ediciones Universidad de Granada, 2010), 79–123. However, since it was, to a large extent, devoted to the teaching of French, we focus here on the issue of multilingualism, and combine a methodological outline with a case study on a specific constellation in which several languages were spoken, written, taught and learned. Readers interested in topics such as the ‘fun, ‘political’ and ‘ideological’ dimensions of language manuals are referred to ‘Les enjeux de l’enseignement des langues aux Temps Modernes’, 97–100, 101–103, 103–106, respectively. 2 The Latin part (absent from the earlier Berlaimont editions) was prepared by the Dutch Latinist Cornelius Valerius (Corneel Wouters, c.1512–1578), professor at the Collegium Trilingue.

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Flamengue, Françoyse, Latine, & Espaignolle, lesquelz vous donnons icy, sont les plus necessaires à vostre honneur, & à nostre pays decoration. Et pour ce faire auons prins l’inuention de Noel de Barlemont, lequel a tourné de Flameng en Latin treselegament, & le plus proprement que faire se pouoit, le tressçauant home en diuerses langues & arts M. Cornille Valere d’Vtrecht, ce que sera fort profitable à tous enfans, lesquelz desirent d’apprendre la langue Latine. Et en oultre de Latin en la langue Castiliane est translaté par deux homes sçauants, & en leur langue maternelle treseloquents, & bien parlants: laquelle langue est la plus excellente de toute Espaigne. Et apres auoir leu ce present liure, vous sera vtile le liure de Tobie, lequel auons aussy imprimé en trois langues. Parquoy doncques vous ieunes gens, ie vous prie de prendre peine d’apprendre ces quatre langues, ie ne doubte point que n’y trouuerez honneur & profit. Et vous prie de prendre en gré nostre labeur, & bon vouloir que auons enuers vostre honneur & profit: si par aduenture n’auons de tout faict à vostre desir, vous nous aurez pour excusez pour la premiere foys, & se nous entendons que cecy vous soit aggreable, nous rendrons peine d’en faire vne aultre foys d’auantage, s’il plaist au Createur, auquel ie prie vous donner sa grace.3

From a few years earlier, we have another interesting testimony, offered by an unpublished document, 4 written in Louvain, at the Collegium Trilingue, one of the strongholds for the study of Latin, Greek and Hebrew.5 It is a letter, dated 21 January 1548 by (H)Adrianus Amerotius (c.1495–1560),6 professor of Greek at the Trilingue, to his former student Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517–1586), who later became cardinal under Philip II. In his letter, Amerotius reports on the progress of the students who are staying in his house (among them members of the French-speaking Granvelle family): he offers an overview of their readings and classwork in Greek and Latin, but also mentions that every day they practise their ‘Flemish’ ( flamen).7 3 I quote the passage after the (slightly modernized) edition in Verdeyen, Colloquia et Dictionariolum Septem Linguarum, I, xx. 4 While doing research at the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid in April 2015, I came across this document. 5 On the Louvain Collegium Trilingue (founded in 1517), see Nève, Mémoire historique, and De Vocht, History of the Foundation. 6 On (H)Adrianus Amerotius, the author of an important Greek grammar (Compendium Graecae grammatices, 1st ed., Louvain, 1520), see Swiggers, ‘Adrianus Amerotius: Compendium’, and Swiggers & Van Rooy, ‘Hadrianus Amerotius’. 7 The relevant passage in the letter reads: ‘Quant au flamen, j’ay ordonne que nous lisons, Maistre Jehan et moy et les enfans, tous les jours apres disne et apres soupe, histoires en flamen et feray par ce moyen qu’ilz scauront la langue’.

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These two testimonies, to which one can add many others,8 bear witness to an interesting conjunction of a ‘horizontal’ and a ‘vertical’ multilingualism in one and the same environment.9 ‘Horizontal’ refers here to the copresence of modern vernaculars; ‘vertical’, to the combined study of extinct, so-called classical languages. The analysis of such interesting, and complex, cases of multilingualism is a research topic still in its infancy.10 Such research requires the collaboration of scholars from different disciplines: historians of society, of civilization, of education, specialists of institutional history and socio-economic history, scholars working in the field of the history of religions and church history,11 linguists specializing in the history of national languages and in historical sociolinguistics, philologists and, obviously, historians of language teaching.12 It is through interdisciplinary research involving such a synergy that we will be able to accurately document, understand and describe the cultural practices of language teaching and learning in the past, and to place these cultural practices in their appropriate (political, socio-economic and religious) contexts. The purpose of this chapter is to offer some reflections on how this research can be modelled, and to illustrate this, albeit briefly, with examples mostly taken from the history of early modern language teaching in the Low Countries.13 8 For other examples, see below ‘A Case Study’; see further: Goris, Lof van Antwerpen; Van Passen, ‘Antwerpen goed bekeken’; and Meeus, ‘“Wat een spraak!”’. 9 Following the distinction made by the Council of Europe, I dissociate multilingualism, at the societal level, from plurilingualism, at the individual level; see Béacco & Byram, Guide pour l’élaboration des politiques linguistiques. The distinction is important because individual plurilingualism does not necessarily imply the existence of a multilingual society to which these individuals belong. Also, individual plurilingualism within a societal group may be characterized by an extremely reduced intersection of the languages practised by these individuals. In a multilingual society (in the full sense of the term), the members of the society are, to a large extent, and to different degrees, plurilingual speakers, and the respective individual ‘plurilingualisms’ show an extensive common nucleus. 10 For an exemplary study, see Frijhoff, ‘Multilingualism in the Dutch Golden Age’, in this volume. 11 See Kok Escalle & Sanchez-Summerer, ‘Le facteur religieux dans la diffusion du français’. In their analysis of three historically relevant constellations (showing the strong ties between religious motivations and teaching and diffusion of French), these authors insist on the complex intertwinement between (a) religion, identity-marking and language choice, and between (b) national and international political-religious aspirations and individual perception of participating in multilingual communities. 12 See the methodological and programmatic statements in Frijhoff, Suso López & Swiggers, ‘Contextes et disciplines de référence dans l’enseignement du français’. 13 For the general context of ‘language interest’ and ‘linguistic culture’ in the Low Countries in the early modern period, see Van Hal, Isebaert & Swiggers, De tuin der talen. The reader will

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Historical didaxology: A modelling proposal As a cover term for the study of language teaching and learning in the past I propose historical didaxology, the object of which is to study the historical course (= historical ‘diachrony’) and the history-based constellations (= historical ‘synchrony’) of language teaching and learning as culturally implemented knowledge (in French savoir)14 and practice.15 Its two principal evolutionary (and also research) axes are contents and contexts; together these axes, which for convenience sake I will call ‘didactic contents’ and ‘didactic contexts’, constitute the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ side of this type of cultural knowledge and practice.16 Historical didaxology deals with the function of languages, as well as with how this function is perceived and valued within historical communities; it therefore cannot be dissociated from phenomena such as translation, language policies, language description and standardization, or anything else subsumed under Sprachkultur, i.e. the continuum of linguistic culture and language cultivation.17 In its turn, all this is embedded in language history (a concept that should not be interpreted exclusively in a retrospective sense). The research agenda of historical didaxology can be set in terms of the two axes mentioned above, didactic contents and contexts, which define the ‘ecological’ imprint and setting of language teaching and acquisition (comprising first/second/foreign languages).18

also find there a bibliographical overview on language study and culture in the Renaissance: see Van Hal, Isebaert & Swiggers, ‘Het “vernieuwde” taal- en wereldbeeld’. 14 See Foucault, L’Archéologie du savoir. 15 For the term ‘didaxology’, based on the Greek term didaxis (‘teaching, instruction’), see Swiggers, ‘Les enjeux de l’enseignement des langues aux Temps Modernes’, 81–83 (which examines the difference with regard to Galisson’s distinction between didactique and didactologie); see also Galisson, ‘Éloge de la didactologie/didactique des langues et des cultures (maternelles et étrangères)’. 16 On the necessity of combining the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ side in a study of (sixteenth-century) language description, teaching and cultivation, see Swiggers & Van Hoecke, La langue française au XVIe siècle. In his research on the teaching of French in the northern Low Countries from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century Riemens, Esquisse historique, also conjoins the analysis of the political and sociocultural context with the analysis of the contents of didactic tools. 17 For the concept of Sprachkultur, see Weinrich, Wege der Sprachkultur; Greule & Lebsanft, Europäische Sprachkultur und Sprachpflege. 18 I refer here to Einar Haugen’s concept of ‘ecology of language’, and to his definition of the field; see Haugen, Ecology of Language.

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(A) The didactic contents should be approached through the following research questions: (a) In what (general) formats are these contents presented, and what can be said about the more f ine-grained articulation of these formats?19 (b) Through which ‘circuits’ are these didactic contents ‘channelled’? This complex question addresses the issue of the language(s) and metalanguage(s) used in the didactic contents. And what is the place assigned to non-linguistic elements in the ‘circuit’? The notion of ‘circuit’ also includes the communication infrastructure20 (comprising various degrees of multilingual competence and performance) which served as the living floor for multilingual teaching and learning. (c) What is the (general) nature or scope of the didactic contents (e.g. interest in language structures, or in communication, or rather in gaining access, through language, to another culture)? (d) How are the didactic contents categorized? And is there an explicit (meta-) statement about this categorization?21 (e) Which aspects are focused on in the didactic contents, taking into account the general nature (see question (c)) of these contents?

Each of these questions has a historical-synchronic and a historicaldiachronic application. In the first case, the question is addressed to a text or series of texts situated at a given time period (Tα);22 in the second case, the question concerns the evolution of didactic contents over various periods (e.g. with regard to question (a)): What can be said about the historical evolution of the general formats?

19 For a discussion of ‘formats’ (and subformats), see Swiggers, ‘Les grammaires françaises “pédagogiques” du XVIe siècle’, ‘El foco “belga”’, and ‘Regards sur l’enseignement du français’. 20 Involving aspects such as those subsumed by Frijhoff, ‘Codes, Routines and Communication’ (in this volume) under the terms ‘codes’ and ‘routines’. 21 (Meta-) statements on categorization become frequent from the seventeenth century on, when emphasis is laid on the methodology of language teaching. See Swiggers, Grammaire et méthode au XVIIe siècle; and ‘Les enjeux de l’enseignement des langues aux Temps Modernes’, 106–111 (with reference to statements by Bernard Lamy & Matthias Cramer). 22 On the notion of ‘series of texts’, see the methodological remarks of Hassler ‘Les Idéologues et leurs sources’.

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(B) A comprehensive approach of the didactic contexts requires that a range of questions be considered: (1) What can be said about the glotto-demographical situation of the language(s) involved? (2) What is the socio-political position of the language(s) involved? This question implies research on the promotion, or marginalization or repression, of languages. (3) What is the sociolinguistic and language-geographic setting of the language(s) involved? Here topics such as prestige of a language, dialect variation, language contacts, language solidarity, etc., will be prominent. (4) What can be said about the ‘extraterritorial’ (or ‘transnational’) diffusion of the language(s) involved? (5) Are there specific cultural and/or religious factors correlating with the high(er) or low(er) prestige of the language(s) involved? (6) Who are the ‘agents’ (i.e. producers, controllers, intermediaries, deliverers and receivers) in the process of the production, transmission and use of the didactic contents?

Here also, each of the questions has a historical-synchronic and a historical-diachronic application.

A case study The above outline of a research agenda constitutes an overall grid which ‘seizes life’ in being applied to concrete materials and contexts. In order to illustrate this I will focus on an interesting case of multilingual teaching in the Low Countries in the (second half of) the sixteenth century. From the detailed inventory compiled by Henry De Groote we gather that in the third quarter of the sixteenth century there were about 150 ‘modern schools’, i.e. non-Latin schools, in Antwerp.23 The languages taught in these schools were French, Italian, Spanish and German; the language curriculum was completed with courses in arithmetic, bookkeeping and accountancy, as well as geography. Leaving aside the (probably not infrequent) cases of ‘autodidaxy’, language teaching was entrusted to preceptors who were

23 See De Groote, ‘De zestiende-eeuwse Antwerpse schoolmeesters’; also Serrure, ‘Peeter Heyns: Het schoolwezen’.

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organized in so-called guilds and were controlled by the urban authorities.24 The list of language preceptors who were active in Antwerp in the third quarter of the sixteenth century comprises hundreds of names. What were the teaching instruments of these language preceptors?25 A first fact to be noted is that in the sixteenth century only a handful of properly grammatical works were printed in Antwerp and Louvain, the two printing centres in southern Brabant. The languages concerned are French (five editions of grammars), Spanish (three grammars) and Italian (one grammar).26 Of the five edited grammars of French, published in Antwerp (four editions) or Louvain (one edition), three are ‘imported’ products, namely Flemish editions of grammars previously published in France: Pillotus’s grammar (first published in Paris in 1550) had an Antwerp edition and a Louvain edition,27 and Caucius’s grammar (first published in Paris in 1570) was re-edited in Antwerp in 1576.28 The Italian grammar, printed in Louvain in 1555 by the already mentioned Bartholomaeus Gravius, was an Italian–French re-edition/translation of Alberto Acarisio’s (1497–1544) monolingual Italian grammar (f irst published in Bologna, in 1536): La grammatica volgare di M. Alberto de gl’Acharisi Dacento/La grammaire de M. Albert de la Charisi Dacento, tournée de Tuscan en François. In the 24 For a study of the European context in which these guilds functioned, see Grafe & Gelderblom, ‘Rise and Fall of the Merchant Guilds’. 25 This question raises the issue of typologizing our source materials. A detailed typology (based on a comprehensive set of parameters) of multilingual didactic production is still a desideratum; for some suggestions and reflections (with reference to manuals for teaching/ learning French), see Swiggers, ‘Les grammaires françaises “pédagogiques” du XVIe siècle’; and Kok Escalle, ‘Une entreprise sur le long terme’. 26 These are also the languages mentioned by Gabriel Meurier in the dedicatory letter which opens his Coniugaisons, regles, et instructions, mout propres et necessairement requises pour ceux qui desirent apprendre François, Italien, Espagnol, & Flamen (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe, 1558): ‘Considerando, molto magnif ico Signor mio, come in questo territorio di Brabante & particolarmente nella nostra famosa citta d’Anversa, alle varie & diverse nationi che per loro negotij continuamente ci traficano, la onde non mi é parso fuor di proposito di cercar modo di giovare à chi piu si diletta d’imparare altra che la sua lingua materna per potere piu agiatamente & al suo commodo, trattar i loro negotij, & mosso da tal desiderio ho composto questa nova forma di regole dove per mezo di esse potra ciascuno venire alla cognitione non solo della Fiamminga ma della Italiana, Francesa & Spagnola, & cosi havendo questa mia operetta ridotta à fine, ho pensato non esser inutile ne manco disconvenevole mandarla in luce sotto il nome di qual che persona honorata & per suoi meriti illustre’. 27 I refer here to the ‘Flemish’ editions of the grammars of Joannes Pillotus’s (1515–1592) Gallicae linguae institutio, printed in Antwerp by J. Bellerus in 1558, and in Louvain by J. Bogardus in 1563. 28 I refer to the Antwerp edition of Antonius Caucius’s (1535–1600) Grammatica Gallica, printed by L. Bellerus in 1576.

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preface to this grammar, the societal and cultural importance of learning Italian is stressed:29 la langue italienne est a present tant necessaire scavoir que aultre langue quelconque, a cause que icelle est la plus prochaine du Latin & fort excellente, & en use on fort non pas seulement a la court […] Mais aussi a la tres fameuse Université de Louvain ou sont Escoliers de toutes regions, etudiants en toutes langues, facultez & sciences: soit aussi en la ville dAnvers ou frequentent marchantz de tous pays.

Five grammatical products for foreign language teaching were originally published in the Low Countries:30 the three grammars of Spanish, and the French grammars of Gabriel Meurier and Peeter Heyns.31 Interestingly, these Spanish grammars were the first to follow the foundation-laying Spanish grammar of Nebrija (Gramatica [sobre la lengua castellana], 1492), and they precede the first Spanish grammars published in France by almost half a century. – Spanish: 1555. [Anonymous] Util, y breve institution, para aprender los principios y fundamentos de la lengua Hespañola/Institution tresbrieue & tresutile, pour aprendre les premiers fondemens, de la langue Espagnole/Institutio brevissima & utilissima, ad discenda prima rudimenta linguae Hispanicae (Louvain: B. Gravius). 1558. Cristóbal de Villalón, Gramatica Castellana: Arte breve y compendiosa para saber hablar y escrevir enla lengua Castellana congrua y deçentemente (Antwerp: G. Simon).32 29 On the (interest in) learning Italian in the Low Countries during the Renaissance, see Bingen, ‘L’Insegnamento dell’italiano nel Belgio cinquecentesco’, and the introduction to Szoc, Le prime grammatiche d’italiano nei Paesi Bassi (the remainder of this work offers a detailed analysis of the early modern grammars of Italian published in the Low Countries). 30 For a more comprehensive overview and study of the French grammars published in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see De Clercq & Swiggers, ‘Franse grammatica en taalonderwijs’, and Swiggers, ‘Regards sur l’enseignement du français’; for the Spanish grammars published in the Low Countries in the sixteenth century, see Swiggers, ‘El foco “belga”’; for the Italian grammars published in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Szoc, Le prime grammatiche d’italiano nei Paesi Bassi. 31 For the place of these grammars in the history of Romance (and, more specifically, Spanish and French) grammaticography, see Swiggers, ‘L’Histoire des grammaires et des manuels de langues romanes’, ‘L’Analyse grammaticale et didactico-linguistique du français’, and ‘L’Institution du français’. 32 Villalón’s grammar should perhaps (also) best be regarded as an imported product: it was printed in Antwerp by the Jewish-Spanish printer Guillermo Simon (Simón), because Villalón,

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1559. [Anonymous] Gramatica dela Lengua Vulgar de España (Louvain: B. Gravius). – French: 1557. Gabriel Meurier, Grammaire françoise (Antwerp: Plantin).33 1571. Peeter Heyns, Cort onderwys van de acht deelen der Fransoischer talen (Antwerp: Plantin).

The anonymous Spanish grammar of 1555 is a trilingual text, presenting a parallel description of Spanish, Latin and French (thus constituting another case of the combination of horizontal and vertical multilingualism).34 The anonymous Spanish grammar of 1559 offers an innovative account of the principal structures of the Spanish language; its extensive preface informs the reader of the linguistic division and political-administrative organization of the Iberian Peninsula. As to the two grammars of French (by Meurier and by Heyns), these are closely tied up with the presence, in the southern and northern Low Countries of the so-called French schools (écoles françaises).35 The French schools were the institutionalized manifestation of the basic aims of the bourgeois class: on the one hand, the symbolic aim of defining a cultural and educational niche for itself, the rising middle class, and on the other hand, the practical aim of preparing merchants’ children for a business career. Peeter Heyns (1537–1598)36 was a schoolmaster who founded a French school in Antwerp, called ‘The Laurel’ (De Lauwerboom); in this particular case, it was a school for educating girls ‒ not only those of the town’s merchants, but also daughters of families from outside the Antwerp area.37 Heyns’ school was in fact a travelling teaching institution, following the who was suspected for his religious and philosophical ideas, thought it wiser not to publish the work in Spain; see Lliteras & García-Jalón de la Lama, ‘El foco vallisoletano’. 33 For a detailed analysis of this grammar, see De Clercq, ‘La Grammaire françoise (1557)’. 34 The necessity of knowing Spanish in the Low Countries is pointed out in the preface to this grammar: ‘Je ne te fay point de preface Amy Lecteur, pour toy remonstrer combien il est, & doresnavant sera utile, voire necessaire en ce pais de scavoir la langue Castillane, presupposant que de toy mesme tu l’entens assez’ (Aiir). 35 On the origin, function and context of these French schools, see Dodde & Esseboom, ‘Instruction and Education’. 36 On Heyns, see Serrure, ‘Peeter Heyns. Het schoolwezen’; Sabbe, Peeter Heyns en de nimfen; Dibbets, ‘Peeter Heyns’, and Meeus, ‘Peeter Heyns’. 37 Meeus, ‘Peeter Heyns’, 308–309: ‘Heyns was recruiting his pupils from all over the Low Countries. The register preserved in the Museum Plantin Moretus clearly shows that especially merchants and high-ranking officials entrusted their daughters to the school.’

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changes in residence of its clients. Like a large number of other schools in Antwerp, Heyns’ school moved to the northern provinces, and later to Germany when the Antwerp merchant class and intelligentsia started to emigrate to the north.38 For use in his school, Peeter Heyns developed various types of works. Most of these were printed by Jan (I) van Waesberghe or by Christophe Plantin. Heyns’ production includes for instance: (a) a book for learning arithmetic and bookkeeping (Tot profyte van die willen leeren lustich Rekenen met penninghen oft Penne); (b) a manual for learning to read French (Instruction de la lecture Françoise); (c) an exercise book for reading Dutch and French (ABC boeck); (d) the above-mentioned short French grammar, written in Dutch (Cort onderwijs van de acht deelen der Fransoischer talen tot nut ende voorderinghe der Nederlandscher Jonckheyt);39 (e) moralizing plays (which according to Heyns, were staged ‘tant en Flameng qu’en Francois’), the purpose of which was to diffuse high standards of Christianity, and to prepare young girls for their future tasks as mother and spouse in a merchant family. 40

Heyns also produced a pocket atlas (Spieghel der Werelt), which offered essential information on geography and related aspects such as demography and economy. The limited number of foreign/second language grammars printed in the southern Low Countries during the period considered here contrasts with the impressive number of bilingual or multilingual dictionaries that came out. 41 Next to the impressive production of Gabriel Meurier, which we will deal with below, we have to mention (for bilingual French–Flemish

38 In 1580 Heyns published a French–German schoolbook in Frankfurt for use in the school (for young boys) he had opened there: III Dialogues pueriles en Alleman et Francois des quatre saisons de l’an, a scavoir du Printemps, de l’Esté, de l’Automne, de l’Hyver. 39 This grammar was first printed by Plantin in 1571; a second edition, which has been lost, must have been printed in 1597; a third edition was published by Peeter Heyns’ son Zacharias in 1605 in Zwolle. 40 The plays were staged in Antwerp before 1585, but were only published from 1595 onwards when Heyns had established himself in Haarlem. 41 For overviews and analyses of bilingual and multilingual dictionaries published in the Low Countries, see Claes, ‘Vocabulaires et livres de conversation’; Lindemann, Die französischen Wörterbücher; Pablo Núñez, El arte de las palabras; and Van der Helm, ‘Meertalige woordenboeken’.

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lexicography)42 the works of Glaude Luython, Mathias Sasbout and Elcie Mellema: 1552. Glaude Luython, Dictionaire en Franchois et Flameng ou bas allemant tresutile pour apprendre les deux langages (Antwerp: Gregoris de Bonte) (2nd edition: 1555). 1576. Mathias Sasbout, Dictionaire Flameng–Françoys tres-ample et copieux, auquel on trouvera un nombre presque infini de termes & dictions, plus qu’en ceux qui jusques à present sont sortiz en lumiere, avec plusieurs formes & manieres de parler tres elegantes (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe) (abridged re-edition: 1577). 1579. Mathias Sasbout, Dictionaire Françoys–Flameng tres ample et copieux [...] (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe) (re-edition: 1583). 43 1587. Elcie Édouard Léon Mellema, Dictionnaire ou Promptuaire Flameng– Françoys, tres-ample et tres-copieux (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe) (re-edited in 1589 by Waesberghe in a smaller format).

Whereas Luython’s dictionary44 is in small-format, multilingual lexicography developed towards large-format dictionaries with the works of Sasbout 45 and Mellema. 46 The primary orientation of multilingual lexicographical work was a practical one. This is evidenced by Berlaimont’s extremely successful lexicon. Noël de Berlaimont/Berlemont (c.1480–1531), a Picardian schoolmaster, had established himself in Antwerp at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In 1527 his bilingual Vocabulare van nieus geordineert ende wederom gecorrigeert/ Vocabulaire de nouveau ordonne et derechief recorrige was printed by Willem Vorsterman; its model may have been a trilingual French–Spanish–Flemish vocabulary, which the same printer had published in 1520 (Vocabulaire pour apprendre Franchoys Espagnol & Flaming). Berlaimont’s Vocabulare/Vocabulaire is basically a lexicon for daily conversation; it was soon expanded with a series of dialogues (e.g. a conversation at a dining table, a conversation on the 42 For a detailed inventory of this bilingual lexicography, see Swiggers & Zimont, ‘Dutch– French Bilingual Lexicography’. 43 A pirated edition of this dictionary was published in Ghent in 1582 by Jean de Taye (printed by Jean de Salenson); see Claes, ‘Vocabulaires et livres de conversation’, 231; and Swiggers & Zimont, ‘Dutch–French Bilingual Lexicography’, 138. 44 See Swiggers & Zimont, ‘Dutch–French Bilingual Lexicography’, 128. 45 See ibidem, 137–138. 46 On the numerous re-editions of Mellema’s bilingual dictionaries, see ibidem, 128–134. On Mellema’s lexicographical approach, see Swiggers, ‘Physionomie et articulation’.

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marketplace, a dialogue between a creditor and a debtor, etc.). The number of dialogues gradually increased, as did the number of languages. Between 1551 and 1600, seven bilingual editions were published, but in the same period, there were thirty-five editions with three or more languages. In most cases Berlaimont’s name was no longer mentioned, and the work circulated under different titles (Vocabulaire, Diction(n)aire, Colloques ou Dialogues, Propos communs, etc.), but the utilitarian purpose of this multilingual language manual, which had a widespread diffusion all over Europe in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, was preserved.47 The popularity of Berlaimont’s work owes part of its explanation to its concision, its handy format, and, of course, to the receptivity of a multilingual community of users interested in having basic and useful vocabulary lists in many languages, and models for conversation. 48 It would be hard to defend the view that the author strategically planned its success; in fact, the 1527 edition appeared at the end of Berlaimont’s career (the author died in 1531). The case is different with another Picardian language teacher, namely Gabriel Meurier (c.1513–1598),49 who, aided by two dynamic Antwerp printers and publishers, Christoph(e) Plantin (c.1520–1589) and Jan (I) van Waesberghe (1528–1590),50 was to dominate the multilingual 47 Berlaimont’s work was the most successful language manual; other important works within this genre were the Solenissimo Vochabuolista, a work which goes back to an Italian archetype, and which also had its proper tradition throughout Europe; on the successful history of this lexicographical work, see Rossebastiano Bart, Antichi vocabolari, and Pablo Núñez, El arte de las palabras, I, 199–255, and II, 313–372 (catalogue). The dictionary published in 1534 in Antwerp under the title Quinque linguarum, Latinae, Theutonicae, Gallicae, Hispanicae, Italicae, dilucidissimus dictionarius, mirum quam utilis, ne dicam necessarius, omnibus linguarum studiosis, belongs to this tradition. In the southern Low Countries another successful manual (partly based on the Berlaimont vocabulary and dialogues) was Jan Berthout’s Colloques en françoys et flamen, of which a first edition was printed around 1565 by Jan (I) van Waesberghe in Antwerp; this work was also reprinted in Louvain (in 1597 by Jan Maes). 48 For bibliographical information on the editions/adaptations of Berlaimont’s language manual, see Verdeyen, Colloquia et Dictionariolum Septem Linguarum; Lindemann, Die französischen Wörterbücher; Knops, Hochdeutsch und Niederländisch (editions of Berlaimont’s work including on German and/or Dutch); Pablo Núñez, El arte de las palabras, I, 91–197, and II, 202–310 (catalogue); Van der Helm, ‘Meertalige woordenboeken’. Between 1550 and 1600 Berlaimont’s work enjoyed some twenty editions in the southern Low Countries (in Antwerp, Ghent, Louvain and Ypres): 1551, 1552, 1556, 1558, 1565, 1568 (two editions), 1569, 1572, 1573, 1576 (two editions), 1579, 1583, 1584, 1586, 1596, 1599 and 1600. 49 On Meurier, see De Vreese, ‘Meurier (Gabriel)’; Van Selm, ‘Some Early Editions of Gabriel Meurier’s School Books’; and De Clercq, ‘Gabriel Meurier, een XVIe-eeuwse pedagoog’. 50 On the history of the printers’ family Van Waesberghe, see Ledeboer, Het geslacht van Waesberghe. Note that some of Meurier’s works were successively printed by Plantin and Van Waesberghe.

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teaching market in the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century. Meurier, who taught various modern languages (French, Spanish, Italian and English) in Antwerp, seems to have developed the concept of a global didactic package. In the preface to his Dictionaire Flamen–François (1563), he surveys his then extant production, and points to the complementarity of his works. Actually, Meurier’s didactic production strikes one as ‘allinclusive’ or ‘totalitarian’,51 by (a) the diversity of text types: Meurier produced vocabularies/dictionaries, conversation manuals, letter models, didactic and moral stories, grammars, conjugation tables,52 thematically organized word lists; (b) the audiences aimed at: among Meurier’s works some are conceived for merchants (Deviz Familiers, Propres à tous marchans, 1564; La Foire des Enfants d’Israel, en Françoys et Flamen, 1580), others for a general readership,53 and still others for very young children (Perroquet Mignon des Petits Enfants, 1st edition c.1569), or for young boys (Propos pueriles en François et Flamen, 1561) or girls (La Guirlande des Jeunes Filles, 1564; De l’office d’une bonne matrone, 1578; Fleur de lis, 1580); (c) the attention given to all the relevant aspects of language teaching/learning: typographical clarity, ease of consultation, didactic progression, attention given to pronunciation rules and to accurate morphological information;54 (d) the author’s constant effort to revise, update and correct his works: this is evidenced by the revisions, through their various editions, of 51 For detailed information on the titles and publication dates of Meurier’s works, see De Vreese, ‘Meurier (Gabriel)’; De Clercq, ‘Gabriel Meurier, een XVIe-eeuwse pedagoog’, 45–46; Claes, ‘Vocabulaires et livres de conversation’, 222–225; Swiggers, ‘Regards sur l’enseignement du français’, 56–57, 64–65; Swiggers & Zimont, ‘Dutch–French Bilingual Lexicography’, 134–137. 52 Meurier published several multilingual works containing conjugation tables: Conjugaisons, regles et instructions pour ceux qui desirent apprendre François, Italien, Espagnol & Flamen (1558); Dialogue Contenant les Conjugaisons Flamen–Françoises, par forme de demandes et réponses (1562); Conjugaisons Flamen–Françoises (1562); Conjugaisons François–Angloises (1563); Coniugaciones, arte, y reglas muy proprias, y necessarias para los que quisieren deprender Español y Frances (1568). 53 See e.g. the full title of his Magazin de Planté: Magazin de Planté, de Vocables bien propres et duisants à toute qualité de gens; En François et Flameng (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe, 1573). 54 With regard to Meurier’s awareness of the importance of teaching (and acquiring) the correct pronunciation of a foreign language, see his Breve instruction contenante la maniere de bien prononcer & lire le François, Italien, Espagnol, & Flamen (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe, 1558).

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his Vocabulaire François–Flameng (1557, re-editions in 1562, 1566, 1570 and from 1574 under the title Dictionaire François–Flameng) and of his Dictionaire Flamen–François (1563, with re-editions in 1567 and 1571).

It is important to realize the cultural function of these language manuals. Within the ‘moral education’ of the bourgeois class, the linguistic component had a well-defined purpose: it was intended to provide the users of the language manuals with direct access to daily communication, and strategies for negotiating and bargaining (!), in the multilingual environment of commercial centres. ‘Direct’ should be taken here in its most literal sense: language instruction was conceived as a means to engage personally, without the mediation of an interpreter, in conversation with speakers of other languages. The introduction of Berlaimont’s already mentioned Vocabulaire/Vocabulaire (1st edition, 1527) is extremely clear on this: Après avoir considéré cela, nous avons, à nos frais, mis les dites langues [= French and Dutch] ensemble et en ordre, ainsi que dorénavant vous n’avez plus besoin d’un interprète, mais pourriez vous-même parler et vous débrouiller en connaissant la manière de prononcer des différentes nations. Qui pourrait devenir riche sans connaissance de plusieurs langues? Qui pourrait gouverner des villes et des provinces ne connaissant que sa langue maternelle?55

Multilingual teaching and (self-) learning instruments thus answered a social expectation: that of having at one’s disposal a set of language forms (words, phrases, dialogues), and communicative techniques (for obtaining information, bargaining, etc.) for multilingual ‘exchange’ (Lat. commercium). This helps us to understand two characteristics of this type of production: its liability to selective use, and its thematic organization. In the preface to his (bilingual) Magazin de Planté (1573), Gabriel Meurier presents his work as a ‘store’ where the customer can do his shopping: ‘Notre Magazin, richement garni & gracieusement patent à tous ceux qui voudront faire emplette de tout ce qu’ils pourroyent souhaiter & avoir mestier, voir avec bon credit, & sans pleige ne caution.’56

55 Quoted after the edition in Verdeyen, Colloquia et Dictionariolum Septem Linguarum, I, 9b. 56 Gabriel Meurier, Magazin de Planté, de Vocables bien propres et duisants à toute qualité de gens. En francois et Flameng (Antwerp: Jan van Waesberghe, 1573) (the preface has no page

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Meurier’s Magazin de Planté is a thematic vocabulary (ultimately deriving from the medieval tradition of nominalia) in which the various pragma-semantic domains of daily life are covered: clothing, commerce, social life, health, etc. Interestingly, the book, which exploits semantic relationships such as synonymy and antonymy, instills a basic mechanism of social conduct: Meurier advises his students to ask each other questions (e.g. concerning the names of their parents, their profession, etc.).

Towards contextualizing: Language communities and technostructure The constellation of multilingual teaching and learning in the southern Low Countries which we have examined – albeit too briefly – calls for a contextualizing analysis. A preliminary observation, which hardly needs explanation, relates to the concentration of language teaching/learning products in urban centres,57 and more specifically in the major centres of commercial and intellectual ‘power’, such as Antwerp and Louvain.58 The university founded in Louvain, in 1425, soon attracted students from various parts of the Low Countries, including neighbouring regions in Germany and France. In the sixteenth century, the prestige of the university had grown, as can be gathered from Conrad Gesner’s Mithridates,59 and it was especially from the 1540s on, when Bible translations and new Bible editions were being prepared that scholars from various countries, and with different linguistic backgrounds, met in the two leading towns of Brabant, the university and international numbers). The Magazin de Planté is a revised edition of Meurier’s earlier work, Petite Fabrique (1563). 57 The analysis of multilingualism and multilingual teaching in European urban centres in the early modern period has been the object of an international (and interdisciplinary) EUROLAB-project (Villes à la croisée des langues, XVIe–XVIIe siècles); a collective volume resulting from this project will be published in 2016 (coordinated by Mercedes Blanco, Roland Béhar & Jochen Hafner). 58 For easily retrievable information, with further bibliographical references, on the history of Louvain, see Reekmans & Kenis, Tijdslijn van Leuven; for Antwerp’s history, see the monumental work by Prims, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen; for Antwerp’s history in the early modern period, see Van der Stock, Antwerpen, verhaal van een metropool. 59 See Gesner, Mithridates: ‘Brabantica lingua inter caeteras Belgicas sive inferioris Germaniae circa Rhenum & ad Oceani litora sitarum regionum, elegantior hodie habeturn propter Lovanium metropolim, in qua literarum studia florent, & Bruxellas primariam imperatoris aulam’ (39r).

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port town. As to Antwerp, it had grown, after the decline of Bruges, into a commercial metropolis,60 becoming the most important commercial centre of northern Europe from the mid-sixteenth century on. The commercial ties with England, Spain, France, the German states, Italy and Portugal explain the increasing presence, from the late fifteenth to the second half of the sixteenth century, of several merchant colonies in Antwerp.61 Around 1550 Antwerp could boast the prolonged residence of large colonies of Spanish and Portuguese merchants, and a large contingent of Italian, French and English merchants, as well as more than 300 merchants from German or Baltic territories. Reports by foreign visitors, such as Samuel Kiechel and Lodovico Guicciardini, inform us of the deeply rooted societal implementation of multilingualism: [Kiechel:] In Antwerp it is quite common to come across a young girl or young boy who speaks, two, three or four languages, such as French, Italian, Spanish, alongside their Dutch mother tongue.62 [Guicciardini:] D’avantage, ils ont outre ce la cognoissance des langues vulgaires, si familiere, que c’est un cas digne de merveille: comme ainsi soit que plusieurs d’entre eux, encor que iamais ne soyent sortis de leur pays, si sçavent ils parler, outre leur langue naturelle et maternelle, plusieurs autres langages estranges, et sur tout le François qui leurs est fort commun, et familier. Plusieurs y en a qui parlent Alemand, Anglois, Italien, et Espaignol, et autres d’autres langues plus esloignees. [...] Ce peuple est courtois, civil, ingenieux, soudain à sçavoir imiter l’estranger, avec lequel facilement il prend alliance: sont gentz propres pour hanter, et pratiquer par le monde: et la pluspart d’entre eux, et iusqu’aux femmes (quoy que n’ayent sorty du pays) sçavent parler de trois ou quatre langues; sans ceux qui en parlent et cinq et six et sept: qui outre que c’est une grande commodité, est aussi chose pleine de merveille.63 60 On the rise of Antwerp in the sixteenth century, see the contributions in Couvreur, Antwerpen in de XVIde eeuw, and in Van der Stock, Antwerpen, verhaal van een metropool; see also Voet, Antwerp, the Golden Age. 61 On the presence of foreign (colonies of) merchants in Antwerp, see Coornaert, Les Français et le commerce international à Anvers; De Smedt, De Engelse Natie te Antwerpen; Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales (Portugais, Espagnols, Italiens); Harreld, High Germans in the Low Countries; Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen. For a general overview of trade organization in the Low Countries, see Stabel, Blondé & Greve, International Trade in the Low Countries. 62 I give here an English translation of Kiechel’s passage, on which one can see Goris, Lof van Antwerpen, 45, and Van Passen, ‘Antwerpen goed bekeken’, 66. 63 I quote here the French translation printed in 1582: Louis Guicciardin, Description de touts les Pais-Bas, autrement appellés la Germanie inferieure, ou Basse Allemagne (pp. 50 and 176). The

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In the sixteenth century both Louvain and Antwerp were major centres of the then recently emerged technocultural revolution: printing.64 In Louvain, printers such as Dirk Martens (1446/1447–1534), who established his printing office there in 1512, Rutgerus Rescius/Rutger Ressen (c.1497–1545) and Bartholomaeus Gravius laid the foundations of a tradition of (scientific) book production. In the field of language study their editorial program first involved manuals (or other instruction tools) of the classical and ‘sacred’ languages, but it was expanded to include publications on the vernacular languages. A telling case is that of Bartholomaeus Gravius. On the one hand, he printed textbooks for use in the Collegium Trilingue and in the artes faculty, but he was also an extremely active player on the scene of ‘modern language’ manuals: as we have seen above, in the 1550s he published two Spanish (1555, 1559) and one Italian grammar (1555). His involvement (with other printers), from the mid-1540s onwards, in an ambitious project65 of Bible editing and translating explains his interest in issuing, in 1551, the above-mentioned quadrilingual edition of Berlaimont’s dictionary (which he printed four times in the 1550s), in which Latin figures next to three vernaculars. It may be worthwhile to add that in his preface to this edition Gravius recommends to his readership the multilingual edition of the book of Tobias that had been released from his printing press: another nice example of the conjunction of multilingualism and religious instruction. In the course of the sixteenth century, Antwerp developed, into the major printing centre of northern Europe. The town included several dozen smaller printing offices (and bookshops) of which many were associated, on a more or less temporary basis, with the Officina Plantiniana, the increasingly ramified printing business created by Christoph Plantin,66 whose successors would establish themselves in Leiden and Amsterdam, after Antwerp was seized by the Spanish troops.67 As we have seen in the case of Meurier, Dutch translation (by Cornelis Kiliaan) of Guicciardini’s Italian original (Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, Antwerp: Plantin, 1567) is even more explicit about the generalized multilingualism in sixteenth-century Antwerp. 64 On the radically new social and cultural order instilled by printing, see Chartier, Culture écrite et société. 65 See Van Buyten, ‘Het kontrakt’. 66 Christoph(e) Plantin (c.1520–1589), of French descent, established himself in Antwerp in 1549; in 1555 he started there his printing office, which grew into a publishing empire. For a detailed history of the Officina Plantiniana, an overview of its production and diffusion channels, and bibliographical information on works printed by Plantin, see Voet, Golden Compasses, and Voet & Voet-Grisolle, Plantin Press (1555–1589). 67 Already prior to the fall of Antwerp (1585), emigration (especially for religious and commercial reasons) from the southern Low Countries to the northern provinces had begun;

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Plantin was a major publisher of vernacular language manuals – grammars, dictionaries, conversation models, collections of sayings and proverbs, etc. Next to smaller-format language manuals, he also printed and diffused imposing dictionaries, such as Kiliaan’s dictionaries of Dutch (and Latin).68 All this is crucially important for understanding the context of multilingualism and multilingual interest in the southern Low Countries during the sixteenth century. It is especially relevant with respect to the technicalcommercial infrastructure and, of course, the personal achievements of printers and book traders in this cultural process. However, the contextualizing analysis has to delve further into the reasons for the rise and expansion of the observable multilingual interest, which, as Peter Burke has reminded us, should not be seen in antagonistic terms, as a victory over the monopoly of Latin in the Middle Ages.69 Burke, who also stresses the important role of the printed text in the rise of (horizontal) multilingualism, aptly remarks that the process of promoting the vernaculars (at that time the object of the incipient processes of standardization)70 did not ‘destroy’ Latin, nor the dialects;71 but it did assign to these another, new social status within society.72 The early modern attitude towards language, seen as a political instrument,73 and towards languages, valued as powerful sociocultural tools, was a strikingly novel one: whereas the Middle Ages cultivated a ‘receptive’ view of language, the early modern period instilled an ‘efficient’ the conquest of Antwerp by the Spanish troops caused a massive exodus. On the economic, demographic, religious and cultural consequences of this, see Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572–1630, and Asaert, 1585: De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders. 68 On Kiliaan’s lexicographical activity and its scientif ic, cultural and typographical embedding, see the contributions in Van Rossem, Portret van een woordenaar (with detailed bibliography of Kiliaan’s output). 69 Burke, Languages and Communities, 61: ‘The story of the rise of the vernaculars is one that has often been told in a triumphalist manner, notably in the cases of French and English, with a stress on their victory over Latin or their “emancipation” in the course of the Renaissance and Reformation. We may call this version a “Whig” history of language.’ 70 In fact, the notion of ‘standardization’ is somewhat inadequate to capture the complex process of language ‘elaboration’; see Swiggers, ‘Le français de référence’. This complex sociolinguistic, glottopolitical and ecolinguistic problem should be approached from the point of view of the theory of ‘language architecture’ (as outlined by Eduardo Benot and developed by Eugenio Coseriu and some his students, such as the recently deceased Peter Koch and Wulf Oesterreicher); for a synthetic presentation, with application to the Romance languages, see Oesterreicher, ‘Die Architektur romanischer Sprachen’. 71 Burke especially criticizes interpretations that invoke a policy of linguistic centralization. 72 See also the interesting remarks of Matoré, Le vocabulaire et la société, 324–327. 73 Antonio de Nebrija stresses this point in the introduction (addressed to Queen Isabel of Castille) of his Gramatica de la lengua castellana (Salamanca, 1492).

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view of language and of linguistic competence. This is clear, not only from the work performed on the (so-called national) vernaculars, but also from the active, and massive, interest taken in the teaching and learning of modern languages. With the breakdown of the feudal system, the rise in power of the middle class (especially the merchants),74 the expectations shaped by the exploration and colonization of overseas territories and the devaluation of land property, societies and economies entered a new stage, in which (individual and group) mobility, long-distance trade (continental and intercontinental), corporative organization, and multilingualism became essential. The early modern period witnessed what I would call a process of ‘capitalizing’ linguistic, and specifically multilingual, competence: the early modern world is characterized, not by authoritarian control (as in the Middle Ages), but by bottom–up search for innovation, widening of the cognitive and cultural horizon, collective engagement in utility-driven projects. The historian of language teaching and learning cannot but be struck by the pervasive process of ‘linguistic capitalizing’ which takes place from the sixteenth century on, a process which had deep-seated socio-economic (and demographic) roots and which was catalyzed by the invention of printing.75 Combining Burke’s insights on socio-economic drifts creating new language communities with de Certeau’s concepts of technostructure and écriture bourgeoise,76 we can describe and understand early modern multilingualism as a process of displacement of a Latin technostructure (intimately tied up with authoritative education and top–down government and administration) towards a vernacular, market-guided technostructure, instilling a division of linguistic labour, in conjunction with distinct socio-economic, societal and intellectual tasks. This division of linguistic labour left sufficient room – albeit confined to well-determined circuits and contexts of use – for Latin (and the other ‘classical’ languages), and for the local dialects.77 74 Next to merchants (and financiers), the emerging type of lay administrators also played an important role in the rise of the middle class. 75 In this connection, one has to mention the large number of books printed for the use of merchants in the early modern period; see the impressive documentation (covering the period from the late fifteenth to the early nineteenth century) in Hoock, Jeannin & Kaiser, Ars mercatoria. 76 See de Certeau, La possession de Loudun, and L’Invention du quotidien. 77 See Burke, Languages and Communities, 91: ‘The trend to “grammatization” as it is sometimes called, looks – at least at first sight – like a remarkable example of the power of scholars and intellectuals, but it might be more realistic to offer a social explanation for their success. Standard forms of vernacular were expressions of the values of new communities – or communities of

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Concluding remarks In this contribution, I have attempted to illustrate the complexity, and also the rich potential of historical didaxology.78 Its domain covers a variety of topics and requires interdisciplinary research, in the true sense of the term: fruitful interaction between practitioners of different disciplines, combining their methodologies and respective expertise. The ultimate purpose is to understand the cultural mechanisms that underlie the practice of, and reflection on, multilingualism, a crucial component of the episteme (in Foucault’s sense)79 of a civilization. The research agenda of historical didaxology is a very encompassing one, stretching from linguistic study to the ecology of cultures (not to mention the impalpable realm of ideology), approached from a well-documented historical perspective. This field of study is a challenging one, not only because of its importance for understanding the essential role of language(s) and linguistic identities in the past, but also because of the urgent need to develop a historically informed project for the linguistic future – in Europe, and beyond.

Bibliography Asaert, Gustaaf, 1585: De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004). Béacco, Jean-Claude, & Michael Byram, Guide pour l’élaboration des politiques linguistiques éducatives en Europe: De la diversité linguistique à l’éducation plurilingue (Strasbourg: Conseil de l’Europe, 2003). Bingen, Nicole, ‘L’Insegnamento dell’italiano nel Belgio cinquecentesco’, Idioma, 4 (1992), 73–89. Briels, Jan, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572–1630: Een demografische en cultuurhistorische studie (Sint-Niklaas: Danthe, 1985). Burke, Peter, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Certeau, Michel de, La possession de Loudun (Paris: Gallimard, 1980). increasing importance – the national communities of lay elites who were distancing themselves not only from learned or Latin culture but from popular, regional or dialect culture as well.’ 78 For reflections on field, scope, methods, tools, tasks and challenges of historical didaxology, see Frijhoff, Suso López & Swiggers, ‘Contextes et disciplines de référence’; Kok Escalle, ‘L’Historien du français langue étrangère’; Minerva & Reinfried, ‘Les domaines à explorer’; Swiggers, ‘Aspects méthodologiques’. 79 See Foucault, Les mots et les choses.

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Certeau, Michel de, L’Invention du quotidien, I: Arts de faire (Paris: Gallimard, 1990). Chartier, Roger, Culture écrite et société: L’Ordre des livres (XIVe – XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: Albin Michel, 1999). Claes, Frans M.W., ‘Vocabulaires et livres de conversation pour apprendre le français aux Pays-Bas espagnols entre 1550 et 1700’, in De Clercq, Lioce & Swiggers, Grammaire et enseignement du français 1500–1700, 217–235. Coornaert, Émile, Les Français et le commerce international à Anvers: Fin du XVe–XVIe siècle (Paris: Rivière, 1961). Couvreur, Walter, Antwerpen in de XVIde eeuw (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1975). De Clercq, Jan, ‘Gabriel Meurier, een XVIe-eeuwse pedagoog en grammaticus in Antwerpen’, Meesterwerk: Bijdragen van het Peeters Heynsgenootschap, 10 (1997), 29–46. De Clercq, Jan, ‘La Grammaire françoise (1557) de Gabriel Meurier’, in De Clercq, Lioce & Swiggers, Grammaire et enseignement du français 1500–1700, 237–276. De Clercq, Jan, Nico Lioce & Pierre Swiggers (eds.), Grammaire et enseignement du français 1500–1700 (Louvain/Paris: Peeters, 2000). De Clercq, Jan, & Pierre Swiggers, ‘Franse grammatica en taalonderwijs in de “Lage Landen” tijdens de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw: Bronnen, achtergronden, produktie, analytische typologie’, Meesterwerk: Bijdragen van het Peeters Heynsgenootschap, 4 (1995), 25–35. De Groote, Henry, ‘De zestiende-eeuwse Antwerpse schoolmeesters’, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het oud Hertogdom Brabant, 50 (1967), 179–318; 51 (1968), 5–52. De Smedt, Oskar, De Engelse Natie te Antwerpen in de 16e eeuw, 1496–1582 (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1954). De Vocht, Henry, History of the Foundation and the Rise of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense 1517–1550, 4 vols. (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1951–1955). De Vreese, Willem, ‘Meurier (Gabriel)’, in Biographie nationale de Belgique, XIV (Brussels: Bruylant, 1897), cols. 700–763. Dibbets, Geert R.W., ‘Peeter Heyns: “Een ghespraecksaem man, van goede gheleertheydt”’, Meesterwerk: Berichten van het Peeter Heynsgenootschap, 1 (1994), 3–15. Dodde, N.L., & C. Esseboom, ‘Instruction and Education in French Schools. A Reconnaissance in the Northern Netherlands’, in De Clercq, Lioce & Swiggers, Grammaire et enseignement du français 1500–1700, 289–300. Foucault, Michel, L’Archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969). Foucault, Michel, Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966). Frijhoff, Willem, ‘Codes, routines et communication: Formes et sens de la pluralité linguistique dans les sociétés occidentales d’autrefois’, in Javier Suso López (ed.), Plurilinguisme et enseignement des langues en Europe: Aspects historiques,

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didactiques et sociolinguistiques (Granada: Ediciones Universidad de Granada, 2010), 15–48. Frijhoff, Willem, Meertaligheid in de Gouden Eeuw: Een verkenning (Amsterdam: KNAW Press, 2010). Frijhoff, Willem, Javier Suso López & Pierre Swiggers, ‘Contextes et disciplines de référence dans l’enseignement du français (langue étrangère/seconde)’, in Kok Escalle, Minerva & Reinfried, Histoire internationale de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère ou seconde, 29–48. Galisson, Robert, ‘Éloge de la didactologie/didactique des langues et des cultures (maternelles et étrangères)’, Études de Linguistique Appliquée, 64 (1986), 39–54. Gesner, Conrad, Mithridates: De differentiis linguarum tum veterum tum quae hodie apud diversas nations in toto orbe terrarium in usu sint (Zürich: Froschauer, 1555). Goris, Jan-Albert, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales (Portugais, Espagnols, Italiens) à Anvers de 1488 à 1567 (Louvain: Librairie universitaire Uytspruyst, 1925). Goris, Jan-Albert, Lof van Antwerpen: Hoe reizigers Antwerpen zagen, van de XVe tot de XXe eeuw (Antwerp/Brussels: Standaard, 1940). Grafe, Regina, & Oscar Gelderblom, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Merchant Guilds: Re-thinking the Comparative Study of Commercial Institutions in Premodern Europe’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 40 (2010), 477–511. Greule, Albert, & Franz Lebsanft (eds.), Europäische Sprachkultur und Sprachpflege (Tübingen: Narr, 1998). Harreld, Donald J., High Germans in the Low Countries: German Merchants and Commerce in Golden Age Antwerp (Leiden: Brill, 2004). Hassler, Gerda, ‘Les Idéologues et leurs sources: Textes de référence et séries de textes dans la constitution d’un paradigme notionnel’, in Pabst & Trabant, Actes du Colloque international ‘Idéologie – Grammaire générale – Écoles centrales’, 60–87. Haugen, Einar, The Ecology of Language: Selected Essays (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972). Hoock, Jochen, Pierre Jeannin & Wolfgang Kaiser, Ars mercatoria: Handbücher und Traktate für den Gebrauch des Kaufmanns/Manuels et traités à l’usage des marchands, 3 vols. (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1991–2001). Knops, Mathieu, ‘Hochdeutsch und Niederländisch in polyglotten Werken des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts: Beiträge des Fremdsprachenstudium, Bibliographische Beschreibungen’, PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 1985. Kok Escalle, Marie-Christine, ‘L’Historien du français langue étrangère dans la situation des Pays-Bas: Quelques réflexions sur méthodes et pratiques’, Documents pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde [SIHFLES, 1989] 21, 62–77.

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Kok Escalle, Marie-Christine, ‘Une entreprise sur le long terme: Les répertoires de manuels utilisés pour l’enseignement du français aux Pays-Bas’, Documents pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde [SIHFLES, 2013] 50, 223–230. Kok Escalle, Marie-Christine, Nadia Minerva & Marcus Reinfried (eds.), Histoire internationale de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère ou seconde: Problèmes, bilans et perspectives, special issue of Le Français dans le Monde: Recherches et Applications, 52 (Paris: CLE International, 2012). Kok Escalle, Marie-Christine, & Karène Summerer-Sanchez, ‘Le facteur religieux dans la diffusion du français hors de France’, in Kok Escalle, Minerva & Reinfried, Histoire internationale de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère ou seconde, 49–61. Ledeboer, Adrianus M., Het geslacht van Waesberghe: Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der boekdrukkunst en van den boekhandel in Nederland (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1859). Lindemann, Margarete, Die französischen Wörterbücher von den Anfängen bis 1600: Entstehung und typologische Beschreibung (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994). Lliteras, Margarita, & Santiago García-Jalón de la Lama, ‘El foco vallisoletano: El caso Villalón y la recepción de las artes hebreas’, in José Jesús Gómez Asencio (ed.), El castellano y su codificación gramatical, I: De 1492 (A. de Nebrija) a 1611 (John Sanford) (Burgos: Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2006), 215–238. Matoré, Georges, Le vocabulaire et la société du XVIe siècle (Paris: PUF, 1988). Meeus, Hubert, ‘Peeter Heyns, “a French schoolmaster”’, in De Clercq, Lioce & Swiggers, Grammaire et enseignement du français 1500–1700, 301–316. Meeus, Hubert, ‘“Wat een spraak!” Vreemde talen in het Antwerpen van Cornelis Kiliaan’, in Van Rossem, Portret van een woordenaar, 101–113. Minerva, Nadia, & Marcus Reinfried, ‘Les domaines à explorer et l’évolution historique’, in Kok Escalle, Minerva & Reinfried, Histoire internationale de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère ou seconde, 14–28. Nève, Félix, Mémoire historique et littéraire sur le collège des Trois-Langues à l’Université de Louvain (Brussels: Hayez, 1856). Oesterreicher, Wulf, ‘Die Architektur romanischer Sprachen im Vergleich: Eine Programm-Skizze’, in Günter Holtus et al. (eds.), Konvergenz und Divergenz in den romanischen Sprachen (Tübingen: Narr, 1995), 3–21. Pablo Núñez, Luis, El arte de las palabras: Diccionarios e imprenta en el Siglo de Oro, 2 vols. (Mérida: Editora Regional de Extremadura, 2010). Pabst, Ilona, & Jürgen Trabant (eds.), Actes du Colloque international Idéologie – Grammaire générale – Écoles centrales (Berlin: Freie Universität, 2008), . Pohl, Hans, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen (1567–1648): zur Geschichte einer Minderheit (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1977).

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Prims, Floris, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen,28 vols. (Brussels/Antwerp: Standaard, 1927–1949). Reekmans, Paul, & Ramon Kenis (eds.), Tijdslijn van Leuven (Louvain: Leuvens Historisch Genootschap, 2012). Riemens, Kornelis J., Esquisse historique de l’enseignement du français en Hollande du XVIe au XIXe siècle (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1919). Rossebastiano Bart, Alda, Antichi vocabolari plurilingui d’uso popolare: La tradizione del ‘Solenissimo Vochabuolista’ (Alessandria/Torino: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1984). Sabbe, Maurits, Peeter Heyns en de nimfen uit de Lauwerboom: Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het schoolwezen in de 16de eeuw (Antwerp: Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliophielen, 1929). Serrure, Constant P., ‘Peeter Heyns: Het schoolwezen in Antwerpen in 1579 en 1580’, Vaderlandsch Museum, 3 (1859), 293–404. Stabel, Peter, Bruno Blondé & Anke Greve (eds.), International Trade in the Low Countries (14th–16th centuries): Merchants, Organization, Infrastructure (Louvain: Garant, 2000). Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Adrianus Amerotius: Compendium Graecae Grammatices’, in Tine Padmos & Geert Vanpaemel (eds.), De geleerde wereld van Keizer Karel (Louvain: Universitaire Pers, 2001), 98–99. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Aspects méthodologiques du travail de l’historien de l’enseignement du français langue étrangère ou seconde’, Documents pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde [SIHFLES, 1998] 21, 34–52. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘El foco “belga”: Las gramáticas españolas de Lovaina (1555, 1559)’, in José Jesús Gómez Asencio (ed.), El castellano y su codificación gramatical, I: De 1492 (A. de Nebrija) a 1611 (John Sanford) (Burgos: Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2006), 161–213. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Franse grammatica’s uit Straatsburg, eind zestiende – Begin zeventiende eeuw’, Meesterwerk: Bijdragen van het Peeters Heynsgenootschap, 11 (1998), 11–22. Swiggers, Pierre (ed.), Grammaire et méthode au XVIIe siècle (Louvain: Peeters, 1984). Swiggers, Pierre, ‘L’Analyse grammaticale et didactico-linguistique du français, du Moyen Âge au 19e siècle: Jalons de l’histoire du français comme objet de description et d’enseignement’, in Peter Schmitter (ed.), Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit, III/2: Sprachbeschreibung und Unterricht (Tübingen: Narr, 2007), 559–645. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Le français de référence: Contours méthodologiques et historiques d’un concept’, in Michel Francard (ed.), Le français de référence: Constructions et appropriations d’un concept, 2 vols. (Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2000–2001), I, 13–42. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Les enjeux de l’enseignement des langues aux Temps Modernes: Dimensions ludique, politique et idéologique de la didactique et de la didaxologie’, in Javier Suso López (ed.), Plurilinguisme et enseignement des langues en

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Europe: Aspects historiques, didactiques et sociolinguistiques (Granada: Ediciones Universidad de Granada, 2010), 79–123. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Les grammaires françaises “pédagogiques” du XVIe siècle: Problèmes de définition et de typologie; analyse microscopique’, in Konrad Schröder (ed.), Fremdsprachenunterricht 1500–1800 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 217–235. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘L’Histoire des grammaires et des manuels de langues romanes dans la Romania (et dans les pays en partie romanophones)’, in Günter Holtus, Michael Metzeltin & Christian Schmitt (eds.), Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik, I/1: Geschichte des Faches Romanistik: Methodologie (Das Sprachsystem)/ Histoire de la philologie romane: Méthodologie (Langue et système) (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2001), 476–505, 506–517, 526–532. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘L’Institution du français: Jalons de l’histoire de son enseignement’, in Peter Schmitter (ed.), Sprachtheorien der Neuzeit, III/2: Sprachbeschreibung und Unterricht (Tübingen: Narr, 2007), 646–721. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Physionomie et articulation d’un dictionnaire contrastif: Le grand dictionaire françois-flamen de Mellema’, L’Information grammaticale, 114 (2007), 39–45. Swiggers, Pierre, ‘Regards sur l’enseignement du français aux Pays-Bas (XVIe–XVIIe siècles)’, in Marie-Christine Kok Escalle & Karène Sanchez-Summerer (eds.), Usages et représentations du français hors de France, themed issue of Documents pour l’Histoire du Français Langue Étrangère ou Seconde [SIHFLES, 2013] 50, 49–79. Swiggers, Pierre, & Willy Van Hoecke (eds.), La langue française au XVIe siècle: Usage, enseignement et approches descriptives (Louvain/Paris: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1989). Swiggers, Pierre, & Raf Van Rooy, ‘Hadrianus Amerotius (ca.1495–1560), grondlegger van de wetenschappelijke studie van het Grieks in Leuven’, Nieuwsbrief Leuvens Historisch Genootschap, 45 (2015), 10–15. Swiggers, Pierre, & Elizaveta Zimont, ‘Dutch–French Bilingual Lexicography in the Early Modern Period’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 25 (2015), 110–148. Szoc, Sara, ‘Le prime grammatiche d’italiano nei Paesi Bassi (1555–1710): Struttura, argomentazione e terminologia della descrizione grammaticale’, PhD diss., University of Leuven. Van Buyten, Leon, ‘Het kontrakt van Bartholomeus Gravius, Anthonis-Maria Bergaigne en Jan Wan voor het drukken van de “Leuvense Bijbels” (1547)’, Mededelingen van de Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Kring voor Leuven en Omgeving, 5/2 (1965), 83–95. Van der Helm, José, ‘Meertalige woordenboeken in het 16de-eeuwse Antwerpen: Italiaans naast Nederlands’, in Van Hal, Isebaert & Swiggers, De tuin der talen, 49–69.

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Van der Stock, Jan (ed.), Antwerpen, verhaal van een metropool: 16de–17de eeuw (Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju, 1993). Van Hal, Toon, Lambert Isebaert & Pierre Swiggers (eds.), De tuin der talen: Taalstudie en taalcultuur in de Lage Landen, 1450–1750 (Louvain/Paris/Walpole: Peeters, 2013). Van Hal, Toon, Lambert Isebaert & Pierre Swiggers, ‘Het “vernieuwde” taal- en wereldbeeld van de vroegmoderne tijd’, in Van Hal, Isebaert & Swiggers, De tuin der talen, 3–46. Van Passen, Anne-Marie, ‘Antwerpen goed bekeken: Een bloemlezing’, in Van der Stock (ed.), Antwerpen, verhaal van een metropool: 16de–17de eeuw, 59–67. Van Rossem, Stijn (ed.), Portret van een woordenaar: Cornelis Kiliaan en het woordenboek in de Nederlanden (Antwerp: Departement Cultuur Provincie Antwerpen, 2007). Van Selm, Bert, ‘Some Early Editions of Gabriel Meurier’s School-Books’, Quaerendo, 3/3 (1973), 217–226. Verdeyen, René, Colloquia et Dictionariolum Septem Linguarum, gedrukt door Fickaert te Antwerpen in 1616, 3 vols. (Antwerp/The Hague: Nederlandsche Boekhandel/Nijhoff, 1925–1936). Voet, Leon, Antwerp, the Golden Age: The Rise and Glory of the Metropolis in the Sixteenth Century (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1973). Voet, Leon, The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Vangendt, 1969–1972). Voet, Leon, & Jenny Voet-Grisolle, The Plantin Press (1555–1589): A Bibliography of the Works Printed and Published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden, 6 vols. (Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1981–1983). Weinrich, Harald, Wege der Sprachkultur (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1985).

About the author Pierre Swiggers studied romance philology, linguistics, Oriental languages, philosophy and medieval history in Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, Paris and subsequently in the US (Bloomington, Philadelphia, Albuquerque). He teaches general linguistics, romance linguistics and history of linguistics at the universities of Leuven (KU Leuven) and Liège (Université de Liège). He is Research Director of the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research. At KU Leuven he is director of the Center for the Historiography of Linguistics. His research covers various fields: the history of linguistics, particularly the evolution of grammatical description and the teaching of grammar; descriptive and comparative linguistics; the philosophy of language (meaning and reference, sign theory); and the methodology and epistemology of linguistics.

Part II Multilingualism in Early Modern Times: Three Examples

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Plurilingualism in Augsburg and Nuremberg in Early Modern Times Konrad Schröder*

Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/ch03 Abstract This chapter gives a comparative account of the development and gestalt of plurilingualism in two German imperial cities from late medieval times to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It includes a brief overview of their more general religious, political and cultural backgrounds, discusses early forms of vocational language training, focuses on the precarious existence of the 183 Augsburg and Nuremberg masters of languages found in the archives and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century printed sources, includes a section on the teaching of modern languages to the female gender in early modern times, gives a brief analysis of the surprisingly large corpus of teaching and learning materials available to contemporary foreign language students, and concludes with a short summary of project results. Keywords: Foreign language education and gender, Grand Tour, internships, learning and teaching materials, masters of languages, mercantile elites, methods of teaching, vocational training

*

University of Augsburg

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The general background of the study 1 Five fundamental developments shaped the history of Europe on the verge of the early modern period: the advent of nation states, the inclusion of overseas territories, the formation of competing religious creeds, the further advance and specialization of scientific disciplines and the development of plurilingual elites within a new, multilingual Europe. The processes were inextricably interwoven. Though Latin continued until the eighteenth century and beyond as the idiom of the scientific and educated world, and, of course, as the idiom of the Catholic part of Christianity, its status as an international language gradually dwindled. It was questioned by politicians, philosophers, but also by the newly established Protestant churches, as it had been questioned before, along the eastern European and Byzantine fringe, and along the western borders of the Ottoman Empire, giving rise, ever since the thirteenth century, to linguistic alternatives and to a new profession in the context of trade and missionary work: the profession of cultural mediator. The central European terms for these interpreters and translators, Tolk, Tulmatsch (Dolmetscher in modern German) or Dragoman are not of Latin origin, as they are in the western European languages, but of Slavonic, Hungarian and Turkish descent: The middle High German tolmetsche or tulmetsche is a loanword from the Ottoman Turkish tolmaç. It came into German via a Hungarian tolmács and/or a similar Slavonic word (e.g. Russian tolmač), and Tolk is a Hanseatic loan from Russian (cf. modern Russian: tolkovatel – somebody who explains). The Reformation and the Protestant churches enhanced the status of the vernaculars, turning them into media of divine communication. Since the Christian believer was meant to enter into a direct dialogue with their Creator through reading the Bible as God’s own word, two requirements had to be fulfilled: the Bible had to be translated into the believers’ languages, and the believers of both genders had to be trained in the art of reading. The early nation states used their idioms as signs of sovereignty. They polished and further developed them with the aid of poets and poetical 1 This chapter summarizes research reported in Helmut Glück, Mark Häberlein & Konrad Schröder, Mehrsprachigkeit in der Frühen Neuzeit: Die Reichsstädte Augsburg und Nürnberg vom 15. bis ins frühe 19. Jahrhundert [Plurilingualism in the early modern period: The imperial cities of Augsburg and Nuremberg from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries], vol. 10 of Fremdsprachen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Helmut Glück & Konrad Schröder (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2013), with an appendix (457–560) containing thirty-seven selected sources specific to either Augsburg or Nuremberg, including facsimiles. It is the result of a research project subsidized by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

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schools (e.g. Du Bellay and the Pléiade in France), educators (e.g. in English noble families) and through the work of academies (Italy, France, Spain) and societies (the Royal Society in England). The competition among emerging nations was not only carried out on the battlefield or by ways of diplomacy and trade; language politics and policies and ensuing (mostly implicit) legislation of language use were an important part of it. The growth and refinement of national languages in Europe between 1500 and 1800 can be classified as an integral part of the search for identity of the leading social strata and national communities. At the same time, the multilingual experiences of Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe helped, to a certain extent, to pave the way for the colonial expansion of early modern times. Philology, including forms of modern philology, had become a widespread discipline; and by way of comparing and translating languages, European academics had acquired a number of competences which would be useful when confronted with hitherto unknown cultures overseas. Christian missionaries, apart from being religious teachers, tended to be educated philologists who tried for a pragmatic bilingualism aimed at including, and making use of, target cultures as much as possible. They drew up lists of vocabulary and wrote grammars of the idioms they had to work with, and when they finally got home again to spend their last years in Jesuit or other religious colleges, they would teach their European students some of what they had experienced of languages abroad in order to arouse their linguistic and cultural curiosity. There are instances of Jesuit colleges in Germany producing plays for school festivals, written by former missionaries and including Amerindian and other truly ‘exotic’ languages. Again, the philological talents of missionaries, administrators and even merchants and settlers helped to establish European languages in the newly dominated territories. Whereas a number of significant publications document the rise and further consolidation of individual European languages, there is rather little when it comes to the historical development of multi- and plurilingualism. This is despite the fact that the intricate question of who taught which language when, why, how, to whom and to what effect is, as it were, part of the interface between social, cultural, educational, regional and linguistic history. An analysis of the motivations, strategies, methods and consequences of foreign language acquisition and use in different social strata and regional surroundings can help to clarify phenomena of cultural transfer, of communication processes and problems, of educational aspirations and social distinction, as well as the historical change in didactic concepts, educational ideologies and methods of learning.

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A reconstruction and comparative analysis of plurilingualism in two southern German imperial cities The aim of the research was the reconstruction and comparative analysis of foreign language acquisition and use in two important southern German imperial cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg, between the late fourteenth and the early nineteenth century – basically as a contribution to research into premodern plurilingualism in Europe. The two cities were selected because of their political, economic and cultural topicality with regard to the project, and also because of the availability of appropriate source materials. Since the fourteenth century, Nuremberg had left other southern German imperial cities behind economically. Augsburg followed in the late fifteenth century. The significance of both cities was based on a powerful and well-differentiated production of crafted goods for export, with a focus on the metal trade in Nuremberg, and textiles in Augsburg. Both cities were the home of artists, artisans, printers and publishers well known beyond the confines of their respective regions, both were the focus of commercial networks that comprised the whole of Europe, and both were also financial and banking centres. Politically both cities were of primary importance, as can be concluded from the number of imperial diets (Reichstagen) and political conventions held within their walls in the course of the sixteenth century. Since the Reformation, Nuremberg was almost all Lutheran, whereas Augsburg had a Catholic minority, which steadily grew after the Thirty Years War to become a majority in the eighteenth century. Since the commercial, cultural and diplomatic links of both cities went far beyond the Holy Roman Empire and in fact the German-speaking regions, problems of transnational and transcultural communication were commonplace. Whereas counting houses and chancelleries in east-central Europe, in Scandinavia and in the Netherlands would in many cases provide (High) German-speaking clerks to deal with the correspondence, this would almost certainly not be the case in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Moreover, since there was as yet no standardized High German language, regional forms of German had to be used by the German side, Bavarian East Franconian in Nuremberg and Bavarian Swabian in Augsburg, dialects that were difficult to understand outside southern and south-central Germany. How were the communicative problems of trade and long-distance travel solved? How were the appropriate linguistic and cultural competences for economic and political partnership acquired? How plurilingual were the Nuremberg and the Augsburg councillors, merchants, company secretaries, artists and artisans? The sources available in the Augsburg and Nuremberg

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archives plus the printed biographical testimonies showed that four fields of research would be of particular interest in answering most of these questions: – Internships and vocational training in aff iliated foreign counting houses (e.g. at Lyons or in Spanish, Portuguese or Flemish cities); – Educational trips by patrician mercantile elites (along the lines of the iter litterarius or Grand Tour, but focused rather on vocational exchange and language training); – Masters of languages and preceptors as cultural and linguistic mediators; and – Teaching and learning materials of Augsburg and Nuremberg origin or at least printed in the two cities by local publishers. Unfortunately, the problem of whether forms of plurilingualism were also common among members of the lower social strata could not be sufficiently resolved, due to the fact that the migrations of social fringe groups are practically nowhere documented through letters or other personal evidence, even if there is the odd court record that mentions the delinquent’s linguistic proficiency. The same is unfortunately true for migrating craftsmen (the Walz as the apprentice’s tour round neighbouring regions). On the other hand, the Augsburg sources yielded some interesting material concerning the spread of plurilingualism among women.

Internships and the Grand Tour In late medieval and early modern times, Nuremberg and Augsburg merchants and members of some other guilds were in written or direct contact with almost all parts of Europe. The density of these contacts, however, differed by region, and their intensity was subject to change. Whereas the links with France, the Netherlands, east-central Europe and, first and foremost, Italy were permanent and very close, direct contacts with Spain are almost entirely restricted to the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and the ones with England and Scandinavia concern but a smallish group of ‘specialists’. In general, commercial interests determined the contacts of the citizens of Augsburg and Nuremberg with speakers of other languages. Besides commercial mobility, however, there were several other modes of migration, such as pilgrimages, the apprentice’s Walz or the migrations of artists and students, activities that helped to intensify the relations between the

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imperial cities and foreign regions, and that very often caused cultural transfer. From the fifteenth century onward, the leading Augsburg and Nuremberg companies had business affiliates and associations in many European cities. Due to this constellation, the internship abroad became a standard part of the young patrician’s business education. In counting houses in cities like Antwerp, Venice, Lyons, Cracow, Lisbon or Cadiz, the merchant trainees were able to learn the foreign languages on the job, with a focus on both the specialized vocabulary and the more general communicative needs and formats of client-oriented interaction. At the same time, they were introduced to the local philosophy of trade, as well as the various facets of the target culture – at different social levels even. Between 1500 and 1800, hundreds of young entrepreneurs from Augsburg and Nuremberg learned their languages by way of foreign internships in the contemporary business capitals of Europe. This particular way of studying abroad was even highly formalized, as the source materials reveal (letters, autobiographic documents, family records). Early modern long-distance merchants knew about the fallacies of communication, they were able to adjust to linguistic variants and registers, and they very often acquired what has recently been called a language learning competence, based on a practical awareness of linguistic form and function. As existing correspondence proves, some of the patrician merchants would, later in their lives, further extend their foreign language competences in order to use them inside and outside their professional domains, e.g. in correspondence with their sons abroad. Collecting foreign languages and being able to make oneself understood in them, was a pastime of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance era, and the stratum of successful merchants were definitely among the addicts of the new sport. Apart from foreign internships – which are presently experiencing a worldwide renaissance as part of international language travel – there was the Grand Tour, called Kavalierstour in the German-speaking regions, originally a format for the education of princes, which was copied in the sixteenth century by affluent patrician families all over Europe, including the elites of the imperial cities. The patrician version of the Grand Tour, however, followed different aims. Whereas the original foreign internship focused on the development of vocational proficiency plus the vocational use of language, the patrician version of the Grand Tour, like its privileged original, was more of a rite of initiation, marking the fact that the young patrician had successfully finished his education. What may have caused some difference, though, between the original and the patrician version,

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is the fact that the nobility and the merchant class did not follow the same ideology, and destinations were sometimes different, too. The advent of the Grand Tour in the patrician families of Augsburg and Nuremberg is a result of the fact that, in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these families had largely withdrawn from actively doing business, and were embarking on new careers, e.g. in the fields of imperial and territorial administration. In the meantime, the acquisition of foreign languages had evolved from a commercial necessity to a symbol of social and cultural status, marking sophistication, a cultivated disposition based on the lifestyle models of the nobility, and suggesting the leadership qualities needed for all kinds of high-profile executive duties. The Grand Tour of Nuremberg and Augsburg patricians is again well documented through different kinds of sources: university matriculation registers, family records, letters and autobiographical texts. The Grand Tour remained in fashion in the two imperial cities until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a growing number of equestrian academies (Ritterakademien) in Germany tried to attract affluent students to a somewhat cheaper and less dangerous course of studies. At that time, money in Augsburg and Nuremberg was gradually running out. Like their princely models, young patricians would sometimes be travelling and studying in small groups, under the supervision of a private tutor (Hofmeister), and they would be hiring masters of languages for a given time at their various destinations. They would be in prearranged contact with socially acceptable local people for conversation and networking, and they would also be using grammars, conversation books and dictionaries to further develop their proficiency. Their reading would basically consist of historical, political and preselected literary works, aimed at the acquisition of knowledge and education (Bildung), and their correspondence home would in many cases be in the target languages. Several accounts of such tours as well as the catalogues of Augsburg and Nuremberg patrician libraries and, no less important, works written by authors from the two imperial cities and referring to this type of foreign travel prove that in many cases the patrician Grand Tour led to an intensive cultural exchange.

Masters of languages Internships abroad and the Grand Tour were not the only ways of acquiring languages and cultures. Those who were too young to travel, and those who were not supposed to do so, as, for example, the female gender, relied on

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masters of languages in their own city. Before the last quarter of the eighteenth century, they were the most important agents in the fields of linguistic and cultural transfer. Between 1559 and 1809, the Augsburg sources record ninety-eight freelance teachers of modern languages, and the Nuremberg sources name another eighty-five between the end of the sixteenth and the end of the eighteenth century. At Altdorf, a small town belonging to Nuremberg, and the location of its university, another forty-four teachers of modern languages were active during the time span of 1599 to 1809, some of them closely linked with the university. Generally speaking, French and Italian were the most commonly offered languages; other modern languages less frequently offered were English, Dutch and Spanish. The masters of languages of early modern times were a European phenomenon, a very mixed group of people from different backgrounds, with highly individual biographies, different degrees of education, some of them native speakers, some others not, living a precarious life on the verge of poverty. Since there were no guilds for them, they had no legal protection, and the fact that most of them were highly mobile, trying to find the right place to make a living, made it difficult for them to be accepted by local administrators. This explains why only very few of them managed to be accepted as proper citizens or at least, as in Augsburg and Nuremberg, as Beisitzer, a minor form of citizenship. Most maîtres de langues – the common name for masters of languages in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth century, since most of them were teachers of French, and of French origin – had to be content with a residence permit and a work permit granted by the municipal authorities, usually for short periods of time, between a few months and a year. Some even tried to work underground, without the respective permits. In many cases, their families had to live elsewhere, in places where the wife and children had the right to stay. In Augsburg and Nuremberg like everywhere else, homelessness and social isolation were a frequent consequence, sometimes resulting in forms of delinquency and legal conflict. The number of masters of languages running away secretly to rid themselves of their debts and other financial obligations is considerable. Nevertheless, there were some extraordinary characters and teachers among the masters of languages, such as Matthias Cramer (Kramer) in Nuremberg and his son Johann Matthias, or Catharinus Dulcis (Catherin Le Doux) in Augsburg. Cramer, born in Cologne around 1640 and educated at the Gymnasium Tricoronatum, had as a young priest of the Roman Catholic Church become an eyewitness to the cruel persecution of Protestants as part of the Counter-Reformation in the Habsburg countries, whereupon he escaped to Strasbourg to become a Protestant himself, a Lutheran. In

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1669, he settled in Nuremberg as a master of Italian, French and Spanish. He was granted the Schutzverwandtenstatus, the Nuremberg form of the Beisitz, which he had to renew by way of an annual application no less than thirty-two times until 1709. From 1682 to 1689 he taught in Ratisbon and Heidelberg, where he witnessed, in the winter of 1689, the capture of the city by the French, an event that had deep repercussions for his view of contemporary France and the French nation: ‘une nation dont on a sujet de dire, au temps où nous sommes, que le langage est celui des anges, et les actions des diables’ (preface to his Nouveau Parlement of 1690). He went back to Nuremberg, and was matriculated in 1698 as Magister linguarum exoticarum at the University of Altdorf. Having become a Calvinist towards the end of his life, Cramer spent his last years in the neighbouring city of Erlangen, basically a Huguenot settlement. In 1726, he was made ‘Public Teacher of Western Languages’ (öffentlicher Lehrer der okzidentalischen Sprachen) at the local equestrian college, the Ritterakademie zu ChristianErlang, a precursor of the University of Erlangen. In 1727, he asked for a small pension; whether it was granted or not remains unclear. Cramer died a few months later. Matthias Cramer was an outstanding didactician and a highly gifted teacher. His approach was communicative, learner-oriented and intercultural. He also published a great number of dictionaries and teaching materials for the languages he taught, including for High German, Low German (Dutch) and English. Because of his merits as a lexicographer, he was received into the Royal Prussian Academy as a corresponding member. His book La vraie méthode pour enseigner très facilement et en peu de temps la langue française aux Allemands, éclairée plaisemment par le moyen d’un entretien familier français–allemand entre un maître de langue et un écolier, of 1696, is to be considered as his summa didactica. It is one of the most significant and most touching treatises in the foreign language field before the eighteenth century, and it is, in parts, stunningly ‘modern’, e.g. when Cramer expresses his contempt for contemporary forms of what he calls parrot (sic!) learning. The biography of Cramer’s son Johann Matthias is by no means less interesting than that of his father. He had learned his languages from him and was Matthias Cramer’s co-author and editor during his last years, as can be seen from the jointly signed dedication to the States General of the Dutch Republic in the High and Low German dictionary of 1719. Obviously, he stayed and worked with his father in Nuremberg and Erlangen until 1727. From 1737 to 1739, he was the secretary of Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf, the moderator of the Moravian Brethren (Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine). After a possible stay in Hamburg, preceded or followed by a possible

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first trip to the British colonies of North America in the early 1740s, he was appointed Lecturer of the Italian Language at the University of Göttingen in the autumn of 1746, where he served until 1753. In 1751, he became a member of the presbytery of the Göttingen Reformed Church. In July 1753, he finally migrated to Georgia. A little later, he established himself as a successful teacher of Italian and German in Philadelphia, where he opened up his own school in 1755, now teaching French, Italian and German. Possibly the most interesting personality among the Augsburg masters of languages is Catherin Le Doux, for some time the teacher of Karl Fugger, a Catholic member of the Fugger clan, later in his life president of the imperial supreme court at Speyer, pontifical finance officer and canon at Konstanz. Le Doux, born in Savoy in 1540 – just a century before Matthias Cramer – and educated at Annecy and at the University of Strasbourg, spent his early professional years as a private tutor and educator of princes in some of the leading families in Germany (Baden, Württemberg, the Palatinate) and in France (Picardie). In 1567, he matriculated at the University of Wittenberg. Since travelling was his great longing, he went for a tour of the Orient in the early 1570s. He was shipwrecked close to the island of Samos, and became a Turkish slave. After seven months on a Turkish galley, he was freed with the help of a French legation counsellor and interpreter accredited at the Sublime Porte. He went to Crete, where he served in the military, and, when his mission was finished, carried on to Syria, Palestine, Alexandria and Cyprus. He spent thirteen months in Nicosia translating documents from medieval French into Italian. Because of an impending Turkish attack on Cyprus, he chose to leave the island, together with a Nuremberg patrician and a German baronet, to go to Italy. The next destinations on his long way to Augsburg were Venice, Padua, Vienna, Hungary, Breslau, Wittenberg, Poland, Danzig, Copenhagen and France. In France, he agreed to accompany three Protestant young noblemen on their study tour to German universities: Marburg, Leipzig and, once again, Wittenberg. As it became impossible for him to take his protégés back to their parents at La Rochelle because of the aftermath of the Massacre of St Bartholomew (1572), he placed them with German families and travelled to France alone, via London, where he met with Queen Elizabeth. He finally arrived at La Rochelle to tell the parents that their sons were all safe and well. As part of a separate journey, he finally managed to take his three scholars back to France. Le Doux spent the following years doing military service for the Protestant cause. He met Henri de Navarre, later to become King Henry IV. Further engagements as a princely educator followed, mainly for the Protestant

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nobility of the Auvergne. In Vienna (Austria), he came into contact with the Augsburg Fuggers. Then he worked for some time as a private tutor in Prague and Bohemia, but religious warfare made him leave the region and revert to Wittenberg. On the 25 May 1593, he asked to be allowed to teach French and Italian at the University of Wittenberg. It decreed that Le Doux should be given the title of extraordinarius professor Gallicae et Italicae linguae with an annual salary of 100 florins. Le Doux, however, left Wittenberg shortly afterwards, to travel to England again, and from there, in a diplomatic mission, to the royal court of Scotland. Holland, Moravia and Tübingen, where he acted again, for some months, as a private tutor of modern languages, were his next destinations. In 1600, at the age of sixty, Le Doux arrived in Augsburg. He made friends with the rector of the famous Gymnasium bei St Anna, David Höschel, and with the outstanding councillors Marcus Welser, Karl Rehlinger and Georg von Stetten. At the same time he became the private tutor of Karl Fugger. Twenty-two years later, in his autobiography, Le Doux stated that this activity had greatly added to his income. However, he continued that, since Karl Fugger was a Roman Catholic, he had after some time found it preferable to look for a safer place, better adapted to the unhampered practice of the only true religion. Le Doux was lucky, since Landgrave Moritz of Hesse appointed him as professor of modern languages at the Collegium Mauritianum in Kassel with an annual salary of 200 florins. Dulcis embarked on his new career in 1602, and started a (second) family in 1603. From 1605 to 1624, he served as full professor (professor ordinarius) of French and Italian at the University of Marburg. Le Doux died in Marburg on 7 June 1626. Dulcis was the embodiment of an era, a liberally educated, politically agile yet deeply religious man, with strong ethical principles and an uncommon knowledge of the world. His rise to the Marburg chair of modern languages as well as the attention he received from people like Welser and Höschel, two leading representatives of Augsburg’s late humanism, show a great amount of esteem from his contemporaries.

Teaching modern languages to girls Seventeenth-century foreign language teaching in Augsburg includes another special and indeed astonishing feature: the teaching of English to mostly Catholic young ladies. As a positive response to the re-educative endeavours of the Jesuits (the modern name of the congregation is Congregatio Jesu), the Yorkshire aristocrat and religious migrant Mary Ward had

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founded the religious congregation of the Virgines Anglicanae (‘Englischen Fräulein’). They had opened a school for girls in Augsburg in 1662, their second in Germany after Munich (Nymphenburg), where they did not confine themselves to teaching religious education and ‘female subjects’, but also arithmetic, mathematics, modern languages and even Latin. For contemporary educationalists, the new curriculum was somewhat difficult to get used to, and also a little dangerous. However, the ladies from England – all of whom were very well educated, since they all came from noble families – knew what they were about, and they had strong protectors like the Dukes of Bavaria and the Catholic members of the Augsburg city council. The first two generations within the congregation were almost entirely English-speaking. Since English was the internal language of the novitiate, the language was taught to all girls planning to become members of the congregation, but also to anybody else who wished to learn it, e.g. for the sake of helping out at home when business correspondence had to be dealt with. English was definitely not a major foreign language in Europe before the 1770s, when both a thorough change in aesthetics (in literary taste and theory, in architecture, gardening, etc.) plus the beginning of the Industrial Revolution made a larger public aware of British cultural assets. At the same time, however, English remained one of the languages of Protestantism, a ‘dangerous language because of religiously and culturally subversive principles’, as Empress Maria Theresa put it in 1778. After about 1665 at the latest, there had been some private teaching of English in German seaports along the North and the Baltic Sea, and some northern German Protestant universities had started teaching English in the 1680s, basically in order to give theologians access to British theological literature, including collections of sermons. However, English in the seventeenth century was definitely not a school subject for Catholic girls, except for girls in Augsburg and Munich. Among the many Nuremberg masters of languages, there was only one woman, the wife of a maître whose name has unfortunately not been handed down. The situation in Augsburg is somewhat different, since, in the course of the eighteenth century, no less than four ladies had asked for a work permit. Only two of them, however, had been accepted, one in the 1740s and one in the 1790s. Again, two of the four women were married to masters of languages. The lady offering her pedagogical services in the 1790s, Maria Anna Abeil (Abella), was unmarried, and a victim of the French Revolution. All in all, she can be classified as the prototype of a nineteenth-century Catholic schoolmistress.

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Teaching and learning materials No less than 255 different teaching and learning materials were printed in Augsburg and Nuremberg during the time span concerned. Their authors or editors were in many cases local masters of languages who thus tried to generate some additional income and to publicize their names and teaching methods in a totally decentralized market. With the exception of the works of the few major representatives of the industry like, for example, Matthias Cramer, the success of publications in the field tended to be limited and unreliable, in part because there was no copyright apart perhaps from doubtful privileges granted at times by local institutions. Editions of less than 300 copies were the order of the day. There are many references in Cramer’s works addressing the precarious financial situations of textbook and dictionary authors, and lack of cooperation between authors/editors and publishers. Teaching and learning materials, like all publications, had dedications and prefaces, voluminous at times. Dedications were an important part of professional networking, but also of ego-pandering and public relations. At times, the addressees of dedications were the master’s former students, a way for him to participate in their success. The prefaces in their turn often followed a fixed pattern. The authors or editors started with finding an excuse for submitting yet another publication along the beaten track, either by saying that all other publications in the field had their obvious weaknesses or by arguing that, for certain reasons, their approach was totally different from anything published before. What normally followed then were methodological discussions set between the two poles of rote- and rule-learning. In this context, the publications of competitors were sometimes critically reviewed in detail, and the author’s further publications or publication projects were mentioned to advertise his own cause – paired with good wishes to the kind reader. In an era without professional advertising, the scope and content of a publication had to be fitted (and sometimes squeezed) into its baroque title. As many of the publications were bidirectional – e.g. for Germans to learn Italian and for Italians to learn German, thus creating a larger market for the book – title pages normally were in all the languages or at least the major ones concerned. Polyglot conversation books offered up to eleven languages normally set in columns. Despite their reader-oriented, explanatory titles and prefaces, digging into the content of the materials could nevertheless produce bitter disappointments, since the very weaknesses of similar publications that had been criticized in the preface would be found again, or the promises of the title were not kept. This was often

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the case with materials for special (mostly business or technical) purposes and for particular target groups such as women (knowing no Latin): grammars, conversation books and textbooks for the female gender tended to be bad copies of ‘mainstream’ publications for a male audience, with a little thematic varnish to make them look more gender appropriate. All in all, there is very little that might be called region-specific in the Augsburg and Nuremberg publications, apart perhaps from the odd mention of problems for southern German readers. The sheer number of materials published, however, is striking, and so is the number of languages they cover, including Italian almost to the same extent as French, but also Spanish, English, Dutch, German and also Czech, Hungarian, Russian – and Latin. Additionally there are the fifty-five bi- and multilingual editions of the Orbis Pictus of Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), printed in Nuremberg between 1658 and 1781. Many of the publications had their own ancestors elsewhere. They were part of textbook genealogies sometimes going back to the very beginnings of textbook writing (e.g. to the Solenissimo Vochabuolista, a f ifteenth-century grammar and conversation book for the learning of Italian and German). They also embodied methodological traditions (i.e. the grammatical, the model dialogue or the eclectic traditions, which were pan-European).

Some results – in a nutshell Because there are so far very few similar studies, it is difficult to isolate any trends specific to the two cities. However, the study has yielded a number of clear-cut results worth taking into account: – From the early sixteenth century onwards, the elites of both cities were highly plurilingual, and well acquainted with transcultural communicative problems. – In the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century, being plurilingual became a feature of social distinction. – In the early stages of the period, foreign languages were mostly learned through internships in the target countries, which were increasingly prepared and followed up by linguistic and cultural studies at home (e.g. through masters of languages). – In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the foreign travel of young patricians resembled more the Grand Tour of the nobility, including hired teachers of target languages at selected destinations.

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– In both imperial cities, the knowledge of Italian was almost as important as the standard knowledge of French as the international language of the eighteenth century. Languages of secondary importance were Dutch, English and Spanish, plus, in special cases, Portuguese, Czech and other eastern European languages. – There was no language policy from the side of the administrators of the imperial cities, neither explicit nor implicit. Masters of languages were often accepted or not at the discretion of the municipal clerks on duty. – The number of masters of languages offering their services was considerable in both cities. However, the conditions under which they worked and lived were far from attractive. Masters of languages suffered from short-term work and residence permits, from low pay, social isolation and, above all, from the capriciousness and arbitrariness of municipal authorities. If they were non-natives, they tended to fall victim to popular xenophobia. – Teaching foreign languages to both genders was basically a male domain, but there were some female teachers as well. The Augsburg congregation of the Virgines Anglicanae is, in this context, of particular interest. – The production of teaching materials flourished in both cities throughout the period. The output, however, shows hardly any region-specific features.

About the author Konrad Schröder (b. 1941) has a doctorate (1967) from the University of Saarbrücken, and has taught at grammar schools in the Saarland, the colleges of education in Ludwigsburg and Karlsruhe (1968–1970) and the universities of Frankfurt am Main (1970–1973) and Augsburg (1973 until now) – and has been professor emeritus since 2009. His special fields of interest are language politics and policies in Europe, the history of FLT (foreign language teaching) especially with regard to central Europe, FLT at upper secondary level, and evaluation and testing. He has been the author or co-author of several reports on the state of the art of FLT in Germany, including the DESI–Project of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education (Germany), consultant to the Institute for the Development of Quality in Education (Humboldt University, Berlin), co-founder and co-developer of the national foreign language contest (Bundeswettbewerb Fremdsprachen), president of the German Foreign Language Teachers’ Association (1992–2006) and of the English Language Teachers’ Association ‘English and Multilingualism’ (2008–2012), co-editor of the journals

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Die Neueren Sprachen (1973–1992) and Neusprachliche Mitteilungen (1992–2006). His book publications and articles are in the field of ELT didactics, among them the Bio-bibliographical Dictionary of FL Teachers in the German-Speaking Countries before 1800 (6 vols., 1987–2001). He has received the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz).

4

Multilingualism in the Dutch Golden Age An Exploration Willem Frijhoff *1

Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/ch04 Abstract Multilingualism and plurilingualism reflect two distinct practices and dimensions of social and cultural life: the coexistence of different languages at a variety of levels and settings in a given society, and the individual ability to master several languages simultaneously. Both reflect different forms of elasticity of the social fabric, and flourish in times of economic prosperity and global cultural contacts, whereas they may decline in times of contraction and nationalism. As a period of growth, mass migration and cultural flourishing, the Dutch Golden Age (c.1580–1750) is an excellent observatory for these phenomena. This survey insists in particular on the cultural aspects of language and their evolution, such as language acquisition, teaching and use, and its changing social meanings. Keywords: Multilingualism, plurilingualism, language acquisition, language teaching, education, Latin, French language, cultural identity, Golden Age

*

Erasmus University, Rotterdam

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Language pride or language pessimism?1 How pathetic and downtrodden the Dutch language has become at the beginning of the third millennium. A twenty-second-century European would certainly look back in utter surprise at the pitiful, almost shamefaced way in which the Dutch were accustomed to discuss the fate of their national language in the world of culture and science a century earlier. By 2015, much had apparently changed since, 400 years earlier, in the first decades of the Dutch Golden Age, the Amsterdam Chambers of Rhetoric, known as d’Eglantier (Sweet Briar) or In Liefde Bloeyende (Blossoming in Love), had made a fiery plea to ‘help, embellish and enrich’ Low German (Nederduyts), the basis of present-day Dutch; or since 1586 when the engineer and linguistic purist Simon Stevin (1548–1620) had sung the praises of ‘the dignity of the duytsche [i.e. Dutch] language’. But especially since Johannes Goropius Becanus (Jan van Gorp from Hilvarenbeek, 1518/1519–1572) used etymological reasoning in his book about the origin of Antwerp (1569) to identify proudly ‘Cimbrisch’ or ‘Duyts’, that is to say what we now call Dutch, as the oldest and most perfect language of the world, the language of paradise itself, the lingua adamica.2 Abraham van der Myl (Mylius, 1563–1637) in his academic treatise Lingua Belgica (Leiden, 1612) agreed with him. He placed the Dutch language, in terms of its richness, on an equal footing with Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Persian, classical languages from which he thought it had been directly derived.3 Pride in the Dutch language, in other words. However, there were counter voices. In 1598 the philologist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) who taught in Leiden and in Leuven, and was one of the most respected academics of his time, started a debate with the advocates of the Becanus thesis. In his opinion, it would not have been possible to recognize the original language any longer, because processes of colonization and waves of migration would have contaminated and irreparably altered it in the meantime. Becanus’ etymological speculations, he thought, were simply ludicrous. According to Lipsius, language was not fixed; it was a 1 A shortened version of this text was presented on 8 December 2008 at the monthly session of the Division of Arts and Social Sciences of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. A more elaborate version was published under the title Meertaligheid in the Gouden Eeuw: Een verkenning, Mededelingen van de Afdeling Letterkunde, new ser., 73/2 (2010). The present English version, translated by Bettina Brandt, has been slightly adapted for an international readership. 2 Van den Branden, Het streven naar verheerlijking; van der Wal & van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 186–190; van der Wal, De moedertaal centraal, 23–34. About the lingua adamica: Eco, Ricerca della lingua perfetta; Coudert, Language of Adam. 3 See Metcalf, ‘Abraham Mylius in Historical Linguistics’.

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historical product, in constant flux. 4 Lipsius, in other words, did not think of language from an essentialist perspective, as so many of his intellectual contemporaries did, but from a historical one – which makes his reasoning so recognizable and believable to us. If others had also pointed out that the language had degenerated, they did so precisely because of their pride in the Dutch language. They wished to cleanse Dutch of all its foreign influences. Language purism was cultivated especially by the rederijkers, the members of the Chambers of Rhetoric, in the major cities. The growing quantities of loaned and bastardized words from foreign languages such as Latin, French or Italian had to be rejected. The pronunciation of those speaking in an undesirable regional dialect, or in an overly pretentious way, had to be corrected because they risked placing themselves outside a supraregional community that increasingly identified itself as authentically ‘Dutch’. Already then, language revealed itself as a core element of belonging to a group and as a basic characteristic of a developing national identity, however narrowly or broadly it was defined. That the idea of language purification would strike out not only at linguistic aspects but also at content-related ones became apparent when Adriaen Koerbagh (c.1632–1669) published his Bloemhof in 1668, an encyclopaedic dictionary of ‘foreign bastardized words’, in which a sharp critique of religion and society was hidden behind the philosophical and theological terms. He had to pay for it with his life.5 Already in 1582, three years after the Union of Utrecht and with the separation of the southern, partly French-speaking, provinces not yet fully in place, the States General of the northern Netherlands replaced the language of their outgoing communications: previously drafted in French, these were now written mainly in Dutch. The Statenbijbel, the first official Dutch translation of the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew, published in 1637 on behalf of the States General, was the next step in rendering a standardized version of the Dutch language official. Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679), the most important Dutch poet of the time, who rejected the Amsterdam vernacular, formulated in his ars poetica (Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche Dichtkunste, 1650) the de facto standard: the language spoken at the stadholder’s court in The Hague and among the merchant-regents of the Amsterdam metropolis was to serve as the standard for civilized Dutch.6 4 Deneire & van Haal, Lipsius tegen Becanus. 5 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 185–196. 6 Van der Wal, De moedertaal centraal, 33.

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The seventeenth century was the era of standardization of the Dutch language and its recognition as a national language indeed.7 Advancing the regents and the wealthy bourgeoisie as the touchstone that defined linguistic quality, was characteristic for the civic Republic of the northern Netherlands. In other European countries, it was usually the sovereign with his court who determined the standard national language, be it at times via the church (think of the Lutheran Bible, of adaptations of the Psalms, spiritual readings, etc.) and the patronage of the sciences and the arts. A good two centuries later, an anonymous report, written in June 1805 at The Hague during the Batavian Republic, was published in the French Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel. I translate from the French: the use of the French language is becoming more and more common in this country. Most of the Dutch who stand out through their wealth or their education prefer French over Dutch for use among themselves inside their families, so that the use of the latter is slowly being relegated to the lower levels of society. Fifty years from now little may well remain of it, other than a dialect that people, who know what is right, leave for servants, workers and sailors. Yet, Dutch is a fairly rich language. Unfortunately, its use is being limited to a territory that is too small for foreigners to make it worth their while to learn the language. […] And because the stronger prevails over the weaker, we are forced to learn the language of others.8

Language pessimism from 1800 in contrast to language pride from 1600! Doubting the value of the Dutch language, not just in the world but even within the Netherlands itself, versus the certainty that Dutch was the instrument par excellence for the development of Dutch culture, and really 7 For the standardization process see van der Wal & van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 200–255. 8 Gazette nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel (Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gr. fol. Lc2 113, microfilm D 71), 17 June 1805: ‘remarquera que la langue française devient de jour en jour plus habituel dans ce pays-ci. La plupart des Hollandais distingués par leur fortune ou leur éducation la parlent entr’eux dans l’intérieur de leurs familles, de préférence à la langue du pays; de sorte que celle-ci s’en va tout doucement se reléguer dans les basses classes du peuple; et il n’en restera peut-être, dans cinquante ans, qu’un patois que les gens comme il faut abandonneront à leurs domestiques, aux ouvriers et aux matelots. Cependant, la langue hollandaise est assez riche; mais elle a l’inconvénient d’être renfermée dans une trop petite étendue de pays, pour que les étrangers veuillent se donner la peine de l’apprendre; comme nous nous trouvons nécessairement en relations avec des nations beaucoup plus considérables que la nôtre, le fort emporte le faible; et c’est nous qui sommes obligés d’apprendre la langue des autres.’

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for all culture. What had happened in the meantime? How could the attitude towards the language have taken such a dramatic turn? The country itself had changed, of course, but here my focus is on the language, particularly on the use of the language, the historical form of sociolinguistics. From this particular point of view, the hallmark of the seventeenth century is a heightened awareness of the Babelian confusio linguarum (Genesis 11:1–9). The great language pedagogue Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670), the Moravian bishop who fled to Amsterdam in 1656 and lies buried in the town of Naarden, took measures against this situation with his efficient teaching methods, such as the Janua linguarum reserata (The door of languages unlocked) (1631) and the Orbis sensualium pictus (The visible world in pictures) (1658), the first visual, multilingual language learning books.9 They were well known both in the Dutch Republic and throughout Europe. The confusio expressed itself in an unbridled multiplication of languages in use, without any formal or clear hierarchy. Multilingualism, the active and/or passive knowledge of several languages at once in a given community or society, was thus based on empirical experience. It allowed for a practical multilingualism in daily life, or the use of different languages, or linguistic variants, in different situations.10 Language pride grew when the flourishing society of the northern Netherlands evolved and, simultaneously, welcomed many foreign speakers into the country, all of whom developed their own patterned ways to use (more than one) language: To adapt to the language of each province, or to the local dialect? To keep one’s own language as the language of everyday use? Or a versatile model that offered a differently modified solution for each situation? Or even for diverse approaches, in different new countries of residence – as had been suggested in 1731 in the Hollandsche Spectator of Justus van Effen. In an imflammatory anti-French diatribe, this anonymous author wrote that although the children of French Huguenots in England had adapted to the language and culture of their host country, in the Netherlands, on the contrary, they had done ‘everything possible to be French and remain so’.11 9 Comenius, Novissima linguarum methodus. For the life and work of Comenius: Blekastad, Comenius; Čapková & Frijhoff, ‘Jan Amos Comenius’; van Vliet & Vanderjagt, Johannes Amos Comenius. 10 For a synthetic approach, see Zarate, Lévy & Kramsch, Handbook of Multilingualism. See also: Kappler & Thiolier-Méjean, Le plurilingualisme au Moyen Âge; Burke, Languages and Communities; Haskins Gonthier & Sandrier, Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Enlightened Europe. 11 De Hollandsche Spectator, no. 8 (8 October 1731).

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As the purification, the standardization and the incipient codification of Dutch as the national language progressed, the presence of other languages in the northern Netherlands increased as well and with it the necessity to learn how to deal with this and how to function in several languages at once without causing damage to the reputation of the developing national language or the mother tongue. Besides the explicitly linguistic element, we can also therefore detect a sociolinguistic dimension in this development, namely the multitude of languages and their different uses for targeted communication, formulation of opinions and ordinary exchanges and interactions.12 Of course, in order to get a better insight into this linguistic reality, we should also pay attention to the auditory diversity, the sound image, particularly the multitude of sounds and accents. This diversity developed following its own rhythm, but because differences in pronunciation occasionally caused problems in communication, or problems in understanding the status of a speaker, this auditory aspect is nevertheless of great importance to getting a good sense of early modern multilingualism in prose, poetry or song. In addition, pronunciation was considered an important element in the evaluation of linguistic variants: the pronunciation of the eastern dialects was seen as negative, the southern ones, at least initially, as positive.13 Apart from early linguistic texts offering generalized observations, the sources for the actual sound images are scarce and scattered, as well as to a large extent marked by highly individual perceptions and experiences. Apart from lyrical outpourings about the richness of sound in the public domain, they are limited to a critique of differences in pronunciation, comments about understanding, or the melodious character of the language.14 The recent increase in research into the everyday correspondence of people from various walks of life, especially since the systematic exploitation of the so-called sailing letters or letters that had been confiscated from Dutch ships since the middle of the seventeenth century and stored in British archives, may affect this area of research as well.15 This everyday 12 For an overview of this topic see the stimulating volumes edited by Burke and Porter, Social History of Language; Language, Self, Society, and Languages and Jargons. 13 Van der Wal & van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 201–205. 14 For a first approach to the seventeenth-century city as a ‘melting-pot of sounds’ see Sound of the City, special issue of De Zeventiende Eeuw. 15 Selections of these letters are currently being published and systematic research conducted under the direction of Professor M.J. van der Wal, Dutch language and culture track, Leiden University. For more about letters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Gaspar, ‘De Doesburgse brievencollectie’; Ruberg, Conventionele correspondentie.

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correspondence – insofar as it was not based on model letter books or edited by civic scribes – will contain everyday language, often written down quasi-phonetically.

Fictions of linguistic harmony We now take it for granted that a language is connected to a country, or at least to a specific national or cultural community. We think of it as natural if only because almost everywhere, the rise of nationalism went hand in hand with the state’s imposition of a standard language as a unifying centralizing instrument. The exceptions in western Europe are, in fact, mostly misleading, because from the Netherlands (Friesland) to Belgium and Switzerland, or in Finland, Spain or Italy, minority linguistic communities currently have a legal status that to a certain degree protects them, but also limits their expansion. In the unprotected linguistic areas in France (the Flemish Westhoek, Alsace, Brittany, Occitania, the Basque country, Roussillon or Corsica), the populations concerned are cultivating the local language as a regional one, either next to or in opposition to the national language. Real multilingualism, in the sense of it being considered a national heritage and legally prescribed, such as it exists in the Swiss statutory bilingual canton of Freiburg/Fribourg, is unusual in western Europe. It is our common perception that Dutch people speak Dutch, Germans speak German, and the British and Americans English. It is common practice to project this impression as far back in time as possible despite the changing fate that the secondary, regional and minority languages underwent in almost all European nations. They were frequently recovered in later centuries by the learned elite, at times even reinvented to support group cohesion during a process of renationalization of historical regions or cultural minorities, such as for example the case of Catalan in Spanish Catalonia during the Renaixença in the late nineteenth century.16 The rhetorical convention that all players in the social field speak the same language and understand each other without any problems whatsoever is a commonplace in the written media, in literary texts, in films, even in historical productions. Joan of Arc spoke in a Lorraine dialect, which for a Parisian, or somebody from Normandy, was almost impossible to understand, but in the many historical films about her life and fate, she expresses herself flawlessly in the language of Descartes. In a film 16 Marfany, La llengua maltractada.

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such as Saint-Cyr by Patricia Mazuy (2000) about the elite school founded by Madame de Maintenon, the regional language is used as a functional contrast but this is rare. We are not the only ones who, for the sake of convenience in reading, construct our conversation partners as speakers of the same language. Those who chronicled social reality in the past did this too, with very few exceptions. In the cities of seventeenth-century Holland, one could find notaries who drew up documents in French, or who specialized in helping immigrants from other linguistic areas, while some of their communities worked with a public official of their own who was fluent in their language. The hundreds of thousands of Walloons, Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Scots, Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Poles, Russians and other central, southern or eastern Europeans, who had come to the Dutch Republic for work, or to escape religious discrimination, presented to the notaries, jurors and bailiffs documents written either in their own language or in various linguistic variants or forms of gibberish. However, they were normally first translated into standard Dutch when the notary drew up a deed, wrote a report and had it signed. Every now and then, however, we get a glimpse of what really was being said. This happened for example when swear words were written down because of their defamatory nature, in criminal charges or in cases of slander. Sorcery trials of the sixteenth century often focused on words of blame or accusation that were considered dangerous and precisely for this reason were being recorded by the court. It was only in the late seventeenth century, after the so-called witch trials, known from traditional historiography, had ended, that the word heks (witch) made its way from the German (Hexe) into the Dutch language, as an accusatory term replacing the word toveres (sorceress).17 The notarial and judicial archives contain numerous documents in which eerdieverij (or slander) is recorded in flowery curses and insults.18 The apparent unity of language makes for a simpler story, but is it consistent with historical reality? This question is relevant for early modern times, particularly for the Dutch Golden Age. Because of Holland’s economic expansion and international trade, the Dutch language was originally a serious player on the European language market, in which supply and demand was constantly changing, and where norm and reality only barely overlapped. Already during the seventeenth century, the Dutch language was, slowly but surely, taking shape as the standard language of the Dutch 17 De Blécourt, Termen van toverij. 18 Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom; Keunen & Roodenburg, ‘Schimpen en schelden’.

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Republic, in a process of purification and codification that we can detect, likewise, in other western European countries, because it was embedded in a broader process of state-building that was then spreading throughout Europe. But was standard Dutch also common in daily life? In order to answer this question, we need to examine different forms and levels of linguistic communication as well as the social function of language. It is of course very difficult to measure linguistic practices in daily life now long in the past, since there are no direct audio or video recordings available from that time. Oral history has also taught us that all forms of indirect recording or transcribing suffer from a high degree of intervention, interpretation and adaptation by those registering the text. However, we can detect its contours and coordinates, and with the help of systematic research into a multitude of sources, such as popular literature, pamphlets, library catalogues, correspondence and reports of legal discussions, we are able to roughly sketch its main points. Sometimes the author himself gives us a clue. There is a striking testimony in the autobiographical notes that Willem Baudaert also known as Baudartius (1565–1640) wrote down in 1628 for his then sixteen-year-old son, Willem junior.19 Baudartius senior, a Reformed minister, historian and one of the translators of the Statenbijbel narrates how his parents fled from the Flemish town of Deinse to Sandwich in England, for religious reasons, before his second birthday. In Canterbury, he attended the French school of master Paul Le Pipere, and then he attended Latin schools, first in Sandwich, and after their return to Flanders, once the Pacification of Ghent (1576) had granted the Reformed community its safety, within the city of Ghent itself. However, since my childhood I have had the great opportunity to learn three languages at the same time, because inside the house I also learned to speak Dutch, and also French since my father, mother and elder sisters spoke this with each other, and remember to this day.

Later in his notes, he returns once more to his linguistic skills: In my early years I learned English in England and practiced and perfected it in Zutphen through conversations with English captains and officers, whose garrison was stationed there, and by reading good books 19 Molhuijsen, ‘Leven van Willem Baudaert’. See Broek Roelofs, Wilhelmus Baudartius; Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, III (1914), 71–73.

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from which I preached every Sunday in 1617, 1618 and 1619 and, if I had been given the opportunity or if it had been necessary, I would have been able to preach in German and in French after I moved from Heidelberg to the Netherlands as well.

As vice-principal in Sneek (Friesland), Baudartius had taught himself Greek and at one of the universities where he had studied theology – in Leiden (1586), Franeker (1588) or Heidelberg (1591) – he must have learned Hebrew as well, though he does not mention this. It remains implicit but real, since he later translated the Old Testament from this source language. German was still close to the regional language of the county of Zutphen where from 1598 until his death in 1640 he worked as a minister. From his Memoryen (or Memoirs, two huge volumes, published at Arnhem and Zutphen in 1620–1624), a vast historical chronicle of the events of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, we can see that he also had a good grasp of High German. Knowledge of German must have been so self-evident in the eastern Netherlands in those days that there was no need to document it explicitly. The message that Baudartius wanted to transmit to his son is obvious: learn ‘Latin, Greek and Hebrew (and related languages)’ and, additionally, French, German, English and Scottish English in order to benefit from travelling through the Reformed countries before taking up the ministry or a professorship. But avoid Spain and Italy because ‘of the widespread idolatry and papal superstitions’. Spanish and Italian were not required languages in other words. It suffices to know Latin to refute the work of the papal opponents. This text offers us all the elements for an evaluation of multilingualism in the Golden Age. The roles of family home, school, church and local community come clearly to the fore, as well as the balance between formal language learning processes and self-study.20 The classical languages are important for academia, but also for the realm of the church and controversies with opponents. In addition, knowledge of modern languages is essential but one learns these in other ways: French in the French school, English and German from a teacher, through active self-study, through reading books in these languages or by interacting with native speakers. In the early seventeenth century, one still automatically acquired French, Dutch, English and German along the way. The early modern Netherlands started out, in the various spheres of life, as a multilingual landscape. For a considerable time, multilingualism was safeguarded by extensive 20 For the learning process of self-study, see Frijhoff, Autodidaxies: XVIe–XIXe siècles.

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migration, the great state garrisons with regiments from Germany, France, Switzerland, England and Scotland, and the exchanges and interactions between foreign-speaking religious communities. But it was also because of the enlightened self-interest of the Dutch who wanted to move forward in a world that did not end at the borders of a country, or even a continent, and were learning the appropriate languages in order to do so. Of course, there are blind spots in this text as well. The ultra-Reformed Baudartius was not a friend of the Spanish, yet the Spanish army was stationed in the borderlands of the Republic until 1630; and in Zutphen, a Spanish military manual was even being reprinted at the time, presumably for the enemy only a few miles away. In the southern Netherlands, under Spanish authority, Spanish was an active presence in various domains and in the Dutch Republic itself, the first Spanish textbook had been published in 1630.21 Italian in turn, once the language of the most refined courts, which continued to have a model function for high-level culture, still belonged to the standard package of the honnête homme. Literature in Italian, probably brought back from the Italian journey, required for both wealthy young men and fine artists, was at the time still found in practically all private libraries. Italian remained the language of music, of architecture, finance and accounting. The countless Italian states and city states remained important partners in trade and cultural productions. It is thus not surprising that multilingual textbooks usually also included Italian.

Failure of a uniform universal language The multitude of languages, confusing for many, must have stimulated the desire for a standardized language. Yet, a surge in the teaching of modern contact languages and the increasingly polyglot stance in public life went against this trend. In short, in the seventeenth century (with a prelude in the sixteenth and a long aftermath in the eighteenth century), the idea that a universal, transnational everyday language, a neutral harmonized language that could reside above the nations that thought of themselves as autonomous cultural communities, failed to take hold in the minds of Europeans. This failure was the result of a quadruple process. First of all, the loss of belief in Latin as a universal language giving access to culture, 21 Molerius, Linguae Hispanicae compendiosa institutio; later he wrote an Italian textbook: Linguae Italicae compendiosa institutio. That same year Nathanael Duez published Le guidon de la language italienne with the same publisher, further proof of a market demand.

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philosophy and the sciences, partially as a result of putting the Greco-Roman culture in perspective in relation to the new, modern culture. The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns that divided the writers of early modern western Europe into two camps was but one rather telling example.22 In addition, practical reasons that were quite convincing discredited Latin as the universal language of communication. Each linguistic community pronounced Latin in its own particular way. Many felt that the way the English pronounced Latin was almost completely incomprehensible, which, along with other reasons, dissuaded many a youth from attempting to study in England. The increased international circulation of students and scholars also brought the limits of Latin as a language for everyday oral communication to the fore. A second reason was the (re)discovery of other classical languages, besides Latin, as a source of knowledge and culture. The humanists had already added Greek and Hebrew to Latin: as a result, the eruditio trilinguis became the core of philology and of the new curriculum. For almost a century it remained the foundation of the modernized university system. Collegia trilinguia were founded at the universities that were at the forefront of innovation, such as Alcalá (1508) and Leuven, with the help of Erasmus.23 In Oxford and Cambridge, trilingual education was also getting started. Particularly the alternative Collège des Lecteurs Royaux, now called the Collège de France in Paris, founded in 1529/30 by King Francis I on the initiative of Guillaume Budé (1467–1540), set the tone.24 An education in other languages was not only of linguistic interest but was also embedded in a new philosophical and theological culture, as became clear when Pierre de La Ramée (Petrus Ramus, 1515–1572) was appointed there in 1551. Ramus was an outspoken opponent of Aristotelian philosophy and a militant Huguenot, but he was also an innovator of dialectics and logic as pedagogical methods, in which he emphasized practical application and demonstration. As such, his work became vastly popular in the seventeenth century, especially in Calvinist countries like the Dutch Republic where not only university teachers but also a great number of rectors and praeceptores (teachers) of Latin schools were attracted to Ramism.25 22 Gillot, La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes; Lecoq, La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes; Fumaroli, La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. 23 Allen, ‘Trilingual Colleges’; De Vocht, History of the Foundation. For background information about this development, see De Ridder-Symoens, History of the University in Europe. 24 Lefranc, Histoire du Collège de France. 25 Ong, Ramus, Method and the Decay of Dialogue; van Berkel, ‘Franeker als centrum van ramisme’, and ‘Ramus, précurseur de Descartes’; Hotson, Commonplace Learning.

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Soon afterwards, Aramaic was added to the university curriculum and other ancient yet living languages such as Arabic, Persian and Chinese soon followed suit. In the faculty of the artes (that is to say in the faculty of arts and letters, not in theology even though they maintained close ties with each other) at the newly founded University of Leiden, for instance, Greek and Hebrew had been taught alongside Latin since 1575. In 1577 Chaldean and Syrian were added, and from 1599 onwards Arabic and the Slavonic languages as well. Under the linguist Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624) who unfortunately died of the plague at an early age, the knowledge of Eastern languages, particularly Arabic, reached an unmatched level of excellence from 1613 onwards.26 The third factor was the rise of the national languages, the modern languages, as a respectable cultural medium with a certain degree of social prestige and well suited not only for business but also for the transmission of culture. More about this factor later on. The fourth factor, not the least important in this process, was the discovery of a great number of languages in the newly mapped continents that were not traceable to Western languages. The discovery of these languages and the scientific question of the origins of the people who spoke them went hand in hand. Both questions had been answered in principle in the first book of the Bible, in the narratives about the sons of Noah (Genesis 9–10) and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), but these stories in the end created more problems than solutions. The academic dispute about the origins of the peoples in the Americas between the linguistic prodigy Hugo de Groot, or Grotius (1583–1645), and the learned director of the West India Company Johannes de Laet (1581–1649) illustrates this. De Laet was a true mercator sapiens – to quote the term successfully coined by Caspar Barlaeus at the inauguration of the Amsterdam illustrious school (one of a number of semi-universities without graduation rights) in 1632 – but also a convinced Counter-Remonstrant Calvinist. Yet he followed the ideas that the Spanish Jesuit José de Acosta (1539–1600) had expressed in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Sevilla, 1580), where he stipulated that in a remote past the Indians had come from Asia. His opponent De Groot thought, on the contrary, that they had recently arrived from Europe and Africa via the Atlantic Ocean. However, Grotius was too caught up in his classical reasoning and, in the area of linguistics, not innovative enough. From our perspective he, therefore, clearly lost the debate.27 26 Juynboll, Zeventiende-eeuwse beoefenaars; Otterspeer, Groepsportret, 253, 343–348. 27 Jacobs, ‘Johannes de Laet’; Schmidt, ‘Space, Time, Travel’; Nellen, Hugo de Groot, 550–555. For de Groot’s ideas on language see also van der Wal, ‘“Grotius” taalbeschouwingen’. For the

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The demise of Latin’s central position as the transnational and universal cultural language that was thought to be superior to others, as Erasmus had still defended it, had far-reaching consequences for linguistic practices overall. Of course, Latin as such did not suddenly disappear from the language circuit but, besides being the vernacular of international Catholicism, Latin, or more precisely neo-Latin, increasingly became the community language of scholars, in other words a sociolect.28 Instead of the functional scope of Latin broadening, as had repeatedly happened to the French language, it was being limited. The scientific and network-oriented publications of the scholars, their correspondence and collections of notes, but also the notes of their students, collections of truisms, proverbs, quotes, mottos and emblemata offer us an insight into the altered usefulness of Latin for the creation of a personal culture, as well as its instrumental function for cultural transmission and moral education. A recently published young student’s notebook that had belonged to Pieter Teding van Berkhout (1643–1713), a regent’s son from Holland, and dates back to 1658–1660, makes clear how a student at a Latin school could play with Latin language sources to develop his own world view.29 Until well into the eighteenth century, scholarly libraries in the province of Overijssel included almost exclusively works in Latin but, over time, works in French were added as well.30 In other words, Latin was still useful but it was no longer vital when, for a particular segment, a more practical language was available. The crucial development in the early modern era was, however, the gradual linking of a specific language to a country – or, to be more precise, to a cultural community that was being given a political form in a sense of nationality. Language gradually became equivalent to a culture, a form of knowledge or a performativity, as for example when Dutch inspired the sailors’ idiom of many countries, or when Italian first became the language of finance and then of opera. One of the earliest measures in this domain was the Edict of VillersCotterêts, issued in 1539, in which King Francis I made the use of the French language compulsory for all legal acts in his kingdom. It thereby also became the language of legislation and public administration because the courts (the parlements) were obliged to examine the legal decisions of the king and his texts see ‘Grotius, Hugo’, Hortus Linguarum, ; the publication programme is presented in De Zeventiende Eeuw, 25/1 (2009), 137–139. 28 For more about early modern scientif ic language use, see Chartier & Corsi, Sciences et langues. 29 Frank-van Westrienen, Het schoolschrift van Pieter Teding van Berkhout. 30 Streng, Kweekster van verstand en hart, 17.

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ministers. This edict was not directed against the many regional languages and dialects, as we might be inclined to think, but against Latin in the public domain.31 However, it did sow the seed for the modern linguistic unification of the French nation. This was to take shape from the French Revolution onwards, first through the radical language politics of the revolutionaries, in particular Henri (‘Abbé’) Grégoire (1750–1831), the constitutional bishop of Blois who presented his Rapport sur la Nécessité et les Moyens d’anéantir les Patois et d’universaliser l’Usage de la Langue française (Report on the necessity and means to wipe out patois and to make the use of the French language universal) to the French National Convention on 4 June 1794, then through the work of his nineteenth-century followers.32 The 1539 edict did not refer to pure French either; the Académie Française started defining it in 1634. Legal French was not identical with the language of lawyers. On the contrary, both in France and in the Dutch Republic, lawyers created another professional jargon, within the standard languagein-the-making, that closely resembled the Latin terminology of Roman Law. In the Dutch Republic this jargon, because of its string of bastardized words, was considered incomprehensible to such a degree that in the later eighteenth century no less than five specialized dictionaries of legal Dutch were printed in succession. The two dictionaries of the illustrious attorney Franciscus Lievens Kersteman (1728–1793) – the Hollandsch rechtsgeleert woorden-boek (Amsterdam, 1768, in-folio) and the Practisyns Woordenboekje (Dordrecht, 1785, in-8) are the best-known examples.33 They read like dutchified Latin–French dictionaries.

Language hegemony The most important sociolinguistic fact of early modern Europe is probably the change in the cultural lingua franca, which was both a consequence of multilingualism and produced further multilingualism. A modern language, French, was now slowly overturning classical Latin, previously the 31 Trudeau, ‘L’Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts et la langue française’. 32 De Certeau, Julia & Revel, Une politique de la langue; Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. For a theoretically informed summary, see Lodge, French: From Dialect to Standard. 33 The Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie in The Hague published a photomechanical copy of the Practisyns Woordenboekje in 2005 with an introduction by J.E. Ennik & P. Brood. Oddly enough, the first edition is missing in the Short-Title Catalogue, Netherlands. This manual was apparently so much in use that, like other old and truly worn books, not a single copy survives in any Dutch public library.

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universal reference language for culture and science.34 In its late medieval version, Latin certainly had not been a dead language in daily life, as Greek had become in western Europe. It was still developing, and all kinds of derived, often simplified, language uses such as church Latin, scholastic Latin or the Latin terms of the medical profession came into existence.35 However, this development was embedded in the fixed patterns that Latin had taken on in antiquity and which the humanists had brought back to ‘life’. From this revival, a new living Latin developed as a Christian-humanist cultural language within a small, highly educated elite, educated at the Latin school. Within the Dutch Republic, the family Huygens, whose members excelled in practical multilingualism, claimed membership in this elite and Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), a highly cultivated civil servant at the service of the stadtholders, is now considered its most perfect representative.36 The humanist ideal of the use of Latin was the imitatio, the attempt to achieve the perfection that written Latin had reached at the zenith of classical antiquity. French, on the other hand, was not only very much alive, but also still developing, despite the increasing codif ication of literary language in France. Those using French could consider themselves part of a living and creative linguistic community. This conviction was reinforced through active contacts with by far the most populous and largest country of Europe at the time and through the increasing prestige of French as a language of distinction for the elite. As Grotius remarked at the time, the daughters of the elite learned in French, while the sons were taught in Latin.37 This changed in the middle of the seventeenth century. Latin did not disappear, but its function was increasingly restricted to academic education and classical scholarship, while French became the general language of culture for those interested in what was happening outside their country, or even around the world, but always in the linguistic variant that was being cultivated and codified in the northern half of France around the royal court and the literary elite. From the moment that French became the international language of reference, in addition to functioning as the modern language of the most powerful political country in Europe, native speakers of French enjoyed an added cultural value, an increase in status and an advantage 34 Waquet, Le Latin, ou l’empire d’un signe; Somerset & Watson, Vulgar Tongue. 35 See for instance Rössing-Hager, ‘“Küchenlatein” und Sprachpurismus’. 36 Hofman, Constantijn Huygens. 37 De Groot, Parallelon rerumpublicarum, III (ed. 1803), 77–78.

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in communication that would soon be exploited in the realm of politics as well. French started to play a special role in a new process of hierarchizing of languages that unfolded according to a mechanism we can describe in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms as distinction and symbolic power.38 French, in other words, acquired a hegemonic position in public transactions, which meant that status seekers now chose French as their language of prestige.39 In 1635, Adriaen Hoffer (1589–1644), a poet from Zeeland and burgomaster in the town of Zierikzee, expressed his grief about this situation in the following poem: How came we to be mixing up the languages to such a degree, Taking a word from this language, taking another from that one? Is it the paucity of our language? Does it confuse our language? No, it’s our unrelenting arrogance that is the cause of this state. 40

Language always has a symbolic, identity-building significance for a specific group, whether we are talking about a professional group (a jargon or specific professional idiom), a social group (the language of youth, of the elite, or a sociolect), a city or regional community (regional language, regiolect, city or regional dialect) or an entire nation (standard language). In particular, national language as the standard is closely linked to processes of unification of the state. Bastardized or mixed linguistic variants such as Yiddish or Bargoens (a Dutch form of slang, pidgin or gibberish), or simplified uses of a lingua franca such as contemporary academic English can acquire a distinct meaning. Their symbolic value as a socially distinctive and defining instrument is more often than not just as important as their strictly utilitarian character. Symbolic value starts playing a role as soon as cultural intermediaries, who take care of transmitting and teaching such languages, appear on the social scene. These cultural intermediaries can be (self-)study books or other media tools, language teachers or other forms of education. The use of these languages and linguistic variants shifts in function, depending on how the group can distinguish itself from other groups in a particular situation – professional groups, for instance, regions, or nations, as well as rivals with 38 Bourdieu, La distinction, and Ce que parler veut dire. 39 For an understanding of this process see Bertelli, ‘Egemonia linguistica come egemonia culturale’. 40 Hoffer, Nederduytsche Poëmata: ‘Van waar koomt ons dit toe te menghen soo de talen,/ End’ dan van dees’ een word, end’ dan van die te halen,/ Is’t schaarsheyd in de taal? Verwert ons die de spraak?/ Neen, d’hooghmoed die ons quelt is oorsaack van de saack.’

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a lower or a higher status. Smaller and qualitatively lesser-valued languages or those that are socially non-dominant will be placed at a disadvantage or rejected. This can happen to a lingua franca as well, as first experienced with Latin and later, in the twentieth century, with French: it first lost its priority in the international user circuit, and as far as French is concerned, its monopoly also in the national community, despite recent legislation to maintain its position (the Loi Toubon, 4 August 1994). The same is true for the relationship between regional languages and the standard language within the borders of a state. The more language proves able to function as a powerful element of social and national cohesion, the more arguments are being developed to justify the hierarchy of languages: the usefulness of such a language, of course, but also its political significance, its linguistic, cultural and even ethical added value. An expression such as Rivarol’s l’universalité de la langue française or the connotations of the Spanish lengua del imperio makes much more than a simple statement about the social utility or the linguistic quality of French or Spanish as an international language of communication. 41 In 1784, at the height of the triumph of the French language as the cultural lingua franca of western Europe, Antoine de Rivarol (1753–1801) gave a lecture with the aforementioned title, for which the Berlin Academy gave him an award. He openly asserted the moral superiority of the French language and of French culture, and explicitly argued for its supremacy in comparison with other modern languages, such as German and English: Of all the languages, French is the only one that has integrity attached to its genius. Dependable, social, rational, this is no longer the French language; it is the human language. 42

Practical multilingualism Early on the greater Netherlands, particularly the large merchant and trading cities in the south (Flanders and Brabant) and the north-west (Holland and Zeeland), was known for its practical multilingualism. Here, this term refers to an individual or a group making use of a variety of languages, both 41 Binotti, ‘La “lengua compañera del imperio”’. 42 Rivarol, De l’universalité de la langue française, 85: ‘Elle est de toutes les langues la seule qui ait une probité attachée à son génie. Sûre, sociale, raisonnable, ce n’est plus la langue française, c’est la langue humaine.’

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in spoken and in written transactions, for the purposes of business, forms of targeted communication or symbolic positions and meanings. Constituted linguistic groups played an important role in this process because it is likely that the corporative order of early modern society strengthened the durability of language diversity under ethnical, religious, and professional groups and thus the factual importance of multilingualism in daily life. A well-known testimony is Guicciardini’s Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi (1567), reprinted, retranslated and reworked no fewer than thirty-three times in one century. Lodovico Guicciardini (1521–1589), a Florentine merchant operating out of Antwerp, was one of the first foreigners to report systematically on his impressions of the Low Countries. He paid special attention to what we would now call the cultural-historical aspects, in particular the cultural practices of the country. In a chapter entitled ‘Qualita et costumi di gli uomini et delle donne’ (Qualities and customs of the men and the women) Guicciardini praises the linguistic proficiency of the Dutch, especially their knowledge of French, a ‘language with which they are very familiar’, but also German, English, Italian, Spanish, as well as lesser-known languages. 43 Of course, this statement must be understood in context. Guicciardini interacted principally with the merchants and the city council of Antwerp – at that time the most important metropolis of the Low Countries – and it is this milieu that must have determined his perceptions. However, he was generally an excellent observer of the broader culture in the Dutch provinces (or transmitter of the observations of others) and there is no objective reason to doubt his observations. In fact, other sources, including ones from far outside Antwerp, reinforce the picture that he had painted. The many friendship albums, for instance, which circulated among the social and cultural elite of the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century fall into this category. Besides the well-known alba amicorum of travelling students, academics and regents, we can note here the lesserknown genre of the women’s alba. 44 The use of foreign languages, both classical and modern, almost goes without saying for young travelling men. But the friendship albums of women who, though they belonged to the social 43 The complete original quote reads as follows: ‘Hanno oltra cio questa scienza delle lingue vulgari tanto familiare, che è cosa degna e ammiranda: perche ci sono infinite persone, le quali oltre alla lor’ lingua materna, quantunque non sieno stati fuora del paese, sanno ancor’ parlare parechi linguaggi forestieri, & specialmente il Franzese, il qual linguaggio hanno familiarissimo, & molti parlano Tedesco, Inghilese, Italiano, Spagnuolo, & altre lingue piu remote.’ Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, 27. For Guicciardini’s work see Jodogne, Lodovico Guicciardini. 44 Delen, ‘Vrouwenalba’; Oosterman, ‘Die ik mijn hart wil geven’.

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and cultural elite, were de facto tied to their home and had considerably fewer opportunities to learn foreign languages abroad, might just serve as better witnesses of the languages that were actually circulating in their milieu, outside academic circles. 45 In the album of Sophie van Renesse van der Aa (1554–1637), who came from Utrecht, there are 138 inscriptions, most of which are in French (many songs and sonnets), fewer in Dutch, and some in Latin or Italian. Among the 250 inscriptions in the album of Margaretha van Mathenesse (1566–c.1640), a noble woman from Holland who married in the duchy of Gelderland, French is clearly dominant, followed by Dutch and Italian, as well as a few sayings in classical languages. Rutghera van Eck (c.1580–c.1650) was a noble woman from Zutphen in the eastern Netherlands. She was twice married to Englishmen, both probably officers from the local garrison, one of them an aristocrat, who also taught English. She collected no less than 472 inscriptions in Dutch, French, German and English, in addition to a few sayings in Latin or Italian. The German inscriptions were often written by locals whose families originated from Germany, or who maintained close ties with Germany, the English inscriptions mostly from officers who were stationed in garrison for a long period. In addition to Dutch, French seems to have been the language with which these women – from three different regions but from the same cultural background – were completely familiar; it might even have been the preferred language for mutual interaction among the cultural elite.

Linguistic positions In researching multilingualism, it is thus most important to distinguish some points of view on language use. Each has a distinct nature. As a rule, we say that language use is either determined by a group or by a situation. But in everyday reality it is, of course, determined by both these factors. Language use is closely connected to the experience of a group identity and thus to a group’s pattern of cultural choice at a certain moment in time and in a particular situation. This is not a fixed pattern, because the group itself changes slowly or quickly over time. The group grows or shrinks, becomes more inclusive or exclusive under the influence of the admission of (at times aggressive) newcomers and the reaction of the core members of the group. Those immigrants who left their home countries for religious, political or 45 Van den Berg, Krabbelen avant la lettre.

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ideological reasons were inclined to push their own original culture and world view aggressively, given that the preservation, not the alteration, of these had been the reason for leaving their home countries in the first place. An eloquent example is the breakthrough of an orthodox form of Calvinism with a strict lifestyle in the northern Netherlands during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, which occurred under pressure from those immigrants from the southern Netherlands whose strict ideology had become dominant at the Synod of Dort (1618/19). 46 It is not that previously in the northern Netherlands there was no breeding ground for this variety of Reformed orthodoxy; we also have to be careful not to lump all immigrants together into a single category. However, the pressure from those forms of what has been referred to in German as Exulantentheologie became the decisive factor. 47 Immigrants often unconsciously valued this new trend in Reformed theology, tending towards extremism, in order to justify their choice of fleeing or resisting, or else they employed it as an emancipation ideology. While translating the Bible on behalf of the States General, from 1626 to 1635, scholars of southern and northern Netherlandic origin therefore explicitly attempted to reach a compromise between the languages of north and south. This translation of the Bible published in 1637, which deeply influenced standard Dutch, carries therefore many traces of the turnaround in the use of group language. 48 A clear insight into the group structures, the institutions, the community-building, and the sociability that marked the seventeenth century is therefore of prime importance for the analysis of language use. The corporate order at all kinds of levels, of guilds and neighbourhoods, citizens’ militias and universities, the categories of citizenship and religious membership, the recruiting customs of the army, navy and merchant navy, and the institutional differences between city and countryside, between cities and between the provinces fast appear as having been essential parameters for the difference in language use. 49 The group with which everybody identifies most from the start provides of course the basic language. Typically, this is the language of the nuclear and extended family, the cultural background in which one grew up and acquired the necessary social skills to function well in society, in other words, the ‘mother tongue’. This implies that in periods of heightened 46 Van der Wal & van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 203–208. 47 See lately Schilling, ‘Peregrini und Schiffchen Gottes’, 160–168. 48 Van der Wal & van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, 221–222. 49 To understand the social order during the time of the Dutch Republic see Frijhoff & Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, 139–225; Prak, Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century.

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migration, be it because of the influx of foreigners who speak a different language or because of the presence of fellow citizens who have a different group language, linguistic reality must have been far more diverse than we often simply imagine. The growing identification of groups of inhabitants, cities and provinces with the federal state resulted first in the standard language becoming the norm for exchange and communication. For increasingly larger groups, Dutch started functioning as the ‘mother tongue’. This became the rule in the eighteenth century, again with the exception of the cultural elite, which distinguished itself linguistically from the rest, as we have already seen in the earlier quote from 1805. The standardization of Dutch and the de facto decline of the plethora of other languages in use in daily life also brought about a revaluation of a consciously cultivated, formal competency in many languages as an asset in specific professional and social situations. While the first stadtholders were bilingual in French and Dutch, knew German through origin and family and Latin through their education, but never made much fuss about it, stadtholder William IV of Orange was being eulogized in 1751 for speaking not only his mother tongue but also Latin, French, English, German and Italian.50 Multilingualism was thus no longer the norm but had become a desirable competence for an ideal administrator and a real asset if he actually was a polyglot.

The language of scholars Depending on the structure of the community, its ties with external groups, and the social functions to be fulfilled within a particular society, multilingualism can become more or less necessary for its smooth operation, without diminishing the primacy of the basic language per se. Seventeenthcentury scholars with an academic background were at least trilingual. In addition to their own mother tongue, they had acquired Latin as their everyday language in Latin schools (the name for grammar schools in the Netherlands). Latin was also the language in which they conducted their research and in which they taught. French, increasingly, was the language in which they corresponded and, over time, the language in which they published, without it being considered an infringement upon the primacy of the basic language.51 50 Wieldraaijer, ‘De sensibele stadhouder’, 201. 51 Frijhoff, ‘Le plurilinguisme des élites en Europe’.

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The Renaissance had brought forth in Holland several influential and creative writers in Dutch, such as Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert (1522–1590), Hendrick Laurensz Spiegel (1549–1612) and Samuel Coster (1579–1665) from thriving Amsterdam, and Simon Stevin from Bruges, who in the 1580s migrated to the north. Ever since, there had been a strong undercurrent among the scholars who had been pushing for research in the mother tongue, Dutch. In 1585 Spiegel unsuccessfully asked the curators of the University of Leiden to make the language of the country, Low German, the teaching language of the university.52 But Low German did become indeed the language of the engineering school, known as the Duytsche [= Low German, Dutch] Mathematycke, that Stevin had designed and which in 1600 was linked to the University of Leiden; and it did not revert to Latin as a teaching language until 1670. Coster on the other hand founded a Nederduytsche Akademie (a Low Dutch Academy) in Amsterdam in 1617, but because of the combined pressure of the Reformed ministers and the academic establishment, this academy had to close down in 1618. In the meantime Dutch continued, slowly but surely, to gain ground as an academic language in the Dutch-speaking regions.53 Partially in reaction to, and as a resistance against, the success of the French language, the enlightened autodidact Pieter Rabus (1660–1702), a follower of Erasmus, founded the first academic journal in the Dutch language, De Boekzaal van Europe in Rotterdam.54 Yet, the mother tongue of the scholars in the Dutch Republic was not always Dutch. In addition to the fact that southern and eastern variants of Dutch were not easily understood in the province of Holland, almost a third of the professors at northern Netherlandic universities and illustrious schools had been brought up in a foreign language. This language was most often German in the linguistic variant from Lower Saxony, because most of the German professors were being recruited from the small Calvinist states in the north.55 Because academic life mostly took place in Latin, many of these professors never learned much Dutch, if any, during their career. The French scholar and refugee for the sake of religion Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), for instance, the spider at the centre of an academic web that covered large parts of Europe, who in 1681 had been appointed a professor at the illustrious school of Rotterdam, remained mentally locked up in French and Latin. 52 Dibbets, Twe-spraeck vande Nederduytsche Letterkonst, 11. 53 Frijhoff & Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, 231–233. 54 De Vet, Pieter Rabus. 55 For more information about these professors, see Frijhoff, ‘Excellence, amitié ou patronage?’

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He was completely incapable of buying a pretzel at the bakery in the local language.56 The Dutch retaliated by never translating any of his many influential works, known all over Europe, from French into Dutch. Though he was certainly a key figure in the European Enlightenment, and was of great importance for philosophy, it is not at all clear whether he had any real influence outside French-speaking circles in the Netherlands itself.57 Not all scholars, obviously, appreciated Latin – independently of the fact that the Latin of many a student was quite poor. The complaints about the bad quality of the students’ Latin skills increased over the centuries. Botanist Rembert Dodoens (Dodonaeus, 1517–1585) published his Cruijde Boek (Book of herbs) on purpose in Dutch to be of service to ‘both laymen who do not know any Latin and scholars’.58 Due to a lack of formal educational options and the institutionalization of their field of knowledge, there is a de facto break between the French- and Latin-speaking worlds of those we would call scholars in the narrow sense of the word. It is the mental distance between those who had received an academic education in their specialization, and the Dutch- and sometimes also French-speaking world of technicians, engineers, inventors and discoverers, the geniuses and virtuosi, who were more often than not autodidacts in their professional speciality. They were the first to benefit from the scientific idiom that Stevin developed in Dutch with neologisms and technical terms, which is still partially in use today. Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) is the prototype of a differently educated scholar with a dissimilar outlook. In his early years, he learned some Latin in a small grammar school in the village of Warmond, but he did not receive a fully fledged Latin education. He worked in a technical position, as surveyor and wijnroeier (a municipal employee tasked with measuring the wine barrels that arrived in the city in order to calculate the taxes due), a field in which he had passed exams as well. However as a rule, a Dutch scholar was at least trilingual. He had learned Dutch (or a different mother tongue) at home, Latin at Latin school, and French from a language teacher, in the evenings from the school director, or during his Grand Tour after his studies, occasionally also at a so-called French school.59 This was a school for elementary or secondary education at which French was both the most important subject as well as the language 56 About Bayle: Bost, Pierre Bayle. About his network: van Lieshout, Making of the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique. 57 See Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 331–341. 58 Van der Wal, De moedertaal centraal, 37. See also Roelevink, ‘Het Babel van de geleerden’. 59 About the Grand Tour of the Dutch, see Willem Frijhoff, ‘Éducation, savoir, compétence’.

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in which all school subjects were taught.60 These languages did not cancel each other out but had complementary functions. The learned professor Daniel Heinsius (1580/1581–1655) from Leiden was, for instance, not only a skilled writer in neo-Latin but also an important Dutch poet in his time.61 And this not simply by chance but both for scientific reasons and because he did not consider the social environment of the citizen of the Dutch Republic inferior to the international world of scholars in the Republic of Letters. Knowledge of Latin was less common for women as they were more or less excluded from the institutional forms of secondary and tertiary education. Famous exceptions such as the versatile language genius Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678) confirm the rule.62 However, given the great number of French schools for girls, such forms of exclusion did not concern the French language. Not only among the elite but also among the well-established bourgeoisie as well as a part of the middle class, French was, for those women who could afford to learn it, an important language of daily use that ensured them a position in the world of culture and science.

Immigrants The borders of province, country or nation do not forcibly limit the frame of reference for a linguistic community. In the seventeenth century, this was self-evident. The transnational significance of Latin and French is a case in point. The repeated pleas for the use of one national language also show that, for a long period, there was no automatic agreement between language and nation. In theory, Dutch-in-the-making was the most obvious language for most of the inhabitants of the Republic, but in reality, the northern Netherlands was a multilingual society. First of all, of course, because of the minorities from other languages that had, more or less definitively, settled 60 About French language teachers, see Kok Escalle & Strien-Chardonneau, ‘Apprentissage de la langue’; Bödeker, ‘“Sehen, hören, sammeln und schreiben”’. It is not always possible to distinguish between a French language teacher and a French school because the term ‘school’ had several connotations and often simply meant ‘instructional opportunity’ or ‘class’. There is no satisfying comprehensive study of the French schools. Attempted syntheses in Frijhoff, ‘Van onderwijs naar opvoedend onderwijs’; Esseboom, ‘Via microstudies naar een verantwoord macrobeeld’; Dodde & Esseboom, ‘Instruction and Education in French Schools’; van de Haar, ‘Van “nimf” tot “schoolvrouw”’. 61 Ter Horst, Daniel Heinsius; Bloemendal, van Dixhoorn & Strietman, Literary Cultures. 62 De Baar et al., Anna Maria van Schurman; De Baar, ‘God Has Chosen You to Be a Crown of Glory’.

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in the provinces and cities of the Republic, not only in Holland, but also, particularly those coming from Germany, in the provinces of the interior. Language is the pre-eminent instrument for social interaction. No single immigrant can avoid language contact with those around him who speak a different language. It is precisely for this reason that linguistic practice is a very sensitive topic both for the immigrants and for the host community. It refers directly to the social culture and the sense of identity of the group in question and, as such, forms one of the basic instruments for processes of identification and integration. The processing of this language contact, the topic of sociolinguistics, can of course take different forms. To name some of them: – the unconditional transition to the vernacular, the standard language or the group language of the host community; – full conservation of one’s own language, or conserving and cultivating this language in situations in which one’s group identity is threatened; – forms of semi-communication between related languages in which everyone keeps speaking their own language at a simplified level that guarantees mutual understanding; – forms of language mixture such as the formation of dialects, pidgin (simplified linguistic communication by speakers who do not share a common language), creolization (creation of a new fixed linguistic variant through mixing languages) or koineization (adaptation of the spoken language through language contact between speakers of linguistic variants who in principle can understand each other).63 Jan Lucassen has estimated that foreign immigration to the province of Holland alone – which in its best years had as many as 800,000 inhabitants – added up to some 500,000 or even 600,000 people during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The German states contributed the most migrants. Among this group of more than half a million people, there were at least a 150,000 refugees for confessional or political reasons.64 As far as permanent migrants go, we can bring to mind religious refugees (Lutherans, 63 Kerswill, ‘Koineization as Language Change’; Kerswill & Williams, ‘Creating a New Town Koine’. 64 Summary in Lucassen, Immigranten in Holland; Lucassen & Penninx, Newcomers; Lucassen & Lucassen, Globalizing Migration History. For the Scottish, English and German immigration at Rotterdam: van de Laar et al., Vier eeuwen migratie. For the textile city of Leiden, with her large group of Walloon immigrants: Lucassen & de Vries, ‘Rise and Fall of a Western European Textile-Worker Migration System’. For German immigration into Utrecht: Rommes, Oost, west, Utrecht best?

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Calvinists, Catholics or Baptists) from Flanders, Wallonia and Germany, war refugees, Scandinavian seafarers or housemaids, British sailors on warships, the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews and, last but not least, the many tens of thousands of soldiers from foreign regiments recruited in other territories of the Holy Roman Empire and in France, England or Scotland. The German soldiers not only brought along their language but often also the Lutheran religion. They cultivated both in combination, as the Walloons did with French at the end of the sixteenth century, and the Huguenots again a century later.65 The Sephardic community of Amsterdam is a good example of how multilingualism functioned in practice: Portuguese was its official language, Spanish the language of writing, Hebrew the language of prayer, and Dutch the language in which interactions with Christians took place.66 Besides permanent migration, there also existed many forms of semipermanent or temporary stay. We can think of the Puritan exiles, for instance, or English merchants, or again the many Germans. Germany provided a large, seasonal contingent of migrant workers who regularly spread across large parts of the western Netherlands. There were also peddlers who travelled the countryside with their wares. Some of these families of migrant merchants later settled permanently in the Netherlands, especially from the nineteenth century onwards, and rose to considerable wealth: Brenninkmeijer, Vroom & Dreesmann, Peek & Cloppenburg, Voss, the names are still familiar in the landscape of the traditional Dutch department stores. They were called bovenlanders (or coming from the higher lands), since they normally came from north-west Germany, the territorial counterpart of the Low Countries. Because of their temporary residence, but also because, in many cases, they were Roman Catholics and thus at a safe distance from the tentacles of the public church, they avoided being registered longest. Nevertheless, we know that there were tens of thousands every year.67 The research of the late Amsterdam municipal archivist Simon Hart (1911–1981), which drew upon the local marriage registers to investigate the geographic origins of brides and grooms in early modern Amsterdam, has brought to the fore the number of foreigners living in the large cities of the western Netherlands. Between 1600 and 1800 no less than 36 per cent of the grooms and 21 per cent of the brides who had their marriages registered 65 Frijhoff: ‘Modèles éducatifs et circulation des hommes’; Loonen, ‘Influence of the Huguenots’; Frijhoff, ‘Uncertain Brotherhood’; van der Linden, Experiencing Exile. 66 Dodde, Joods onderwijs. 67 Lucassen, Naar de kusten van de Noordzee.

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in the city of Amsterdam had been born outside the Republic; in absolute terms we are talking of a little over 183,000.68 Women outnumbered men by far in the early modern metropolis. In early modern Amsterdam, there were 5 women for every 4 men. The men were often at sea, in transit or in the army.69 Let us take a closer look at the Scandinavians, among whom there were quite a few from Norway. With 24,920 marrying over two centuries, they make up 14 per cent of all foreigners in Amsterdam, considerably fewer than the Germans who were more than 100,000, yet a non-negligible group. In addition, it is likely that besides the foreigners who married in Amsterdam, there must have been young people looking for work who did not marry, who left Amsterdam or died before getting married, or who were widowed.70 All these immigrants made up an important part of the Lutheran population of Amsterdam, at first mostly clustered together in the immigrant neighbourhood between the Nieuwmarkt and the Oudeschans, and later in the poorer sailors’ neighbourhoods. Most married within their ethnic community and integrated, due to language problems, much more slowly into the local society than the many Germans, who originated mostly from regions in which Low German was spoken. The different Scandinavian groups in that particular social environment probably continued speaking their mother tongue for a lengthy period, as is demonstrated by the fact that they requested sermons in their own language in the predominantly German-speaking Lutheran community in Amsterdam. In addition, they spoke a more or less modified migrant Dutch, which, together with German, also influenced the city dialect of Amsterdam, in a form of koineization.71 The German regional languages, considered boorish babble, were frequently the object of ridicule in both comedies and straight-up satires about de ‘poepen’ or ‘moffen’ as the common Germans were known pejoratively in those days. Thomas Asselyn’s farce De Stiefmoer (The stepmother, 1684), in which penniless people from Westphalia are portrayed as vagrants who fleece their host, is a case in point. Anti-German sentiment was clearly expressed in the frequently reprinted popular prints and books featuring naive or stupid German peasant immigrants. Popular examples are the Historie van Luckevent, ofte een Kluchtige Vertellinge van een Westpheelschen Bueren 68 Hart, Geschrift en getal, 144, table 10. 69 Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 107–108; Kuijpers & van de Pol, ‘Poor Women’s Migration’. 70 About the German and Scandinavian migrants: Kuijpers, Migrantenstad. 71 Mike Olson (Utrecht) is preparing a PhD dissertation on the koineization of the city dialect in Golden Age Amsterdam. Vice versa: Kloeke, De Hollandsche expansie in de 16e en 17e eeuw.

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Soone, dewelck by de Klercke-maker besteet wert om het Doctors-handwerk the leeren or De historie van Slenner-Hincke, ofte een Kluchtige Vertellinge van een Westpheelschen Bueren Soon Vojagie na Holland, met de Graswade, both in Westphalian dialect. A great number of these anti-German farces were eventually published in an anthology called Den Westvaelschen SpeelThyun (Amsterdam 1661, Utrecht 1687), put together by a nobleman, Baron van Bevervoorde from the province of Overijssel, on the German border, but which, given its layout and typeface, was clearly intended for a broad working-class audience.72

Regional languages and regiolects The second reason why multilingual society remained a reality was that, although Dutch culture was soon setting the standard for literary life in the Republic, the daily linguistic reality was still for a large part determined by regional languages. Important examples are Frisian-Gronings in the north, Lowlands Saxon in the eastern provinces, and Zeeuws and Brabants in the southern provinces, not forgetting the urban dialects, including the vernacular of Amsterdam itself and the so-called Stadsfrys (or Town Frisian).73 The linguistic reality in Friesland (or Fryslân), where Frisian, at first glance, seems to have been a fully fledged regional language, is in fact rather difficult to assess. For in the seventeenth century Dutch was used in Friesland as the language of culture and administration. Only (occasional) poetry was being written in Frisian, with Gysbert Japicks (1603–1666) being the most illustrious example.74 72 I consulted the copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (not included in the STCN): Den Westvaelschen Speel-Thyun, Door-zaeyt en Beplantet met veel Vermaeckelijke Kluchten […] (Utrecht: J. van Poolsum, 1687). De historie van Slenner-Hincke was distributed in 1668 as broadsheet (Arnhem, Gelders Archief, Archive of the Family Van Rhemen, pamphlet 147), and appeared later with its own title page (Amsterdam: widow Gijsbert de Groot, 1709, reprinted in Groningen in 1719, Amsterdam 1730 and 1761, with a sequel in 1768). Included is typically also the older evergreen Historie van Lukevent (2nd ed., Zutphen: Derck van Broeckhuysen, 1634; 5th ed., 1649) together with a third comical dialogue about the Bovenlanders, Tewesken Kinderbehr. On this literary genre: Postma, ‘In hoeverre het type “slenderhinke”’. 73 Frijhoff & Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, 227–230. To understand linguistic reality in Overijssel during the seventeenth century and the effects of religious politics on the pronunciation of the regional language see van Rheenen, In Holland staat een ‘Huis’; Heeroma ‘De taalgeschiedenis van Overijssel’. See also van Bree, ‘Development of So-called Town-Frisian’. 74 Frijhoff & Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, 230–231; Spies, ‘Friese literatuur en de Nederlandse canon’; Oppewal et al., Zolang de wind van de wolken waait.

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Differences in regional pronunciation remained noticeable even where the speaker had already de facto assimilated the standard language. As late as 1679 Constantijn Huygens, for instance, ridiculed the eastern dialect of Johannes Vollenhove, the celebrated minister from Overijssel (and friend of Huygens) in a telling poem.75 In the States General, there were complaints that the western representatives did not understand their eastern colleagues very well, though in the course of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries these kinds of communication problems must have diminished as the western Dutch variant gradually became the standard language of the upper class throughout the Dutch Republic. In any case, the sizeable internal migration within the Republic turned such linguistic contact with others into a commonplace reality. Diverse groups identified themselves – either voluntarily or otherwise – with cross-border linguistic communities: commerce, science and culture juggled with various languages, sociolects and group idioms in order to reach out as broadly as possible. That the local Dutch first criticized the linguistic practices of immigrants from Flanders and Brabant, and a century later the Frenchification of the cultural elite, is well known. Thirdly, various forms of lingua franca in different areas of social life (trade, crafts, the sciences, war and defence, administration, culture, religion) made multilingualism a necessity for many residents when interacting with each other. Already in the late Middle Ages two languages, Italian and French, had acquired a dominant position as lingua franca in the areas of trade and financial interactions; in both cases this was due to the economy and the political leverage of these territories, but also the size and the dissemination of the population that spoke these languages. A different lingua franca – literally ‘the language of the Franks’ – arose in the countries around the Mediterranean, a pidgin based on Romance languages but which also included elements of Arabic and Turkish. This mixed language enabled direct communication between Arabic, Turkish and European trading partners and seafarers without any one of them being able to claim a hegemonic position, although the Turks and the Arabs considered it ‘the language of the Christians’.76 From Venice, Genoa and Florence, Italian dominated the maritime trade and the world of finance in southern Europe, and soon afterwards from the royal courts and the papal court, it also dominated diplomatic relations and the culture of the court. From there, Italian spread to the north. The papal 75 Worp, De gedichten van Constantijn Huygens, VIII, 242–243; Dibbets, Johannes Vollenhove. 76 Wansbrough, Lingua Franca; Dakhilia, ‘La langue franque méditerranéenne’.

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nuncios and other representatives of the Pontifical State, who together formed one of the most important international networks, cultivated Italian as their language of communication even in later centuries, which meant that anyone with an interest in their mediation had to adapt to their linguistic practices. French was traditionally the language of continental trade – France was not only the most centrally located country in western Europe, that could not be ignored geographically, but it also had by far the most populous territory, with an enormous economic potential and a similar political weight.77 It is not a coincidence that the French King felt entitled to a ‘universal monarchy’ (monarchie universelle). His language, in the langue d’oil version that was being spoken in the northern core regions, asserted itself as the dominant variant in international communication, despite the success of other linguistic variants in the southern, prosperous regions of the langue d’oc. French was also the language of the Burgundian court in Brussels and of the first Habsburg monarchs.78 Starting with the revival of French culture under Francis I (king from 1515 to 1547) but especially from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, French gradually advanced as the language of the new French court culture. In terms of influence, the French court culture in Europe replaced the Italian and the Spanish court cultures, slowly but surely. In the process, French became the working language of international relations. Paris, Fontainebleau, then Versailles and Marly became unavoidable poles of civilité, civilization and culture.79 From this linguistic situation, the French themselves eventually derived a pretention of universality of their language that they based on its intrinsic superiority – just as Simon Stevin had earlier postulated for Low German. The above-mentioned 1784 Rivarol tribute to the ‘universalité de la langue française’ marked the emotional zenith of this development. Besides language pride and pessimism, we also see here a stunning example of language pretentiousness. Upon closer examination, this was also the moment when the international quasi-monopoly of the French language among the educated population, that is to say the European Bildungsbürgertum, 77 See for what follows Frijhoff, ‘Verfransing?’, ‘L’Usage du français en Hollande, XVIIe–XIXe siècles’, and ‘Le Français en Hollande après la Paix de Westphalie’; Frijhoff & Reboullet, Histoire de la diffusion. Earlier works dealing with the Low Countries remain relevant as well, especially Brunot, Histoire de la langue française, V (1917), 194–274; VIII (1934), 189–229; Riemens, Esquisse historique. 78 Boone, ‘Langue, pouvoirs et dialogue’. 79 Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft; Montandon, Pour une histoire des traités de savoir-vivre, and L’Honnête homme et le dandy; Muchembled, La société policée.

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gradually gave way to German for literature, theology, technology, pedagogy and the sciences, and to English for novelists, philosophers, economists and social reformers.

Education in foreign languages French dominated all other modern foreign languages taught in the Low Countries from early on, even in the northern provinces.80 Since public education took place either in the language of the country or in Latin, only these forms of education were registered systematically, therefore, with a few exceptions, only information about these can be found in our government archives. For this reason, it is extremely diff icult to get a comprehensive overview of the different educational forms that existed at the time: language instructor, private teacher, the mutual education model and so on. Data about private teachers and governesses have to be accessed through family archives and private collections. Besides, it is likely that there were fewer then we typically imagine, because the wellto-do always dominate our sources.81 The very rich who could afford to employ, in addition to household servants, a private tutor or a governess as well, attract more attention than the masses who had to learn without any help. Additionally, the service sector was driven by fashion, by changing educational ideals and by the supply of the linguistic market. Persecutions of all kinds mobilized quite a few exiles for religious, cultural or intellectual reasons. In general, they were better at working with their head than with their hands, and hoped to make some money with the use of their basic skills – their mother tongue, behavioural model and values. There were large numbers of language instructors, but they too were not systematically registered, if only because they often worked in several professions at once. They eventually either established themselves, took up a 80 Caravolas, Le Point sur l’histoire de l’enseignement des langues, provides a simple but clear synthesis of the development of (foreign) language education. For the Netherlands: Baardman, ‘Geschiedenis van het onderwijs in vreemde talen’; van Els & Knops, ‘History of the Teaching of Foreign Languages in the Low Countries’; and for an analysis of the pedagogical methods: Noordegraaf & Vonk, Five Hundred Years of Foreign Language Teaching in the Netherlands. A study that addresses the issue on a European scale: Schröder, Fremdsprachenunterricht 1500–1800 (see also Schröder, ‘Plurilingualism in Augsburg and Nuremberg in Early Modern Times’, in this volume). 81 For a summary overview of the French governess in early modern Sweden: Hammar, ‘La Française’; Hardach-Pinke, Die Gouvernante; Maeder, Gouvernantes et précepteurs neuchâtelois.

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different profession or joined a different guild. In university towns they could also register at the university and in this way gain some privileges and protection.82 If they were not a member of one of the rare schoolmaster’s guilds, they could still be traced in several situations, be it with some difficulty: – if they paid fees to request an educational monopoly in a particular language; – if they had been a certified, sworn translator; – if they had been paid officially by the magistrate or by another institution (the East or West India Company, or the Admiralty) for work as an interpreter; – if they had published textbooks under their own name; – or, from the later seventeenth century onwards, if they had placed announcements in newspapers or, still another century later, through address books. The image that I am about to sketch here is, in other words, by definition tentative, fragmentary and indebted to the available sources. French already dominated other modern languages in the sixteenth century, as the publications of one of the most important language instructors from the southern Netherlands, Gabriel Meurier (c.1513–1598), demonstrate. He was born in Avesnes in French-speaking Hainaut, but between 1557 and 1582 he worked in Antwerp. In the twenty-four multilingual schoolbook editions that he authored, French is used twenty-four times, Spanish three times, English twice and Italian once.83 These ratios coincide with those for the language education of the 194 schoolmasters active between 1541 and 1600 in the city of Antwerp. Almost all of them mention Dutch and French, whereas fewer than 1 in 10 also refer to Spanish (16), Italian (15) or English (1).84 A cross section from the year 1576, when the Antwerp schoolmasters’ guild of St Ambrose registered the subjects that the male and female instructors were teaching, confirms this with even more precision. Of the 80 male instructors 77 taught ‘Diets’ (Dutch), 75 French, 10 Spanish, 6 Latin and 1 English; of the 70 female instructors 69 taught ‘Diets’, 52 French and 1 Spanish.85 82 For French language instructors, see the summary article with extensive bibliography by van Strien-Chardonneau & Kok Escalle, ‘Van Parival tot Baudet’. 83 Bingen, ‘Les éditions d’œuvres en langue italienne à Anvers’, 183. See also: Van Selm, ‘Some Early Editions of Gabriel Meurier’s School Books’; De Clercq, ‘Gabriel Meurier, een XVIe-eeuwse pedagoog’. 84 De Groote, ‘De zestiende-eeuwse Antwerpse schoolmeesters’. 85 Bourland, Guild of St Ambrose, 62.

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The enduring spread of French as a language of communication in the Dutch-speaking countries is eloquently illustrated in the sales figures for compact language textbooks for merchants, administrators and travellers.86 Authors from the southern Netherlands such as Gabriel Meurier, Peeter Heyns (1537–1598, worked in Haarlem) and his son Zacharias (1566–1638? first in Amsterdam, later in Zwolle), dominated French language education in the north.87 The fall of Antwerp (1585) brought a substantial flow of skilled refugees to the north. Among them were many French-speaking Walloons, but also bilingual Flemish schoolmasters, who, like the Huguenot refugees of the Second Refuge a century later, gave the dissemination of the French language a tremendous boost.88 The success of the refugees cannot simply be reduced to the practical forces of the labour market, however. As the biographies of the members of the Heyns family make clear, they also played an active role in public life, in the Rederijkerskamers or Chambers of Rhetoric, in ecclesiastical institutions, in promoting singing and theatre, and in the didactic distribution of the moral norms of Erasmian humanism. The multitude of languages that they spoke and the cultures that were attached to these languages turned the refugees into the avant-garde of a tolerant world image that was open to diversity and pluralism.89 Of course, we must take into account that the language instructors, who taught several languages at once, were not native speakers in all of them. We should, therefore, have no illusions about the quality of the language instruction that was being offered. The large demand for textbooks in modern languages can be concluded from the publishing success of the most important authors, almost all of whom were schoolmasters teaching French and Dutch. Let us take a look at the early sixteenth-century language instructor Noël van Berlaimont (also referred to as Barlamont or Berlemont, or simply Noël), who probably died in 1531. We know very little about his life, and his productivity was limited. He wrote a dictionary (1511), a small book entitled Die conjugacien in Franchoys ende in Duytsch oft in Vlaams, as well as a small conversation book. However, his Vocabulaire (Vocabulare, Vocabulaer, 1527) was probably the most frequently printed book of its genre in the early modern period: until 86 Merchant manuals often include practical dialogues and a targeted vocabulary: Hoock & Jeannin, Ars mercatoria. 87 About the family Heyns: Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, II (1912), 574–579; Moes & Burger, De Amsterdamsche boekdrukkers, IV, 174–285; Dibbets, ‘Peeter Heyns’ Cort onderwijs’, and ‘Peeter Heyns: Een “ghespraecksaem man”’; Meeus, ‘Zacharias Heyns’. 88 Briels, De Zuidnederlandse immigratie, ‘Zuidnederlandse onderwijskrachten’, and Zuidnederlanders in de Republiek; Frijhoff, ‘Migrations religieuses’. 89 Noël, ‘L’École des filles et la philosophie du mariage’.

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1759 there were more than 150 known editions in many variations.90 From 1557 onwards, we also encounter editions of the Vocabulaire in the northern Netherlands: first in Rotterdam, then in Delft, Flushing, Middelburg, The Hague, Leiden and Amsterdam. Its distribution and spread across many cities not only documents the growing trade contacts between France and the early Dutch Republic, but also the rise of French as a language of culture. In the Netherlands, the Vocabulaire was for learning foreign languages what the name Bartjens, another schoolmaster, was for arithmetic.91 Even more important in this respect is that this was not a simple, common French–Dutch dictionary.92 The Vocabulaire was a lot more. It was a practical, pocket-size guide meant to be carried around. Initially it contained, besides an alphabetic dictionary, pronunciation rules, dialogues, model letters, contracts, and even a few prayers. Over time, other materials were added such as conversations prescripted for the road, the market or the tavern, further explanations of syntax, spelling or pronunciation, tables for verb conjugations, rules of proper conduct, and advice for travelling students. But it quickly turned into a polyglot instrument for practical multilingualism. In the Antwerp edition of 1576 there were already six languages, in the Leiden edition of 1593 there were seven – Dutch, French, Latin, German, Spanish, Italian and English – and from the 1598 Delft edition onwards, to which Portuguese had been added, there were a total of eight languages. Outside the Netherlands, Breton, Bohemian or Polish were sometimes added. The need to learn several languages simultaneously was reflected in the qualifications that important language teachers attributed to themselves. One such was Nathanael Duez, or Dhuez (1609–after 1679?), a renowned language instructor from Lorraine, who had travelled across half of Europe before arriving in Leiden, where, from about 1639 onwards, he taught in French, German and Italian and wrote various language textbooks as well.93 The way in which the former Huguenot minister Barthélemy Piélat (1659–1681) marketed himself as a ‘professeur de langues hébraïque, grecque, 90 Riemens, Esquisse historique, and ‘Hoe men in de zestiende eeuw in Nederland Fransch leerde’; Aubert, ‘Apprentissage des langues étrangères’; Colombo Timelli, ‘Noël de Berlaimont’. 91 The name of schoolmaster Willem Bartjens (1569–1638) has become proverbial in colloquial Dutch because of his arithmetic book Cijfferinghe (1604), reprinted countless times. 92 A substantial amount of similar French language texts (including those of Meurier and Berlaimont) are listed in the auction catalogue of Cornelis Claesz of Amsterdam, 1610, see Van Selm, Een menighte treffelijcke Boecken, 234–242, 275–283. 93 Loonen, ‘Nathanael Duez’, and ’Nathanael Duez as an Example of a Distinguished Language Master’.

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latine, italienne, française, allemande, hollandaise et anglaise’, in a reprint of his Anti-grammaire, is an even clearer example.94 Just as Latin and Dutch, French too was a language of instruction. What was unique about the French schools being created in the majority of cities and towns all over the country, and in the case of private schools sometimes even more than one per city, was not that French was being taught there, but that French was the general language of instruction for all subjects. One could also learn French outside school from one of the many French language instructors who, after each wave of Protestant persecution in French-speaking regions, such as Wallonia, France and Savoy, settled in large numbers in the Republic. And one could, of course, learn French through self-study via the many teaching methods such as the extraordinarily popular dialogues in the Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre les principes & l’usage des langues françoise et hollandoise of Pierre Marin (1667–1718). Since it first appeared in print in 1698, it was reprinted without many changes for more than 150 years.95 According to the Short-Title Catalogue, Netherlands the earliest version of Marin’s textbook to be found in any of our large libraries, is the eighth edition that had been published by the widow Kurtenius in Deventer back in 1710. The years of the Second Refuge, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, were thus characterized by a substantial increase in the demand for French language lessons. At the same time, the fact that almost all the copies of the first seven editions have been lost, suggests that these French language textbooks were in such heavy use that they had become completely worn and were not considered worth saving. In French schools, French was not only a subject but it was the language of instruction and conversation for other subjects, as Latin was in the Latin schools. Therefore François Halma could say in 1710 that: ‘the French language has become an essential element of education in the Republic. There are even several offices that one cannot hold without knowledge of this language.’96 For a very long time, French persisted as an active language of communication, also used to develop intellectual thought, to formulate values and to learn other languages. Especially as the lingua franca of 94 L’Anti-grammaire du Sieur Barthélemy Piélat (Amsterdam: Jean Jeanson de Waesberghe, 1672), 2nd ed. 1681, cited by van Strien-Chardonneau & Kok Escalle, ‘Van Parival tot Baudet’, 4. About the members of the immigrant family Piélat: Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, V (1921), 501–506. 95 Loonen, ‘Is die P. Marin onsterfelijk?’, and ‘Marin als maat voor de Franse les’. 96 Halma, Dictionnaire flamand et françois, pref.: ‘la langue Française est devenue une partie essentielle de l’éducation dans la République des Pays-Bas unis. Il est même plusieurs emplois que l’on ne peut obtenir sans la connaissance de la langue.’

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everyday exchanges among European citizens, French critically supported the dissemination of the French Revolution across Europe, though the available sources do not suggest that speaking French was at all synonymous with Revolutionary ideas or even Francophilia. Those who opposed the revolution made use of French as well. At that time, French simply was the most widespread and the most effective instrument for international communication. Nevertheless, in his well-conceived projects for the innovation of elementary and secondary education from 1792, the principal (rector) Gerrit Vatebender (1759–1822) from the city of Gouda, one of the most important pedagogical innovators of the Patriot Period, as the Dutch revolutionary era is commonly called, did not consider French a foreign language that ought to be taught separately but rather a domestic language of instruction for other subjects – this in contrast to the other foreign languages such as Latin, Greek, German, English and Italian, which remained foreign to him. His attitude towards French was thus comparable to the tendencies in the present-day Netherlands to use English as a general language of instruction in secondary education, if not already in elementary school. Even before the French took over the helm of the Batavian Republic and made French its second administrative and business language for a few years, the revolutionary citizen had by nature been bilingual French–Dutch in the eyes of rector Vatebender.97 No wonder then that Carolina van Haren reminded her young son, count Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp (1762–1834), one of the authors of the 1814/15 Dutch constitution, that his mother tongue was actually made up of three languages: the language of books (Latin), of letters of cultural communication (French) and of everyday spoken communication (Dutch).98

Language knowledge Despite all appearances, French as a foreign language never had a monopoly. In particular sectors of society, and for specific uses, other languages besides Dutch, such as neo-Latin, Italian, High German or English, and occasionally even Spanish and Portuguese (not just trade languages but also the 97 Vatebender, ‘Plan van een Nederlands Opvoedings-school’. In his Antwoord op de vraag, welke wijze van opvoeding is de meest verkiezelijke?, Vatebender proposes a strictly meritocratic educational reform. See Noordman, ‘Onderwijsdemokratisering in de Patriottentijd’; Lenders, De burger en de volksschool, 58–60, 259–264; Frijhoff, ‘Valeurs militaires, élites civiles’. 98 De Beaufort, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, 37.

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languages of daily use of the wealthy part of the Jewish community), sometimes played an important role as well. Moreover, the level of knowledge and the level of use of foreign languages varied considerably. Those who had attended Latin schools, universities or illustrious schools were supposed to know Latin actively, and mutatis mutandis the same applies to French schools. Ideally, people leaving these schools had reached a level of bilingual competency (diglossia) and of active proficiency in the other language. But today’s Dunglish had its equivalent in early modern Dutchified French and Dutchified Latin; at times, professors of Latin as well as visiting French native speakers deliberately pointed this out. During the seventeenth century, approximately 3 to 5 per cent of adult men in the Dutch Republic knew Latin, while during the eighteenth century only half of these were familiar with the language.99 Among women, active knowledge of Latin must have been rare because, until the nineteenth century, they did not have access to public Latin schooling but they were socialized in international culture through the French language. A learned woman such as Anna Maria van Schurman, who spoke eleven classical and modern languages and who could write letters both in Latin and in Greek as well as in Hebrew and Aramaic, was a major exception, according to the norms of those days, though there were women with similar renown in other countries. The disadvantaged position of women in the early modern public domain prevents us from giving an accurate picture of language knowledge among women, but even contemporaries considered Anna Maria a literal miracle.100 We cannot provide precise information about the percentage of native Dutch speakers who knew French, because they must mostly have had a passive knowledge of the language that cannot be located in written or printed sources. Reading French was of course easier than speaking French. But we surely should not exaggerate that percentage either. Travelogues and diaries of foreign travellers make it quite clear that the elite showed off their knowledge of the French language, especially towards foreigners (as is the case with English in the Netherlands today), but that ordinary people had little affinity for and knew even less about it.101 The tragicomic experience of Claude Saumaise (1588–1653) speaks volumes. Saumaise (or Salmasius) 99 Frijhoff, ‘Crisis of Modernisering?’ 100 De Baar, ‘Schurman, Anna Maria van’. More generally about learned women and their linguistic knowledge: Rang, ‘Jus fasque esse in Rempublicam Litterariam’. 101 Examples from Murris, La Hollande et les Hollandais, who underestimates the penetration of French into the middle classes through the network of the French schools and through self-study with textbooks.

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was a top French scholar who, after much ado, had been appointed in 1631 at the University of Leiden due to his international reputation and tremendous erudition. After a short return to France, where the king had tried to convince him to stay, Saumaise once again moved to the Republic in 1636, but he still was not able to express himself in Dutch. He arrived by boat in Brielle on Christmas Day, 1636. Despite the holiday, the captain, unscrupulously, put him ashore with all his possessions. In the pouring rain, and for three long hours, he and his family searched for a hostel where they would understand what he needed, only finally to be led to an obscure pub by a soldier of the garrison who could only babble a few words in French.102 If we are hoping to discover more than just a loose pattern of the knowledge of French based on similar anecdotes and lucky finds, or if we want to see more than the supply side, then we have to turn to sources from the end of the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century when the first statistics in the cultural domain were being generated.103 These sources will probably reflect reduced individual polyglossia but they will give us a good impression of what the dominant foreign language was and how it was distributed. According to an educational survey conducted in 1811, the first with reliable numbers, French was at that time being taught in 361 elementary schools of the former Kingdom of Holland (that is to say, the provinces north of the great rivers Meuse and Rhine) to a total of 10,055 pupils, both boys and girls, or approximately 2.8 per cent of the age group between 6 and 13 years of age. Among boys, 2.4 per cent of those between the ages of 12 and 17 received their secondary education at a French boarding school; 1.2 per cent of the pupils attended Latin schools. For girls the percentage of pupils taking French between the ages of 12 and 15 is 1.9 per cent; they were still excluded from Latin education.104 102 Ibidem, 161–162. Saumaise to Dupuy, Leiden, 16 February 1637: ‘Le jour venu l’on nous met à terre, par un temps où l’eau du ciel n’estoit point espargnée à ceux qui marchoient sans parapluie. En cet estat, il nous convient estre sur le pavé, trois heures durant, sans pouvoir trouver de couvert ni hostellerie où l’on entendist notre langue, car, d’estre ailleurs nous ne pouvons, n’ayant personne qui pût demander ce qui nous falloit et nous avions besoin de plusieurs choses, Enfin, après avoir bien cherché, un soldat de la garnison qui dasticotoit un peu le français nous adressa à un petit cabaret où nous nous mîmes à l’abri de la pluye.’ 103 See Klep & Stamhuis, Statistical Mind in a Pre-statistical Era. 104 The Hague, National Archive, Internal Affairs before 1813, inv. no. 999, exh. nos. 160 and 261. All documents of these periods concerning the school system, including the French ones, such as the well-known report of Cuvier and Noël and that of Baron d’Alphonse, go back to this survey that had been conducted under the direction of Inspector General Adriaan van den Enden. See the presentation and computations in Frijhoff, ‘Van onderwijs naar opvoedend onderwijs’, and ‘Université et marché de l’emploi dans la République des Provinces-Unies’, 223. For further

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This record-keeping does not take self-study into account or, for that matter, adult education, an area in which language acquisition has always been important, judging by the large number of language instructors and textbooks. Francophone immigrants had been significantly more numerous during the seventeenth century than in the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth, and most of the offspring of these immigrants spoke mainly Dutch, except when inside the Walloon Church. Yet, the annexation of the Dutch provinces by the French Empire reactivated the knowledge and use of French in daily life, even outside school. Weighing this combination of observations makes it plausible that the number of those who knew some French and could get by in that language must have been much greater around 1810, perhaps as many as 10 per cent of the population, including women. Their number was not only much greater than that of the Latin speakers, which was much more strictly tied to schooling, specific professions, and social class, but also much greater than the school numbers suggest. Knowledge of French penetrated the lower social classes, the middle class and specific professional groups with ties to France, such as fashion and luxury crafts, furniture and watchmakers, the visual arts and later surgery. Passive knowledge of the language must have been much more extensive in the early modern period than we know, or than we can surmise, given that we do not have any sound recordings of conversations from the Golden Age. The very first source that, to my knowledge, documents the multilingualism of individual people in terms of groups, is the registration of the language skills of students attending the artillery schools founded during the Batavian Republic in Zutphen and Groningen in 1797: of the 37 students, 24 knew French, 12 German, 5 Latin and 1 English.105 Ten years later, on 1 July 1807, there were 122 cadets enrolled at the Royal Military Academy in the new, Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland. Only 6 of these had no knowledge of French whatsoever (in other words, for 95 per cent of them, speaking French was common practice); 26 cadets were able to express themselves in German, both orally and in writing; 14 knew Latin; but only 10 understood a ‘significant’ amount of English.106 Twelve years later, at the candidate entrance exams for military training in Delft in 1819, all 27 reading about the broader context see the chapter, ‘Education’, in Kloek & Mijnhardt, 1800: Blueprints for a National Community, 243–264, which includes the results of my own research as well. 105 Janssen, Op weg naar Breda, 142–143. 106 Ibidem, 217.

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candidates had a good knowledge of French (undoubtedly a side effect of the French occupation from a few years earlier); 16 of these also knew German well, 5 English and 2, once again, still knew Latin.107 These proportions seem to reflect the hierarchy of languages in the late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic quite well, particularly the rapidly changing relations between the stabilized French and the growing prestige of the German language, as well as the very small percentage of the population that was still schooled in classical languages. We do have to take into account, of course, that French was a typical continental language, dominant in the land army for which military training prepared the cadets, whereas English had traditionally been more important in the navy. Here too, we are not necessarily talking about the cultural elite. Rather, the candidates were recruited from the middle classes, from the ranks of government officials or from the military cadre itself. These outcomes are in line with the (incomplete) national educational survey conducted by the State Council in 1799. The ‘subjects of education’ are listed for the 29 registered French schools included in this survey, frequently boarding schools. French was taught at all 29, being both the language of communication and that of instruction; this was the standard curriculum, together with writing and maths classes (23 times) and geography (17). In addition, the pupils could learn English at 7 of these schools, German also at 7 of these schools, and Italian at 1 school. It is striking that French was being taught 2 to 3 times more often in the provinces of North- and of South-Holland than in the other provinces, mostly by private language instructors, but that the schools with the broadest curriculum were practically all located outside Holland and were public schools. This was true, for instance, for the then famous boarding school of John Brown in Arnhem, the only school at which, besides French, English too seems to have been in use as a language of communication and at which, exceptionally, Latin could be learned as well; or for the school of Jean-Charles Clement in Bois-le-Duc. The widest range of subjects was offered at the boys’ boarding school in Zwolle: there you could learn all of these languages, though you had to pay extra for English, German and Italian.108 Italian, still prominently present in the private libraries of intellectuals and regents in the seventeenth century, had been reduced to a minimum by now, while 107 Ibidem, 295. 108 The Hague, National Archive, State Council, inv. no. 523. This very detailed survey, which describes the complete educational supply from the academies (i.e. universities) to the elementary schools, was published by Boekholt, De onderwijsenquête van 1799.

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Spanish had completely disappeared. German was clearly gaining ground and English was already increasingly popular here and there, which could perhaps be explained by the pronounced hostility between England and France.109 In the latter there was also a repeated plea to introduce German into the curriculum during the secondary education reforms in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Such was the case for example in the trading city of Lyons (in addition to Italian and Spanish) or at Sorèze, an expensive elite boarding school in southern France (in addition to English and Italian).110 We do, of course, have some concrete indications of the passive knowledge of languages in the seventeenth century since a language that is passively mastered can be read, as well as listened to. Reading culture leaves traces, and in the eighteenth century there were more of these traces, and they could be exploited more systematically than in the seventeenth century. The proportion of different languages in the books of a private library provides some indication of the level of popularity and the use of languages in different sectors of daily life, though everybody knows that a bought book is not by definition a book that has been read, and that books were also sometimes passed on from generation to generation. The expansion of reading culture in the eighteenth century, surely, also promoted the passive knowledge of foreign languages. French, in one way or another, often made up the lion’s share of the foreign books in a private library, except for the libraries of those professional groups where Latin was still dominant, as was the case with lawyers and the clergy. Libraries of Catholic priests, however, contained a considerable amount of spiritual literature in French; on average 8.4 per cent of French works in 5 clerical libraries of the seventeenth century with a total of 1,263 titles, as compared with 71.7 per cent in Latin, 17.7 per cent in Dutch and the remaining 2.2 per cent in Italian, German, English and Spanish.111 A sampling of 25 catalogues of private libraries auctioned off between 1754 and 1802, produced a total of 43,872 book titles, or 1,755 per auction, with a bandwidth between 494 and 2,866 titles per catalogue.112 On average 15.4 per cent of the titles are in French, 2.9 per cent in German, and 2.2 per cent in English. In 109 See also Fabian, ‘Englisch als neue Fremdsprache des 18. Jahrhunderts’. 110 Julia, ‘Une réforme impossible’, 63 and 68. 111 Frijhoff, ‘Vier Hollandse priesterbibliotheken’, 209; See Frijhoff & Heijting, Hollandse priesterbibliotheken, for the 1,329 books of the 5 clerical libraries currently part of the library of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 112 The sample was taken from the auction catalogue collection in the National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague (nos. 3442,4453, 4485, 4558, 4592, 4599–4600, 4619, 4634, 4639, 4709,

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addition, there were a few titles in Italian (less than 1 per cent). One third of these belonged to the library of De Salis, the Swiss lieutenant general in service of the state, and 86 to the estate of painter and historiographer Frans van Mieris the younger (1689–1763). There were also a few Spanish titles (less than 1 per cent), a handful of Portuguese books (5 titles in 1 catalogue) and Swedish (1 title). We find French books in all catalogues, English, German and Italian ones in more than two-thirds of these, occasionally books in the other languages. German and English (8.2 per cent) books were comparatively overrepresented in the collections of the three medical doctors of the sample, including those of the famous Petrus Camper (1722–1789), first a professor in Groningen, later member and chair of the Council of State. It is difficult to draw precise conclusions from such data about book ownership and the language use of those noted as the owners of these libraries, since booksellers and auctioneers quite often added unsold leftovers to the lots. But the overall picture is clear: French stood its ground but encountered increasing competition from German and English, which were slowly taking on the role of the new languages of science.

Frenchification? The Frenchification of the Dutch, frequently seen as one of the culprits of the revolution, should be critically re-examined, in much the same way that the current accusation of the dangerous inroads English is making into Dutch should be explored. Still, the French language was spoken in a great many places. To the native-born Dutch who learned French as a second language, large groups of people who used it as their mother tongue have to be added for the beginning as well as the end of the seventeenth century. From the end of the sixteenth century onwards, many tens of thousands of refugees from the southern Netherlands came to the Republic, between 100,000 and 150,000 depending on the underlying hypothesis. The ‘Brabant’ dialect that they brought with them already sounded strange and ‘bastardized’ to Dutch ears.113 It was still a form of Dutch, however. In our view the south is now predominantly Flemish-speaking with chunks of French dangling underneath. But in the years before it whetted the appetite of Louis XIV, the south had been considerably larger. That larger part, from Boulogne, 4716–4717, 4721, 4909, 5017, 5384, 5402, 6506, 6521, 7135, 7351–7352, 8229), and from the municipal archive in Rotterdam (Thomas Hoog, councillor at the court, 1781). 113 Frijhoff, ‘“Bastertspraek en dartele manieren”’.

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Arras, Lille and Douai to Cambrai, Valenciennes and Avesnes, was almost completely French-speaking, and typically more heavily Reformed than the Flemish-speaking northern part, especially among artisans and workers in the textiles sector. Thus, besides Flemish speakers, a great number of French speakers came to the Dutch Republic as well, from Artois and the southern parts of the province of Flanders that were later annexed by France, at the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) and Nijmegen (1678), such as Lille and its surroundings, Douai, Hondschoote, Bergues-Saint-Winoc and Saint-Omer. Tens of thousands arrived in Amsterdam, Leiden and Haarlem. Without distinction, they were all called Walloons, and as French speakers were supposedly able to communicate with each other, even though the west Flemish hybrid forms of Dutch and French, the accent from Hainaut and a fortiori the tricky dialect of Liège, spoken by many, must have been completely unintelligible to a Parisian, and even more so to a simple Dutchman who had learned French from a textbook. Cultured French functioned as their lingua franca, and already in 1586 they were given their own church organization, with a separate Reformed synod. In fact, they gathered in specific neighbourhoods, stayed and married among themselves, and formed a specific subculture, somewhat comparable to the proto-‘pillarization’ of the Dutch churches in the early twentieth century. This massive presence of French speakers formed the basis for the expansion of the bonds of trade and craftsmanship with France. Given the prestige of French as the international language of culture, and as lingua franca, the relative autonomy of the French-speaking population did promote an increase in the prestige of the French language, with status seekers eagerly joining the movement to distinguish themselves from the common people. In addition to being the church of native French speakers and their offspring, the Walloon Church, with its slowly dwindling numbers, became in the eighteenth century also the ‘posh’ church, where the small, French-schooled upper crust could mark itself as culturally ‘higher’ than those who attended the Dutch Reformed Church.114 Countless satires of the seventeenth century are dedicated to the linguistic effects of this social and cultural drive for status. Constantijn Huygens already made fun of the many Gallicisms in the speech of the young people of The Hague in a poem entitled Voorhout (1621). With great glee, Andries Péls (1631–1681), member of the Amsterdam literary society Nil Volentibus Arduum which, among other things, fought for an improvement in the quality of the Dutch language, describes how the hero (unsurprisingly called François) in his comedy De 114 Frijhoff, ‘Uncertain Brotherhood’.

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Verwaande Hollandsche Franschman (The snooty Dutch Frenchman) not only follows French fashion, uses French bastardized words, spews halfbaked French sentences, but also gets excited by titles, as is fully appropriate for an inhabitant of the hated France of the Sun King. French language and French culture, but just as much Francophile cosmopolitanism, were seen as the major wreckers of patriotic morals. During the eighteenth century, via the critics writing in the many Dutch cultural periodicals, a growing ‘Frenchification’ was made the focus of a real identity crisis for the national community, until the Napoleonic adventure reset the debate, and French was finally reduced to its basic utilitarian and cultural functions.115 How seriously we should take the charges of Frenchification remains difficult to judge, since France turns into a political opponent during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, at which point the entire discussion becomes embedded in political, moral and ideological opinions. But there can be no doubt that the French language was widespread among the elite. To give just one example: it is remarkable that the members of the ancient knightly Snouckaert van Schauburg family, who had been active in the army of the Dutch Republic since the seventeenth century, and whose family archives contain the correspondence of two centuries, wrote their letters in the early seventeenth century in Dutch, sometimes punctuated with French, German or English, but that, by the middle of the eighteenth century, they wrote only in French.116 In the Fagel family, government officials over two centuries, the use of Dutch increased, however, at this particular time at the expense of French, which had earlier been the administrative language.117 During the seventeenth century, a balance quickly developed between the use of Dutch and French in person-to-person contacts. As merchant apprentices, Dutch youths moved to the French trading cities, f irst to Paris, Rouen, La Rochelle and Nantes, later also to Bordeaux and Lyons, where large Dutch colonies developed, sometimes with as many as a few thousand inhabitants, rivalling the Scottish colony in Rotterdam, or the English ones in Middelburg and Amsterdam. Equally, French youths came to the Republic to learn Dutch, given its importance as a trade language. 115 Frijhoff, ‘Verfransing?’, 592–609; Buijnsters, Spectatoriale geschriften, 85–88. 116 The Hague, National Archive, Family archive Snouckaert van Schauburg (1.10.76), inv.nos. 140–148, 193–221, 260–290. See also Head, ‘Plurilingual Family in the Sixteenth Century’, for a fine analysis of multilingualism in the letters of the Swiss De Salis family (from Graubünden, Grisons) at the beginning of the seventeenth century, especially the gendered character of these letters as well as the consciousness of the significance of language use in specific situations and connections. This is the same Salis family as cited earlier. 117 The Hague, National Archive, Collection Fagel (1.10.29), inv. nos. 2024–2025, 2424–2430.

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Aernout van Overbeke (1632–1674), a lawyer from The Hague, included an amusing anecdote about this in his collection of jokes from the third quarter of the seventeenth century.118 A merchant from the small Friesland town of Molkwerum exchanged his own son for that of a French merchant, who came to learn the language and the commercial practices. When the three-year apprenticeship was over, the proud French father, wanting to show off his son’s Dutch skills, invited over a couple of Dutch merchants. Unfortunately, they could not understand a single word. During the days of the Dutch Republic, Molkwerum was considered the embodiment of a primitive town to which high-ranking foreign visitors were taken to see its nonsensical layout, the outlandish costumes of the women, or to hear its inhabitants babble in an incomprehensible language (a Frisian dialect) thought to be a relic of Old Saxon.119

Emerging competitors German and English were not often actively taught in the Dutch Republic. Pieter Loonen has taken exhaustive stock of the English-learning opportunities in the Netherlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while also paying attention to the relative position of English on the linguistic market of the Dutch Republic.120 Few French schools included English in their curriculum, but in the larger cities one could find English language teachers in various places, occasionally teachers from other schools knew English as well, and there were here and there small, private sole-proprietor English schools, or boarding schools, but these were seldom long-lived. Nevertheless, a steady flow of English textbooks and dictionaries was being produced, and, at the English and Scottish churches in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, instruction opportunities were regularly available. After the Dutch Revolt, many Dutch from the northern and the southern Netherlands, who had escaped Alva’s repression and fled to England (where they spent a good ten to fifteen years), now returned to the young Dutch Republic. As we saw in the case of Baudartius, who also translated a book by the Puritan pietist William Cowper, they functioned there, thanks to their

118 Van Overbeke, Anecdota, 93/518. 119 De Jong, De dirigenten van de herinnering, 44–51. 120 Loonen, For to Learne to Buye and Sell. This study also contains an analysis of the Vocabulaer of Berlaimont (1576), 189–209.

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English language skills, as cultural brokers of English culture and religion, especially of its Puritan spiritualism.121 Still, passive knowledge of the English language must have been many times greater than can be anticipated from such data. There were Englishmen and Scots in many cities in Holland and Zeeland, traditional trading partners of the English Crown, but also in the cities of the non-maritime provinces. In addition to the trade relations of the maritime provinces with England (the merchant adventurers) and Scotland, and the foreign regiments of the Dutch army scattered over the garrisons in the interior provinces, we should keep in mind the effects of religious persecution in England and Scotland, which repeatedly drove considerable groups to the Dutch Republic, including the royal family itself during Cromwell’s Republic.122 The English church (such as the one in the Begijnhof in Amsterdam), or the Scottish church (for example the one in Rotterdam) were the local cultural centres of significant groups of immigrants. They also did not, as did the Lutherans, the Baptists and the Catholics, have to keep a low profile because of their religion, since their church communities were considered sister churches of the Dutch Reformed Church; they could thus openly promote themselves. In the Scottish church in Rotterdam, English was spoken in the Scottish variant. Because of the language barrier, the Scottish church council, and not the magistrate, mediated when there were conflicts within the Scottish community. The quotes in the minutes clearly show that Scottish English remained the usual language of the many Scots in Rotterdam, and that, for the most part, they were unable to express themselves in understandable Dutch.123 Immigration from the German states, whether or not for religious reasons, created a far more substantial, permanent flow, not only into the major cities in Holland and in Utrecht, but also into the eastern and northern parts of the country. Here, the continuum of the cultural space across the borders and the linguistic unity of the eastern Netherlands with the borderland played a considerable role. Many Germans, in fact, came from close-by, except for those who had fled the disasters of the war. Eastern and northern Friesland, Westphalia and Lower Saxony, the cities of Cleves and Jülich, the Rhineland and the Palatinate were their most common regions of origin, of which Cologne can be considered the geographical pivot. Cologne was 121 Eßer, Niederländische Exulanten im England; Schoneveld, Intertraffic of the Mind, and Sea-Changes; op ’t Hof, Engelse piëtistische geschriften in het Nederlands. 122 Sprunger, Dutch Puritanism, and Trumpets from the Tower. 123 Catterall, Community without Borders; Gardner, Scottish Exile Community in the Netherlands.

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the cultural capital of the eastern borderland of the Netherlands, from the high Middle Ages until the early seventeenth century, when the cultural orientation of the Dutch toward the coastal regions gradually increased. For the Catholics of the northern Netherlands, Cologne remained, even in the early modern period, the second centre of culture and education behind the conglomerate of the large cities of Antwerp, Leuven (Louvain), Brussels and Mechlin (Mechelen) in Flemish Brabant. Groningen was considered the sister city of Emden. Cities such as Cleves, Emmerich, Wesel, Münster, Duisburg and Düsseldorf were within reach for the average Dutchman, and the language problem only played a minor role, since the regional language remained close to Dutch for a long time, and in these cities there had also always been Dutch colonies. The Dutch liked to visit these places, and the practically still Dutch-speaking town of Kevelaer became, in the second half of the seventeenth century, a pilgrimage destination for hundreds of thousands of Catholics from the Netherlands, a retreat destination par excellence.124 In addition, there were other groups of Germans who passed through the Republic. They made up a substantial part of the regiments of the Dutch States army and, with their wives and children, populated the garrisons in many cities near the frontier. The many German bovenlanders from Lower Saxony, both Catholics and Protestants, who returned every year as seasonal workers to the Low Countries, have already been mentioned. In almost all of these regions, some type of Lower Saxon was spoken, or a more or less understandable form of Low German, but gradually High German imposed itself as a cultural language in these regions as well.125 Besides, German travellers of any kind of social standing preferred not to speak Dutch in the Republic since, in their eyes, this language was rather close to the hardly prestigious, rural Lower German. They communicated rather in High German or French.126 In any case, gradually during the course of the eighteenth century the Francophilia that had dominated the Netherlands turned into an increasing admiration for German culture and German science. We see this turnaround in the remarkable breakthrough that German literature, philosophy, pedagogy and, subsequently, also medicine and the sciences experienced in the Netherlands during the second half of the eighteenth century.127 German modernity, embodied in Leibniz, Wolff and 124 Wingens, Over de grens. 125 For the status change of Low German see Sanders, Sachsensprache. 126 Bientjes, Holland und der Holländer im Urteil deutscher Reisender, 139–145. 127 For translations from the German and for reviews of German titles see van Eijnatten, ‘Paratexts, Book Reviews, and Dutch Literary Publicity’, and ‘History, Reform and Aufklärung’.

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Kant, Campe and Basedow, Lavater and Gellert, Klopstock and Lessing, Goethe and Schiller, sharply contrasted with the tradition-bound culture of the French that had become somewhat worn out. 128 German Pietism takes over from English Pietism, the pleasure-and-study trip to the German states replaces the Grand Tour or petit tour through France and Italy, and in the eighteenth century the newly founded German universities constitute real centres of innovation. Since the end of the seventeenth century, Halle had been the first university in Europe where instruction took place in the language of the country. In Göttingen new academic fields were being developed, particularly the emerging study of ethnology that was to play an important role in the identity-building process of the new Netherlands. These were the universities where young Dutch students, who would later head the innovation processes of their national culture, registered en masse.129 And what about English? It was around, mainly in literature and philosophy, and, here and there, in eighteenth-century sciences, especially in the physical sciences, but it was much less visible than German, even though many English texts were being translated. In daily life, however, English played almost no role. One example: in the captions of Christiaan Andriessen’s Amsterdam diary drawings from 1805 to 1808, which are close to the spoken Dutch of everyday life, we find some French and German expressions and, every now and then, even a Latin one, but not a single English expression.130 Of course, Andriessen came from a Lutheran family which, because of its religious background, was closer to German. French was at that time the dominant language for business and culture, and England was the enemy. But still...

Overseas: Multilingualism in Dutch America In the colonies, however, English eventually became the most important competitor of Dutch. We will now cross the Atlantic Ocean and land in New Netherland, a trading area owned by the West India Company around the current City and State of New York.131 As commander and administrator of the company, governor Willem Kieft (1602–1647) had been residing in a 128 Spoelstra, De invloed van de Duitsche letterkunde; van Ingen, Holländisch-deutsche Wechselbeziehungen; Jordan, ‘Niederländische Lyrik’; van Gemert & Geuenich, Gegenseitigkeiten. 129 For the second part of the eighteenth century, see Kouwenberg, ‘“De kennis der Duitsche taal”’. 130 Hoogenboom, Gerlagh & Stroop, De wereld van Christiaan Andriessen, 15. 131 A shorter version of the following paragraphs has appeared in my essay ‘Hoe talig is groepsidentiteit?’

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small fort in New Amsterdam, the administrative centre of New Netherland, located at the southern tip of Manhattan, since 1638.132 Willem was in his thirties, had been born into an old Amsterdam family of brewers and merchants, and had been raised in Amsterdam. He had attended Latin school and was fluent in Latin, though not perfectly, as the few surviving letters attest – typical of the school Latin of the semi-schooled. The principal of that school was an Englishman, Matthew Slade (or Sladus), and that explains perhaps why Kieft was later able to communicate with John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, in English. Together with his father, Willem had started out in the copper trade in Scandinavia, mostly in Sweden, something that must have come in handy when interacting with the great number of Swedish immigrants in his colony. Willem Kieft had been educated as a merchant in La Rochelle, where he later also worked for a couple of years in the wine trade (and, by the way, went bankrupt). French remained his favourite cultural language. When in 1638 he had the chance to appoint a new member to the New Amsterdam political council he did not pick a Dutch speaker from the northern Netherlands but rather a French-speaking Huguenot, the physician Jean Mousnier de la Montagne (1595–1670), born in the Saintonge region (south of La Rochelle) but educated in Leiden in Latin. La Montagne married Rachel de Forest, a daughter of Jesse de Forest from Avesnes-sur-Helpe, a French-speaking town in Spanish Hainaut – the same town, incidentally, from which the above-mentioned language teacher Gabriel Meurier originated. Jesse de Forest (1576–1624) was a cloth merchant who, for religious reasons, had first moved to French-speaking Sedan, at the time an autonomous, Protestant principality. In 1621–1623, having settled in Leiden, he mobilized fifty-six French-speaking families to colonize Virginia and, when the English king did not grant him permission to do so, he left for Guyana, at the Amazon estuary where, unfortunately, he died of heat stroke.133 His Walloon followers returned first to the Dutch Republic but soon after, sailed back to North America, where they became the French-speaking base (though with a passive knowledge of the Dutch language) of the very first settlers of New Netherland. From the beginning, they compelled the government of this Dutch colony to pursue a policy of multilingualism. 132 See Frijhoff, Fulfilling God’s Mission, 452–523. For a broad survey, see Jacobs, Colony of New Netherland; Venema, Beverwijck; Shorto, Island at the Center of the World; Krabbendam, van Minnen & Scott-Smith, Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations. 133 De Forest, Walloon Family in America; Peters, ‘Volunteers for the Wilderness’; Van Ruymbeke, ‘Walloon and Huguenot Elements in New Netherland’.

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Even before there were ministers, there were two comforters of the sick, Jan Huygen, a brother-in-law of the first governor Peter Minuit (the man who in 1626 had ‘bought’ Manhattan from the Natives), and Bastiaen Jansz Krol (1595–1674). Huygen, who came from the city of Cleves across the German border, must have spoken with a Low German accent, and he also spoke French. Krol spoke Dutch – well: he came from Harlingen, had Frisian parents and was married to a girl from east Friesland; in addition, he had worked as a caffawerker in Amsterdam, a particular branch of the textile industry in the hands, by and large, of the Walloons, and therefore would have known French, at least passively.134 Low German in the Dutch variant remained the language of the administration of the West India Company, of policy and law enforcement, but there are several indications that daily language use in early New Netherland did not comply with a set standard.135 The soldiers of the garrison were largely of German origin, coming from the Rhineland, the Palatinate, Saxony or even farther away, and they spoke both High and Low German, as their names, and other everyday traces of language use, make clear. The immigrants from the Netherlands almost all came from the provinces of the interior, from the rural parts of Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland and Utrecht, and these would have spoken mostly in their regional language, often a Lower Saxon dialect. German immigrants, such as the brothers Kierstede, who in 1631 had fled the burning city of Magdeburg, originally spoke High German, but the German surgeon Hans Kierstede married Sara Roelofs, a stepdaughter of the Dutch minister Everardus Bogardus. Sara was born in Amsterdam: her father (who died when she was nine years old) was probably a Swedish speaker, and her mother a Norwegian one. She later served as an interpreter during the peace negotiations between colonists and Natives, no doubt because she must have picked up the local Indian languages as a child in Rensselaerswijck, the agricultural colony next to what is now Albany where her father had worked as a tenant farmer.136 When the Danish former sea captain and freeholder Jonas Bronck (after whom the Bronx is named, and who in 1638 had married the Dutch Teuntgen Jeuriaens in Amsterdam), died in 1643, an inventory was drawn up of his estate. It included both Reformed literature in Lower German for Teuntgen, as well as Lutheran literature in High German for Jonas himself: 134 Eekhof, Bastiaen Janszoon Krol, and De Hervormde Kerk in Noord-Amerika, I, 28–32; Frijhoff, ‘Misunderstood Calvinist’. 135 See Buccini, ‘Dialectical Origins of New Netherland Dutch’. 136 Frijhoff, Fulfilling God’s Mission, 408–411.

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there was a German Luther Bible in-quarto and a folio Bible in Dutch (most probably of Reformed origin), the Lutheran Church history of Johannes Sleidanus, and the Gansche Catechismus Lutheri in German, beside John Calvin’s Institutes, Heinrich Bullinger’s Huisboek (a very popular collection of sermons for domestic use, by this Swiss reformer, Zwingli’s successor at Zürich), the Sunday sermons of Abraham Scultetus, a Calvinist court preacher at Heidelberg in the Palatinate, and an Ars moriendi in Dutch by the Genevan pastor Simon Goulart. But this estate also included Dutch professional literature for the captain that Jonas once had been, such as the Seespiegel in-folio (a Sea Mirror, either Willem Blaeu’s marine atlas from 1623 or the widespread atlas of Lucas Jansz Wagenaar from 1584), two Schatcamers in small folio (a helmsman’s manual), ҆t Gesicht des Grooten Seevaerts by Jan Hendricksz Jarichs (a collection of nautical charts of his invention, published at Franeker in 1619) and the cosmography of Petrus Apianus in the adaptation by Gemma Frisius (1609). Dutch was at this point the professional language for seafarers, including foreign officers and captains. Bronck, moreover, had lived some time in Amsterdam on the Brouwersgracht. But the captain had also brought along some practical books in Danish, including a calendar, a Cronyck, a Rechtbode (a legal aid) and, surprisingly, a Kinderboeck.137 Were children raised in the language of the father after all, rather than in the language of the political authority? Was reading a paternal instead of a maternal practice? Or was this children’s book an emotionally cherished memory of Jonas’s own childhood? Daily language use in the colony was, in any case, far from uniform. The relatively few immigrants from cities and towns in Holland and Utrecht spoke to each other, according to the quotes in the sources, not only in Dutch but sometimes also in French; even the fashionable Italian was used at times.138 The black slaves originally spoke an African language but generally the Portuguese had already baptized them in their home countries and minimally converted them to Christianity. As lingua franca they probably used Portuguese, which their Portuguese first names, and names referring to their origin (Anthony Fernando, Francisco Negro, Marie Grande and Sebastiaen de Britto de Santo Domingo) also make clear. However, they probably quickly developed forms of what later has been called Negro-Dutch. Soon thereafter, legal acts would bear its imprint.

137 Ibidem, 360. 138 Ibidem, 471–472.

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The local population, the Native Americans, spoke of course one or more Indian languages. Europeans promptly tried to learn these, if only in rudimentary pidgin form for trade purposes, since trading with the Indians was precisely what initially interested the colonists.139 The more literate among them immediately drew up elementary word lists of the languages of the Mohawk tribe around Fort Orange (now Albany): surgeon Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, for instance, when he took an exploratory expedition to these regions in the winter months of 1634/35, and minister Johannes Megapolensis, in a letter back home.140 But generally they were not very successful and had at best a very rudimentary grasp.141 As Megapolensis wrote, the virtually impenetrable grammar of the Indian languages, with its declinations, conjugations and augmenta, often made him look like a fool when attempting to speak with the local population. Yet, there were Dutch people whose reputation derived from the fact that they were able to communicate with the Indians in their own languages: the above-mentioned Frisian Bastiaen Jansz Krol, for instance, who, starting in 1623, worked subsequently as comforter of the sick in New Amsterdam, as commies (commissioner) in Fort Orange, interim director of New Netherland and, until 1644, again as commissioner; because of his many public functions, he had frequent contact with the local population. Another example is director Wouter van Twiller (1606–1654) from the town of Nijkerk in Gelderland, the successor of Peter Minuit as director of New Netherland from 1633 to 1638, and a chaotic administrator, who was, however, much loved among the Indians. Or even more so, his second cousin Arendt van Curler (1620–1667), equally from Nijkerk, a far more intelligent colonist, also commissioner in Rensselaerswijck, and in 1661/62 founder of the town of Schenectady near today’s Albany, in the heart of Mohawk territory.142 Which language or what linguistic form was being used in which circumstances should be examined more closely, though that will not be easy given the scarcity of sources concerning daily life – what does become clear from the legal acts, however, such as from the trial of the prostitute Grietje Reiniers, is that a lot of cursing and swearing went on in Dutch.143

139 Buccini, ‘Swannekens’, 11–28; also the classic article by Feister, ‘Linguistic Communication’. 140 Gehring & Starna, Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country; Megapolensis, Een kort ontwerp (1644), reprinted in Beschrijvinghe van Virginia; new editions of both texts can be found in Waterman, Jacobs & Gehring, Indianenverhalen, 75–111. 141 See also Hanzeli, ‘De la connaissance des langues indiennes de la Nouvelle-France’. 142 Merwick, Possessing Albany, 45–67; Burke, Mohawk Frontier; Venema, ‘Arent van Curler’. 143 Frijhoff, Wegen, 708.

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But I am not so interested here in the range and diversity of languages as in their significance for identifying speakers of a certain group – for group identity, in other words. We do have one unambiguous testimony. In the autumn of 1643, the French Jesuit Isaac Jogues (1607–1646), who had been dreadfully tortured by Indians from the Mohawk tribe, temporarily resorted to the authorities of New Netherland, first in Fort Orange, then in New Amsterdam. Though a Jesuit and a missionary, he was warmly welcomed by governor Kieft and the Reformed ministers, who pampered him as a martyr for the Christian cause.144 For the Europeans, ethnic solidarity apparently outweighed religious differences, and the governor finally had a chance to catch up on his French with a real Frenchman. Isaac Jogues wrote a brief report about his stay in New Amsterdam. He recounts, as one of the noteworthy moments, that the governor proudly announced that in his little town of a mere 500 inhabitants, as many as 18 languages were spoken (‘dix-huict sortes de langues’).145 For governor Kieft, who constantly adjusted his language use to that of his particular interlocutor, it was not the linguistic unity of a territory but rather the diversity of languages that gave him a sense of pride. He thought of it as a major characteristic of the group identity of his colony. It was an element of strength. On the other hand, the Europeans regarded the diversity of Indian languages as a threat. The native languages, with their completely different linguistic structure, formed, of course, a permanent and disheartening challenge to the Europeans. Reverend Megapolensis had already complained that no single Christian managed to speak the language of the Mohawks well. They knew enough for trading purposes, but even the basics of the language remained obscure. During tense times, the lack of communication formed an extra element of suspicion. But there is one testimony that gives us a hint. In his attempts to learn something of the Indian languages, Megapolensis sought the assistance of the commissioner of Fort Orange, who had been living in the area for years.146 When the minister had asked a Mohawk for the meaning of a certain word, he had always been given different answers. One gave him a verb in the present tense, the next in the past tense; one made use of the first person, the next of the second person, and conjugations and declinations remained a complete mystery. The minister 144 Frijhoff, ‘Jesuits, Calvinists, and Natives’. 145 Jogues, Novum Belgium; Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, 259–260. 146 Van der Donck, Beschrijvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant, 77. This commissioner has been identified as the earlier mentioned Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, as well as Bastiaen Jansz Krol.

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continually made mistakes. But the commissioner had a convenient answer. He believed that the Indians changed their language every two to three years, on purpose, so that the white people would not be able to learn it. This was a cause for concern, if not for fear. In this case, language primarily functions purely as an instrument. Functionally determined, it can vary depending on the context. Thus, the commissioner’s testimony fits well with the colonists’ overall representation of the Indians whom they considered to be pagan barbarians, without culture, or with a culture that ran completely counter to European codes.147 But the verdict of the commissioner also makes clear that language was regarded as an essential element of the group identity of the Indians, given that, by now, this had also become the case for the Europeans. Through language, they made themselves known and visible, and the lack of linguistic knowledge not only made mutual communication between ethnic groups impossible, it also veiled the collective identity of the native population, fueling the mistrust and fear of the Europeans. Language and group identity turn out to be closely linked, and group identity here shows its linguistic nature, as narrative construction and as social reality. Surprisingly, the Dutch language actually developed and was maintained better after the Dutch were no longer in charge and the English took over in 1664 (and permanently in 1674) in what was to be called New York.148 At that point, the Dutch language became a basic characteristic of Dutch ethnicity, including for those colonists who did not come from the Netherlands at all but who simply appropriated the culture of the Dutch ethnic group. It was in linguistic matters that the Dutchness of the ethnic Dutch held up the longest, against the dominance of the English language.149 There is a well-known anecdote according to which, in the wake of American independence, the ballot of the representatives of the State of New York for Dutch to be the national language, fell short by only one vote – otherwise Americans would be speaking Dutch today.

147 Schmidt, Innocence Abroad. 148 For later developments of the Dutch language in North America: Gehing, Dutch Language in Colonial New York, and ‘Survival of the Dutch Language in New York and in New Jersey’; van Marle, ‘American “Leeg Duits”’; Noordegraaf, ‘Dutch Language and Literature in the United States’; van der Sijs, Cookies, Coleslaw and Stoops. 149 See also my essay, ‘Dutchness in Fact and Fiction’. An older, now outdated approach is to be found in Balmer, Perfect Babel of Confusion.

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Epilogue In the multilingual context of the big cities, with plenty of migrants speaking foreign languages, but also against the background of international scholarship, and the elite culture that was becoming increasingly international, the seventeenth century was already buzzing with conversations about the use, the usefulness and the form of the Dutch language, and the place and role of other languages, classical as well as modern. From the perspective of the hypothesis of a ‘discussion culture’, which, a few years ago, Marijke Spies and I defined as one of the most important differentiating characteristics of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, something else is becoming clear as well.150 Namely, this hypothesis relativizes the importance of monolingualism as a national characteristic. The Dutch, as it turns out, have traditionally been sloppy with their language, and have been less likely to place their life in the service of one language. They do not consider the linguistic product ‘Dutch’ itself as their heritage, but rather the way in which they deal with language in contact with others. They mainly approach their own linguistic culture from a process-orientated and functional, not from a patrimonial or historicizing, point of view, as is most often the case for the French, German, English and Spanish languages. Contemporary standard Dutch is, therefore, substantially further removed from its seventeenth-century source than, for example, French or Spanish. These languages have a high symbolic significance for national identity. Thus, they are carefully monitored and supported by national initiatives, such as the legislation (including the constitution), the language academies, national education, etc. The Dutch, on the other hand, consider multilingualism, with linguistic adaptations in a diversity of contexts and situations, as one of the immaterial values characteristic of their identity. They make it a point of pride to demonstrate that their identity has several linguistic facets, layers and possibilities, and that their identification with the common ‘project Netherlands’ does not rule out identification with other linguistic areas. On the contrary, ‘project Netherlands’ itself can make use of input from other languages, without it adversely affecting the identity of the national community. This multilingualism can take many shapes, from bilingualism to diglossia, to the context-specific use of several languages in specific settings: English for business, German for classical music; and for the pietistic adherents of the Reformed Church, that strange language of Canaan (‘de 150 Frijhoff & Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity; 220–225, 596–599.

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Tale Kanaäns’, Isaiah 19:18), an almost petrified form of biblical Dutch derived from the 1637 translation of the Statenbijbel. Despite the diversity of language use, the Dutch attach particular importance to the conservation of Dutch in specific roles, especially in those moments considered important for the formation and manifestation of their identity. To speak Dutch and, above all, to write (preferably literary) Dutch, is considered the ultimate form of the newcomer’s integration into the Netherlands, despite all the restraint that the Dutch tend to display towards their language and its use towards a foreigner. Knowledge of the Dutch language remains an essential requirement for identification with the national community. Translated by Bettina Brandt

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Trudeau, Danielle, ‘L’Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts et la langue française: Histoire ou interprétation?’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 45 (1983), 461–472. Van den Branden, Lode, Het streven naar verheerlijking, zuivering en opbouw van het Nederlands in de zestiende eeuw (Ghent: Kon. Vlaamsche Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde, 1956). Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand, ‘The Walloon and Huguenot Elements in New Netherland and Seventeenth-Century New York: Identity, History, Memory’, in Joyce D. Goodfriend (ed.), Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on Early Dutch America (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005), 41–54. Van Selm, Bert, Een menighte treffelijcke Boecken: Nederlandse boekhandelscatalogi in het begin van de zeventiende eeuw (Utrecht: Hes, 1987). Van Selm, Bert, ‘Some Early Editions of Gabriel Meurier’s School-Books’, Quaerendo, 3/3 (1973), 217–225. Vatebender, G.C.C., Antwoord op de vraag, welke wijze van opvoeding is de meest verkiezelijke? (Utrecht: B. Wild & J. Altheer, [1793]). Vatebender, G.C.C., ‘Plan van een Nederlands Opvoedings-school’, in Mengelwerken der Kamer van Rhetorica, genaemd de Goudsbloemen (Gouda, 1792), 21–136. Venema, Janny, ‘Arent van Curler: een Nijkerker held in de Nieuwe Wereld’, in Joris van Eijnatten, Fred van Lieburg & Hans de Waardt (eds.), Heiligen of helden: Opstellen voor Willem Frijhoff (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2007), 183–197. Venema, Janny, Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652–1664 (Hilversum/Albany, NY: Verloren/SUNY Press, 2003). Vet, J.J.V.M. de, Pieter Rabus (1660–1702): Een wegbereider van de Noord­nederlandse Verlichting (Amsterdam: APA-Holland University Pers, 1980). Vliet, P. van, & A.J. Vanderjagt (eds.), Johannes Amos Comenius (1592–1670): Exponent of European Culture?, KNAW, Verhandelingen, afd. Letterkunde, NR 160 (Amsterdam: Edita, 1994). Vondel, Joost van den, Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche Dichtkunste (1650) (repr. ed., The Hague: Stols, 1947). Wal, Marijke van der, De moedertaal centraal: Standaardisatie-aspecten in de Nederlanden omstreeks 1650 (The Hague: Sdu, 1995). Wal, Marijke van der, ‘Grotius’ taalbeschouwingen in contemporaine context’, Nederlandse Taalkunde, 2 (1997), 14–34. Wal, Marijke van der, & Cor van Bree, Geschiedenis van het Nederlands (5th ed., Houten: Het Spectrum, 2008). Wansbrough, John. E., The Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996). Waquet, Françoise, Le Latin, ou l’empire d’un signe, XVIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998); trans. by John Howe as Latin, or, The Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (London: Verso, 2001).

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Waterman, Kees-Jan, Jaap Jacobs & Charles T. Gehring (eds.), Indianenverhalen: De vroegste beschrijvingen van Indianen langs de Hudsonrivier (1609–1680) (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2009). Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France 1870–1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976). Wieldraaijer, Matthijs, ‘De sensibele stadhouder en de gedisciplineerde gouvernante: Beelden van Willem IV en Anna van Hannover in preken’, De Achttiende Eeuw, 41/2 (2009), 192–217. Wingens, Marc, Over de grens: De bedevaart van de katholieke Nederlanders in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw (Nijmegen: SUN, 1994). Worp, J.A. (ed.), De gedichten van Constantijn Huygens naar zijn handschrift uitgegeven, 9 vols. (Groningen: Wolters, 1898). Zarate, Geneviève, Danielle Lévy & Claire Kramsch (eds.), Handbook of Multilingualism and Multiculturalism (Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, 2011).

About the author Willem Frijhoff (b. 1942) studied philosophy and theology in the Netherlands, and history and social sciences in Paris. He obtained his PhD (social sciences) in 1981 at Tilburg University, and received an honorary doctorate (history of education) at the University of Mons-Hainaut (Belgium) in 1998. Between 1983 and 1997 he was professor of cultural history and history of mentalities of pre-industrial societies at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and from 1997 to 2007 of early modern history at the Free University (VU-University), Amsterdam. From 2003 to 2014 he chaired the research program ‘Cultural Dynamics’ of the Dutch National Research Organization (about 50 projects). After retiring (2007) he was visiting professor at Antwerp University and Radboud University Nijmegen, and presently holds the G.Ph. Verhagen Chair in Cultural History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is the 2011 recipient of the Descartes-Huygens Award for Franco-Dutch Scientific Cooperation. His research turns around problems of education, language, universities, religion, memory and identity in history. Among his publications are a survey of Dutch culture in the Golden Age, with Marijke Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Assen/Basingstoke 2004), and Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus 1607–1647 (Leiden/Boston 2007), and he co-edited Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations (Amsterdam/Albany 2009). At present, he is preparing a monograph on the economic, social, religious and cultural strategies of a large Franco-Dutch family network in Amsterdam, Rouen, Cologne, Oslo and North America in the early 1600s, provisionally entitled A Different Golden Age.

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Literacy, Usage and National Prestige The Changing Fortunes of Gaelic in Ireland Joep Leerssen* Frijhoff, Willem, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, and Karène SanchezSummerer (eds.), Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe 16th-19th Centuries. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. DOI: 10.5117/9789462980617/ch05 Abstract The Gaelic-Irish language has declined in a long, complex but relentless process over the last five to six centuries, to be replaced by English. This article surveys the driving factors and main trends in that decline, with special attention to the remarkable rise in cultural status for this socially dwindling language. This cultural prestige – first antiquarian, philological and romantic in nature, later as a political identity symbol – has led to a curious ambivalence in the language’s position: very weak as a medium of social intercourse, very strong as an ambient, phatic expression of national and cultural identity. Keywords: Ireland, Irish language, language extinction, language revival, nationalism

The pre-1600 situation Ireland’s senior language is Irish-Gaelic,1 one of the Celtic languages: closely related to Scots-Gaelic (the two did not start to diverge meaningfully until the seventeenth century), more distantly to Welsh and Breton. Literacy was introduced together with Christianity in the fifth century, and the

* University of Amsterdam 1 In this text I refer to the language as Gaelic (despite the fact that the more current name is ‘Irish’).

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coexistence of Gaelic with Latin throughout the Middle Ages has left many lexical traces (leabhair, ‘book’ < liber, to name but one significant example). Ireland’s medieval literary tradition was bilingually Gaelic and Latin, with Latin used for religious, Gaelic more for secular purposes. We encounter the usual genres: chronicles, genealogies, learned tracts, poetry. In addition, some epic-heroic materials reflecting pre-Christian antiquity were written down, most importantly the Ulster Cycle around the Cattle Raid of Cuailgne (Táin Bó Cuailgne) and the hero tales around the warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill. The dominant secular poetic mode of the Middle Ages was the encomium on clan chiefs. This type of learned verse was entrusted to a hereditary class of literati whom I shall here call ‘bards’, and whose responsibilities ranged from the recall of past glories to the rehearsing of genealogical lines of descent and the almost-liturgical legitimation of the ruler by means of their poetic praise. (As a result, the medieval poem books were often kept by their addressees, and organized, not by author but by subject.) The bards used a highly recondite form of prosody and diction in a somewhat analogous form to Skaldic verse in the Nordic tradition. Their function was wholly embedded in the structure of Gaelic society, divided into rival clans with some sense of a common Irish cultural framework.

The decline of the bardic tradition and the dominance of English, 1600–1760 This society, and with it the stature of bardic literature and of the Gaelic language, crumbled after the conquest of Ireland by the English Crown.2 The process had started with the first incursions of the twelfth century, and was long and by no means straightforward; but it had reached its completion after 1600, when the last rebellious clan chiefs were subdued and modern English-based governance was imposed on the country. Large parts of it became the property of colonists from Great Britain, the church became Anglican, and the country’s administration was calqued on the English model. The societal centre became wholly urban, and the cities were all of them English in organization and outlook, albeit, in the course of the eighteenth century, with an influx of Gaelic speakers from the countryside, 2 I have traced the process in my Mere Irish and Fíor-Ghael, much of which has been resumed also in Kelly & Mac Murchaidh, Irish and English. The literary developments have been charted in Kelleher & O’Leary, Cambridge History, as well as Deane, Field Day Anthology. Language politics have been documented by Crowley, Politics of Language.

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usually poor and living on the municipal margins. The Gaelic population lost its native elite and, in an exploitative colonial-style economy, became a rapidly pauperized underclass. They remained loyal to their traditional Roman Catholicism, in defiance of the English-imported Reformation, but anti-Catholic legislation enacted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (the ‘Penal Laws’) ensured that the Church had no institutional presence in the country; its practitioners were barred from all legal rights and subject to disabilities and prosecution. Gaelic literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reflects this para-colonial situation.3 Bardic poetry and bardic antiquarian lore rapidly disintegrated as a living practice, the few surviving poem books from the Middle Ages circulating as increasingly illegible collectibles for erudite bibliophiles. Indeed there is a substantial body of verse where poets give expression to their sense of bereavement, because there are now no patrons to whom they can address their encomia, and their recondite literary craft has lost all prestige. Táirnig onóir na héigse/ teasta cion an choimhéidse ’na gcriadhairibh oir gurbh fhearr/ do sgoil fhiadhoirir Éireann. The honour of literacy has left/ gone is the status of its guardians and better to be ploughing peasants/ it would be for the schoolmen of Ireland.4

In the absence of bardic culture, a more demotic tradition of ballad poetry began to flourish. It was partly a manuscript tradition, partly an oral one – Gaelic in Ireland had no access to the printing press, nor to the theatre 3 I use the term ‘para-colonial’ in order to sidestep a long-standing, emotive and ultimately counterproductive debate among historians as to whether the position of Ireland vis-à-vis England was a ‘colonial’ one. The answer to that question can only be given in qualified terms. In certain respects, Ireland’s situation was certainly parallel to that of non-European colonies: most importantly, in the exploitation of its native, disenfranchised underclass for cheap labour and the wealth-extraction nature of its economy. In other respects, the Irish system of ‘landlordism’ resembles intra-European counterparts such as the Junker estates of the Baltic region, or Spanish latifundia. The (subsidiary) constitutional autonomy which the Protestant elite enjoyed also stands at odds with colonialism proper. Most importantly, the apartheid-style discrimination against the native population under the Penal Laws was reared wholly on the criterion of religion, and rapidly crumbled in the nineteenth century after the abolition of anti-Catholic legislation in the United Kingdom. 4 Fearflatha Ó Gnímh ( fl. 1620), in the poem Mairg do-chuaidh re ceird ndútchchais (Death has befallen the proper order of things), quoted in Leerssen, Mere Irish and Fíor-Ghael, 199 (my translation).

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or any other forum of what elsewhere in Europe was beginning to form a ‘public sphere’. Only in market towns and around inns was there anything like a literary culture, but it, too, was unprinted, performative, based on face-to-face conviviality. The single exception was the figure of the harpist Carolan, who was patronized in the country houses of the landowning gentry, mainly for his musical virtuosity.5 The surviving ballad poetry from the period is often amorous, with a remarkable prominence of the genre of the ‘Woman’s Complaint’. Much of it politically subversive: vision poetry bewailing Ireland’s plight and foretelling a messianic return to justice. This literacy was hermetically enclosed in the complicity of the Catholic, Gaelic-speaking population and did not reach the ears of the colonial elite; Gaelic was becoming a ‘secret language’. Communication between elite and underclass took place in English, and the Gaelic population developed a creolized English full of Gaelic inflections and idioms, which to educated ears sounded rude or naive – a petit-nègre effect which exacerbated the low esteem in which the native population was held. ‘The stage Irishman’ speaking his Hiberno-English patois with his ‘brogue’ accent became a clownish stereotype connoting stupidity and absurdity, a stock character in comedies and novels from the early eighteenth well into the twentieth century. The other response to the decline of bardic poetry came from religion. Many bardic literati followed their clan chiefs into Continental exile and found a new patron in the Catholic Church: they joined holy orders. The Franciscan or Jesuit Irish colleges at universities like Louvain, Salamanca, Paris and Rome became centres of Gaelic learning-in-exile. It was here that Gaelic finally reached the medium of print.6 A Gaelic font was cut for the printing press of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, and devotional, Counter-Reformatory works were printed to cater for the spiritual needs of Ireland’s Catholics. Irish Franciscans in Louvain collaborated with the Bollandists to assemble the vitae sanctorum of what was now becoming known as the Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum, in the process also editing the writings of the medieval philosophers Scotus Eriugena and Duns Scotus (who were both claimed as Irish, the former rightly so, the other in error). The project was multifunctional: it stiffened the resistance in the home country against the government’s Reformation policy; it elicited sympathy in continental church circles for the plight of this unjustly oppressed country; and against English denigration (which depicted Ireland as a rude and savage country 5 Leerssen, Hidden Ireland, Public Sphere, and ‘Last Bard or First Virtuoso?’ 6 We may disregard, for the present purpose, the Protestant Bible translation in Gaelic, printed in Dublin.

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requiring an English-imposed civilizing offensive) it demonstrated the ancient greatness of Irish civility, learning and morals. It was also the last gasp of Irish Latinity.

The social decline and cultural allure of Gaelic in the Romantic decades, 1760–1845 The émigrés’ insistence that Ireland, despite its denigrated and pauperized present-day situation, had a highly civilized past, became a cultural enigma in the climate of Romanticism. The rediscovery of Celtic antiquity, provoked by the forgery of Macpherson’s Ossian in the 1760s, had inspired a vogue of Celtic antiquarianism, also among Ireland’s colonial elite, which in any case, affected by Enlightenment patriotism, was beginning to take a more benevolent stance to the country’s native underclass. Attitudes to the language bifurcated strongly: antiquarians speculated on the antiquity and ancient connections of Gaelic, and like the Celtomanes of Brittany and France, indulged in reckless comparisons with ancient Etruscan, Phoenician or even Chinese and Algonquin.7 Meanwhile, the living language was considered a stigma and the hallmark of backwardness, and neglected by all but a few. From the years around 1800 onwards,8 the position of the Gaelic language is marked by a cleavage between social usage and cultural allure. As we shall see, this cleavage persists to the present day, after two centuries of remarkable upheavals. At the high-cultural end, the Celtic languages as a whole were firmly enshrined in the new Indo-European family tree from the mid-1820s onwards; there had been some doubt on their Indo-European nature as a result of the wayward theories of the Celtomanes, but the taxonomy was firmly established after work by eminent comparative linguists from Switzerland (Adolphe Pictet) and Germany (Franz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, J.C. Zeuss). In the same years, the ancient texts were retrieved from their dispersal, housed in academic libraries and systematically catalogued; in the process, much important material was put on record and given fresh currency. Chronicles, law texts and heroic tales were given serious philological editions, and in particular the ancient Gaelic legal system (the Brehon Laws) attracted great scholarly interest. 7 Browne, Celticism. 8 These nineteenth-century developments have been charted in my Remembrance and Imagination.

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Among the major text editions, that of the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’ (Annála Rioghachta Éireann) deserves mention. A huge compendium put together from older annalistic materials by Franciscan friars based in Louvain (who intended it as a documentary work of reference to aid the Bollandist hagiography of the Irish saints), it summarized the entire native history of the country, which until then had remained largely outside the purview of its colonial elite. Its appearance necessitated the cutting of a dedicated font of Gaelic type and firmly established the country’s native, Gaelic history as its cultural bedrock, on which the English presence was merely a hostile overlay.9 At the same time, an ambitious topographical survey undertaken in the context of the new cartographical and statistical survey known as the Ordnance Survey re-established the ancient Gaelic name forms of all Irish place names, usually bastardized in the process of having been adapted to an English pronunciation and orthography. Place names beginning with roots such as cill- (monk’s cell, chapel, e.g. Kilkenny), cnoc- (hill, e.g. Knockainy), baile- (town, e.g. Baltimore) and a host of others were now rationalized and instead of sounding vaguely laughable or uncouth, turned the entire map of Ireland into a vast X-ray image showing, underneath the soft tissue of English-dominated settlement patterns, a Gaelic cultural bone structure.10 As a result, the country’s intelligentsia, though English in their native language, social ambience and education, and having little or no proficiency in the spoken Gaelic language, began nonetheless to develop a sense of Irish nationality, of being the heirs of a culture not Anglo-Saxon but Celtic. This cultural affiliation with a Gaelic-Irish tradition was expressed in literature. A Romantic generation of poets around John Clarence Mangan and Thomas Davis began to draw on Gaelic historical and local materials and traditions for their poetic themes, and expressed, in English, a Gaelic sense of identity.

Near-extinction: Famine and emigration, 1845–1900 At the same time, however, the living language faced a threat of actual extinction. In the period 1800–1845 the Gaelic-speaking population had continued its downward slide to pauperization, and was rapidly losing whatever vestiges remained of literacy within the Gaelic language. Early 9 Cunningham, ‘An Honour to the Nation’. 10 Doherty, Irish Ordnance Survey.

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attempts to revalorize the language, in the climate of Romanticism and analogous to similar initiatives in Catalan, Finnish and Norwegian, were brutally cut short by the worst natural disaster to take place in Europe since the Black Death: the great potato famine of 1845–1848.11 The blight affecting the potato harvests of the late 1840s was not restricted to Ireland and caused hardship in other European countries as well. But nowhere did the famine assume such devastating proportions as here. The potato was the almost-exclusive food of a vast underclass of tenant peasants who relied for their entire sustenance on small potato beds; and this underclass had swollen, and the ratio of potato beds per family had grown more precarious, in the decades preceding the failed harvest of 1845. Communications, public institutions and social infrastructures in the Irish countryside were rudimentary; the parish system was frail and practically inoperative since the legally established Anglican Church had almost no followers and the popular Catholic church no official status; the economy was one of mere wealth extraction, with the proprietors often residing outside the affected districts. The famine, especially in the western rural districts, soon had catastrophic effects, starvation compounded by disease and reduced productivity; none of this was met adequately by authorities who on the whole were distant, ill-informed, dedicated to laissez-faire economics, and negatively prejudiced against the Irish in general. In the half-century after 1845, a population of 8 million shrank to 4 million, with approximately 1 million deaths directly attributable to starvation, the rest of the decline to emigration and demographic knock-on effects (shortened lifespans, reduced birth rates). This population reduction by 4 million was almost exclusively concentrated in the country’s Gaelic-speaking linguistic community. Gaelic was the language of a vanishing Ireland; its social structures were torn apart and its surviving speakers emigrated or turned away from it as the hallmark of pauperism and deprivation. Once again the contrast is striking: how the language culturally acquired new, Romantic and philological prestige, and became the symbol of Ireland’s separate, non-English national identity, yet at the same time was caught in a terminal decline as a medium of social intercourse. Tentative initiatives in printing Gaelic books for popular (rather than scholarly) consumption were dominated by evangelical religious tracts aimed at Protestant proselytization, something which did little to recommend such reading matter to the 11 Among the great body of literature on the topic, the classics are still Edwards & Williams, Great Famine; Woodham-Smith, Great Hunger; Mokyr, Why Ireland Starved. On the subsequent decline of Gaelic, down to the present day: Hindley, Death of the Irish Language.

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staunchly Catholic peasantry. Gaelic after 1845 was thus caught on the horns of a dilemma: the dead language of bygone centuries was printed for scholarly and intellectual interest; the subsisting living language was by and large illiterate.

Revivalism, 1880–1920 The first signs of a social revivalism of the living language are educational in nature: the recently established primary school system ought to provide (so it was felt) tuition through the medium of Gaelic in the districts where this was still the dominant language, and to encourage literacy in the language. To this end associations were founded in the 1870s and 1880s such as the Society for the Preservation of the Gaelic Language and the Gaelic Union. Their role was marginal, but they sparked off a remarkable mass movement in the 1890s. Its starting point was a high-profile public lecture by Douglas Hyde, a folklore collector, language enthusiast, and one of the more radical members of the Gaelic Union. Entitled On the Necessity for Deanglicizing Ireland, it denounced the fact that modern Ireland was adopting the hand-me-downs of English culture – modern vulgarity, pulp reading and consumerism – while abandoning the traditions which vouchsafed its cultural dignity and individuality. Hyde concluded with a call to cultivate the country’s native, Gaelic tradition, most importantly its language.12 Hyde’s message found resonance in the climate of the early 1890s, a time when there was considerable anti-English bitterness in Irish politics but no united focus in political nationalism. Cultural nationalism provided a much-needed alternative and had already been prepared by the recent founding of a nationalist Irish sports organization forswearing rugby and football and instead aiming to cultivate home-grown, native sports like hurling. In the growing leisure culture of farmers (who had found fresh prosperity and a more secure social footing in the decades after the famine), white-collar workers and middle-class town dwellers, cultural nationalism and language revivalism became a mass movement. Evening classes and excursions to the western Gaelic districts became popular, periodicals and theatrical performances were organized offering platforms for productions in Gaelic, and Gaelic balladry from the previous centuries was recycled from folklore collections, philological editions and earlier translations, providing a new literary canon. The movement was city- and town-based but made 12 O’Leary, Prose Literature, is an excellently documented study of the language revival.

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the most of existing contacts with native speakers and cultural activists with personal roots in Gaelic-speaking districts. These Gaelic-speaking districts accordingly obtained a new symbolical importance: they were now seen as precious cultural survivals untainted by the blight of anglicization, their population providing a pure, authentic link with Ireland’s Gaelic past and a reservoir for its cultural regeneration. The fact that even in these districts the living presence of Gaelic was shrinking made them all the more precious and the object of an intense salvage-and-protection urge. James Joyce’s story ‘The Dead’ (the final one in his collection Dubliners, and set c.1904) thematizes this revivalist atmosphere. The cosmopolitan protagonist, Gabriel Conroy, is quizzed by the revivalist Miss Ivors: — O, Mr. Conroy, will you come for an excursion to the Aran Isles this summer? We’re going to stay there a whole month. It will be splendid out in the Atlantic. You ought to come. […] — Well, we usually go to France or Belgium or perhaps Germany, said Gabriel awkwardly. — And why do you go to France and Belgium, said Miss Ivors, instead of visiting your own land? — Well, said Gabriel, it’s partly to keep in touch with the languages and partly for a change. — And haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with – Irish? asked Miss Ivors. — Well, said Gabriel, if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language. Their neighbors had turned to listen to the cross-examination. Gabriel glanced right and left nervously and tried to keep his good humor under the ordeal which was making a blush invade his forehead. — And haven’t you your own land to visit, continued Miss Ivors, that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?13

The twentieth century By 1910, then, a curious bilingualism prevailed in Ireland. Gaelic was still spoken, albeit to a steadily diminishing extent, in outlying rural districts, mainly in hamlets and households as part of a lifestyle overtaken by modernity, and with little activity in public media or print. In the cities 13 Joyce, ‘The Dead’, ProjectGutenberg.org.

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and market towns, there was a thriving sociable culture of national revivalists, all of them native speakers of English who had acquired Gaelic as a second language in adulthood, and who used it for purposes of cultural consciousness-raising, also in print and on public occasions such as theatrical performances. In some cases, they even ‘de-anglicized’ their own names, giving them a Gaelic form which they felt to be the authentic one. Mary Walker, an activist and gifted amateur actress, used the Gaelic form of the verb ‘walking’ (ag siubhail) to translate her name into its Irish version Ó Siubhlaigh – or, in its feminine inflection: Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh. The increased usage of Gaelic given names is even more pronounced. To begin with there was a still-continuing trend to use the Irish form of religiousbaptismal names: Seán or Eoghan for John, Séamus for James, Mícheál for Michael, Tadhg for Thaddeus, Máire for Mary, Maighreád for Margaret, Áine or Eithne for Anne, Siobhán for Susan, Caitlín for Catherine. In addition to this Gaelicization of Christian names, and a fresh popularity for Irish saints like Pádraig, Colm, Fionntan, Declan and Brighid, there were also names retrieved from more archaic, literary sources rooted in pagan times: girls’ names like Deirdre, Sadhbh (Sive), Medhbh (Maeve), Nuala, etc., and, later on, a similar penchant for boys’ names like Fionn and Oisín. This cultural revivalism was focused primarily on the language but extended itself to other cultural fields: music, dance and even dress (an Irish kilt, analogous to the Scottish one, was introduced, which failed to gain popularity). In visual iconography and design, the revivalism of the 1890s reinforced a long-standing national-Romantic taste, which affected, alongside Celtic crosses, shamrock and harp symbols, a particularistic usage of the Irish letter type, derived from the medieval insular half-uncial MS lettering, traditionally used in MS culture, and adopted for Irish print.14 These trends continued throughout the century and received official support when after a political insurrection and a civil war, Ireland became independent.15 The revolt which opened up the armed separatist phase of Irish nationalism had been carried on by radicalized activists from Hyde’s 14 The use of this Irish font was official until the mid-twentieth century and partly motivated by pragmatism: Irish Gaelic is deeply marked by the very frequent intervocalic aspiration of consonants (comparable to the mutation p > ph or c > ch in English, German or French). This is indicated by an added in the Latin alphabet, which in the case of Gaelic leads to a very cluttered typography. The native Irish convention instead indicates aspiration by the much clearer and less cluttering use of a diacritical dot or punctum delens: leaḃair rather than leabhair ‘book’. 15 Language policies and language planning in independent Ireland: O’Leary, Gaelic Prose; Ó Riain, Pleanáil teanga.

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Gaelic League; and the Irish Free State (later: Irish Republic) which eventually emerged from this armed separatism saw itself as the political fulfilment of Douglas Hyde’s original program of de-anglicization. As a result, a strenuous pro-Gaelic language policy was pursued. Gaelic was the state’s premier official language, also for legislation and all official government documentation; proficiency in Gaelic was made obligatory for civil servants, government employment, and enrolment in honours courses at university; and accordingly an intense educational drive to have Gaelic taught in schools was undertaken, which even saw the duration of primary education extended by two years (starting at the age of four) in order to provide the necessary space in the curriculum. This created an enormous market for Irish-proficient clerical workers and teachers, and also fresh career opportunities for people from the rural Irish-speaking districts (now given a specific legal status under the appellation of Gaeltacht). Summer courses of language immersion in the Gaeltacht were established, and remain popular, as part of the school program for Irish children from across the country, mainly from the cities. Other economic incentives for the Gaeltacht areas aimed to stem the ongoing tide of emigration and depopulation, exacerbated by the backward infrastructures of the country, the poor relations with Great Britain (over Northern Ireland), the poor economic climate worldwide of the 1930s and the policy of neutrality during the Second World War. All these factors combined to enshrine Gaelic revivalism as an introspective and traditionalist ideology of conservative nationalism. As a result, the Gaelic language became the hallmark of hidebound isolationism and symbol politics, and lost more goodwill than it gained actual currency. Artificially boosted in the official institutions of state, from the school to the ministerial bureaus, it became itself artificial. By the late 1960s, it was tacitly acknowledged that the state’s idea of ‘de-anglicization’, to re-establish Gaelic as the default or coequal language of social intercourse, had failed. At best it may be said that the extinction process was arrested or slowed down – not reversed. By now the Gaeltacht has shrunk to a few pockets on the country’s outer margins, and the number of people using Gaelic as an everyday language is below 50,000 – that is to say: 1 per cent of the population. All of these speakers are fully bilingual and at least as proficient in English as they are in Gaelic. The transgenerational presence of Gaelic is vouchsafed largely in highly educated and culturally motivated circles, and often practised by enrolling children into fully Gaelic immersion schools. Gaelic is still a compulsory school subject and all school-leavers have a fair working knowledge of the language (though also, in many cases, a disinclination to pursue its usage after the end of pedagogical coercion).

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The present position of Gaelic in Irish public life Gaelic enjoys, therefore, a largely symbolical position in Irish public life, and that is both a weakness and strength: it is a necessary requirement for certain appointments or career prospects, and the officially endorsed medium for the expression of the nation’s identity. Public space is marked by linguistic ‘branding’. Political offices or institutions like Uachtarán, Taoiseach and Dáil (for president, prime minister, and the parliament’s lower house); An Phost, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann for the national postage, bus and railway services; the initials RTÉ signifying the country’s broadcasting corporation, Raidió Teilifís Éireann. All Irish citizens are capable of singing along with the Gaelic-language national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann; and no street or placename sign will omit the Gaelic name form (Luimneach for Limerick, Fiachna Stiofáin for St Stephens Green). Gaelic thus maintains a passive presence in, and imparts a Gaelic flavour to, the country’s public space and public sphere.16 The net result of this symbolical ‘brand’-presence means that Gaelic is in a state of suspended animation. Its vestigial and symbolical presence is cherished, and Irish citizens evince a deep attachment to its continuance; but not to the extent that they will abandon English in favour of Gaelic in practical everyday life. This contrasts strongly with other aspects of the cultural revival, dance and music, which have been highly successful and which have in fact given rise to a vibrant and robust culture of folk (‘trad’) music and Irish dancing. It would be tempting to conclude that the present-day position of Gaelic is in fact a continuation of the ancient bifurcation, established around 1800, between cultural prestige and social decline. However, in one important respect a shift has occurred. Spoken Gaelic, although still overshadowed by its more powerful alternative, is now no longer the badge of provincialism and backwardness which it was in 1890, or of the introspective nostalgia of the 1930s and 1940s. The revival may not have succeeded in bolstering the quantitative presence of Gaelic, but qualitatively it has certainly removed its stigmatization and has managed to give the language, also in its spoken form, great cultural prestige. This prestige ultimately derives from a delayed effect of the 1890s revival: the emergence of a modernist school of literature in the 1940s and 1950s. Authors like Flann O’Brien, Máire Mhac an tSaoi and Máirtín Ó Direáin began to explore, in Gaelic, the problematics of modern life, and developed a 16 This passive, almost latent presence may be compared to what Michael Billig describes a ‘banal nationalism’: an unobtrusive background-noise presence of markers of national identity, reinforcing a subliminal acceptance and familiarity. Billig, Banal Nationalism.

Liter ac y, Usage and National Prestige

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subtle and ambitious literary tradition, restricted in readership but with great social and cultural allure. This tradition is still going strong and did much to redeem Gaelic from the conventional complacency of the revival decades, making it the vehicle of expression of progressive, dynamic and cosmopolitan intellectuals and artists who play a prominent role in the country’s cultural affairs.17 Authors from Seán Ó Riordáin to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill have equal standing alongside Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney in the country’s literary pantheon. Ironically, then, Gaelic literature has been successfully revived, even though the Gaelic language revival has stalled.

Bibliography Billig, Michael, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995). Bolger, Dermot (ed.), The Bright Wave/An tonn gheal: Poetry in Irish now (Dublin: Raven Arts, 1986). Browne, Terence (ed.), Celticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996). Crowley, Tony, The Politics of Language in Ireland 1366–1922: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2000). Cunningham, Bernadette, ‘“An Honour to the Nation”: Publishing John O’Donovan’s Edition of the “Annals of the Four Masters”’, in Martin Fanning & Raymond Gillespie (eds.), Print Culture and Intellectual Life in Ireland, 1660–1941: Essays in Honour of Michael Adams (Dublin: Woodfield, 2006), 116–142. Deane, Seamus et al. (eds.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 3 vols. (Derry: Field Day, 1991). Doherty, Gillian M., The Irish Ordnance Survey: History, Culture and Memory (Cork: Cork University Press, 2006). Edwards, Ruth Dudley, & T. Desmond Williams (eds.), The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History, 1845–52 (Dublin: Lilliput, 1994). Hindley, Reg, The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary (London: Routledge, 1990). Kelleher, Margaret (ed.), The Cambridge History of Irish Literature, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Kelly, James, & Ciarán Mac Murchaidh (eds.), Irish and English: Essays on the Irish Linguistic and Cultural Frontier, 1600–1900 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2012).

17 The process was first identified by Frank O’Brien, Filíocht Gaeilge, and has manifested itself in a lively tradition of linguistic crossover poetry between Gaelic and anglophone Irish poets bilingually anthologized by Bolger, Bright Wave, and Kiberd & Fitzmaurice, An crann faoi bhláth.

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Kiberd, Declan, & Gabriel Fitzmaurice (eds.), An crann faoi bhláth/The Flowering Tree: Contemporary Irish Poetry with Verse Translations (Dublin: Wolfhound, 1989). Leerssen, Joep, Hidden Ireland, Public Sphere (Galway: Arlen House/Centre for Irish Studies, 2002). Leerssen, Joep, ‘Last Bard or First Virtuoso? Carolan, Conviviality and the Need for an Audience’, in L. Ó Murchú (ed.), Amhráin Chearbhalláin/The poems of Carolan: Reassessments (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 2007), 30–42. Leerssen, Joep, Mere Irish and Fíor-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior to the Nineteenth Century (Cork: Cork University Press, 1996). Leerssen, Joep, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Literary and Historical Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (Cork: Cork University Press, 1996). Mokyr, Joel, Why Ireland Starved: An Analytical and Quantitative Study of Irish Poverty, 1800–1851 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983). O’Brien, Frank, Filíocht Gaeilge na linne seo: Staidéar criticiúil (Baile Átha Cliath: Clóchomhar, 1968). O’Leary, Philip, Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State 1922–1939 (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2004). O’Leary, Philip, The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, 1881–1921: Ideology and Innovation (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). Ó Riain, Seán, Pleanáil teanga in Éirinn, 1919–1985 (Baile Átha Cliath: Bord na Gaeilge, 1994). Woodham-Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962).

About the author Joep Leerssen (b. Leiden, 1955) studied comparative literature in Aachen and Anglo-Irish studies in Dublin; he has been Professor of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam since 1991. His work deals with the comparative history of national movements and nationalist sentiment in Europe. His earliest in-depth studies in this field addressed competing national cultures in Ireland; he is a corresponding member of the Royal Irish Academy and an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin.

Index ABC book 59 Abeil (Abella), Maria Anna 90 Abravanel, see Leo the Hebrew Academies 22, 81, 87, 109, 112, 117, 134-135, 150; equestrian 85 Acarisio, Alberto 56 Acosta, José de 107 Adult education 134 Africa 37, 107, 146 Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), treaty 138 Alba amicorum, friendship albums 26, 113-114 Alba Longa 19 Albany (New York) 145, 147 Alcalá, university 106 Alciato, Andrea 31 Alexandria 88 Algonquin (language) 173 Alsace 101 Altdorf, university 86-87 Amadeo, Giulio Filoteo di 31 Amadis de Gaule 32 Amazon 144 America (North, USA), Americans 10, 12, 14, 40, 42, 88, 101, 107, 143-144, 149, 154 Americans (native), [Amer]Indians 33, 37-38, 80, 107, 144-149 Amerotius, (H)Adrianus 51 Amsterdam 22-23, 66, 97, 99, 117, 121-122, 128-129, 138-139, 143-145; Begijnhof 141; Brouwersgracht 146; Chamber of Rhetoric 96; city dialect 23, 122-123; English church 140; Illustrious School 22, 107; Latin Schools 22; Lutherans 122; Nederduytsche Akademie 117; Nieuwmarkt 122; Nil Volentibus Arduum 14, 138; Oudeschans 122; Scottish church 140; Sephardic Jews 121 Ancients and Moderns, Quarrel of the 106 Andriessen, Christian 143 Anecdotes 26, 30, 34-36, 133, 140, 149 Anglicans, Anglican (English) Church 31, 140-141, 170-171, 175 Anglicization, de-Anglicization 176-179 Anglomaniacs 29 Anglo-Saxon 174 Angola 37 Annecy 88 Anthropology, social/cultural 8 Antiquity, classical 110; Celtic 170, 173 Antwerp 24, 50-51, 55-67, 84, 96, 113, 127-129, 142 Apianus, Petrus 146 Apprentices’ tour 38, 83, 139-140 Appropriation 7-8, 13, 37, 41, 149 Arabic (language) 19-20, 107, 124 Aramaic (language) 107, 132

Aran Isles 177 Aristotle 106 Arithmetic 55, 59, 90, 129 Army, garrisons 105, 115, 122, 135, 139, 141-142; soldiers 33, 36, 121, 133, 145 Arnhem 104, 135 Arras 138 Ars moriendi 146 Artois 138 Asia 107 Asselyn, Thomas 122 Atlantic Ocean 33, 107, 143, 177; Atlantic world 42 Atlas 59, 146 Augsburg 79-93 Austria 18, 21, 50, 89 Autobiography 84-85, 89, 103 Autodidaxy, self-study 55, 63, 104, 117-118, 130, 132, 134 Auvergne 89 Avesnes-sur-Helpe 127, 138, 144 Babel, Tower of 7, 43-44, 99, 107 Bacchus 28 Backer, Deliana de 30; Johan Chrysostomus de 30-32 Baden 88 Bailey, Richard W. 8 Ballads 171-172, 176 Baltic Sea, region 65, 90, 171 Bandello, Matteo 31 Baptists (Mennonites) 121, 141 Barberini, family 31 Barcelona 22 Bards, bardic poetry 170-172 Bargoens (Dutch slang) 111 Barlaeus, Caspar 107 Barlemont, see Berlaimont Bartjens, Willem 129 Basedow, Johann Bernhard 143 Basque country 18, 101 Bassompierre, marshal of 35 Bastardized words/language 97, 109, 111, 137-139, 174 Batavian Republic 98, 131, 134 Baudartius (Baudaert), Willem, senior 103-105; Willem, junior 103 Bavaria 90; dialect 82 Bayle, Pierre 117 Beckett, Samuel 181 Belgica, lingua 96; see also Dutch Belgium, ‘Belga’ 21, 54, 57, 101, 177; see also Flanders; Netherlands, Southern Bembo, Pietro 31 Benot, Eduardo 67

184 INDEX Bergues-Saint-Winoc 138 Berlaimont, Noël de 50, 60-61, 63, 66, 128-129, 140 Berlin 22, 42; Prussian Academy 87, 112 Berthout, Jan 61 Bevervoorde, baron van 123 Bible 7, 11, 39, 64, 66, 80, 97, 107, 150; translations 11, 64, 66, 89, 97-98, 103-104, 115, 145, 150, 172; Dutch version (Statenbijbel) 97, 103, 115, 146, 151; Lutheran translation 98, 145; Protestant translation 172; Old Testament 43, 104; Genesis 44, 99, 107; Isaiah 151; Psalms 98; Tobias 51, 66; New Testament 31, 44-45; 1 Corinthians 45; Acts of the Apostles 44; Revelation 44 Bibliophiles 171 Bildung 85 Bildungsbürgertum 125 Bilingualism 12, 21, 27-28, 30, 59-63, 81, 101, 116, 128, 131-132, 150, 170, 177, 179, 181 Blacks 37, 146 Blaeu, Willem 146 Blois 109 Boccaccio, Giovanni 32 Boccalini, Trajano 31-32 Bogaert, Harmen Meyndertsz van den 38, 147-148 Bogardus, Everardus 145 Bohemia 89; language 129 Bois-le-Duc (’s-Hertogenbosch) 135 Bollandists 172, 174 Bologna 56 Bookkeeping 55, 59 Bopp, Franz 173 Bordeaux 22, 139 Boulogne 137 Bovenlanders (Westphalians) 121, 123, 142 Brabant 21, 24-25, 50, 56, 64, 112, 124, 142; language/dialect 25, 64, 123, 137 Branding, linguistic 180 Brasil 33 Brehon laws 173 Brenninkmeijer, family 121 Breslau 88 Breton, language 39, 129, 169 Brielle 133 Britain, Great; British Commonwealth 18-19, 42, 88, 90, 100-101, 121, 170, 179; see also England; Empire Brittany (France) 39, 101, 173 Britto, Sebastiaen de 146 Bronck, Jonas 145-146 Brown, John 135 Bruges 65, 117 Brussels 20-21, 125, 142 Budé, Guillaume 106 Bullinger, Heinrich 146 Burgundy 21, 39, 57, 125 Burke, Peter 8-9, 67-68 Byzantium 80

Cadiz 84 Calendar 146 Calvin, John 146 Calvinism, Calvinists 27, 87, 106-107, 115, 117, 121, 146 Cambrai 138 Cambridge, university 106 Campe, Joachim Heinrich 143 Camper, Petrus 137 Canaan (Kanaän), language of 151 Canterbury 103 Caribbean 18 Carolan, harpist 172 Castilian (language) 18-19, 21, 23, 32, 40, 42, 51, 58; see also Spanish Catalan (language) 18, 101, 175 Catalonia 20, 101 Catechism 146 Catherine of Siena, Saint 31, 178 Catholic Church, Catholics, Catholicism (Roman) 28, 30, 80, 82, 86, 88-90, 108, 121, 136, 141-142, 171-172, 175-176; priests 136 Cattle Raid of Cuailgne 170 Celtic (language) 169, 173-174, 178 Celtomanes 173 Certeau, Michel de 68 Chaldean (language) 107 Charisma 45 Children, childhood 58, 62, 86, 99, 103, 142, 145-146, 179; see also Youth Childrens’ books 62, 146 Chinese (Mandarin, language) 7, 41, 107, 173 Christian-Erlang, see Erlangen Christians, Christianity 37, 39, 41, 45, 59, 80-81, 110, 121, 124, 146, 148, 169-170, 178 Church, churches 27-28, 39, 41, 52, 98, 104, 138, 172; see also Anglican Church; Catholic Church; Lutheran Church; Reformed Church; Scottish Church; Walloon Church Cimbrisch (language) 96 Civility, Civilité 31, 125, 173 Civilization, civilizing mission 12, 21, 40-44, 52, 69, 125, 173 Clement, Jean-Charles 135 Cleves 141-142, 145 Code switching 12, 34-36 Codes, codification 9, 11, 17, 31, 36-39, 43, 54, 100, 103, 110, 149 Cognition 10 Colleges 22, 25, 81, 106, 172; Collegia trilinguia 50-51, 66, 106 Colloquial idiom 10, 17, 129 Cologne 14, 48, 86, 141-142, 170; Gymnasium Tricoronatum 86 Colonies, colonization 23, 37, 42, 65, 68, 81, 87, 96, 139, 142-149, 170-174 Comenius (Komenský), Jan Amos 22, 41, 92, 99 Commercium (exchange) 63

Index

Communication 7, 12, 17, 19, 27, 29-30, 36-38, 43, 54, 6, 80-82, 84, 87, 97, 100, 103, 106, 111-113, 116, 120, 124-125, 128, 130-131, 135, 138, 142, 144, 147-149, 172, 175; multilingual 33; oral 106, 131; transcultural 82, 92 Community, cultural 7, 101, 105, 108; linguistic 20, 24, 26, 38-39, 101, 106, 110, 113, 119, 124, 175 Competence, linguistic 49-69, 82 Confusio linguarum 43-44, 99 Congo 37 Congregation, teaching 90 Connubium 25 Conroy, Gabriel 177 Conversation 30-33, 63, 85, 102-103, 130, 134, 149; conversation books, manuals 59-62, 67, 85, 91-92, 128-129 Coornhert, Dirck Volckertsz 117 Copenhagen 88 Correspondence 22, 35, 82, 84-85, 90, 100-101, 103, 108, 139 Cosmography 146 Cosmopolitanism 24, 41-42, 139, 177, 181 Coster, Samuel 117 Counter-Reformation 86, 172 Counter-Remonstrants 107 Court 24, 26-27, 29, 98, 105, 110, 124, 146; of Burgundy 21, 39, 57, 125; of the Emperor 50; of France 35, 125; of the Pope 31, 124; of Scotland 89; of Spain 125; of the stadholder 97; language 26, 98 Court of justice 102, 108; Supreme Court 88 Court, Pieter de la 27 Cowper, William 140 Cracow 22, 84 Cramer (Kramer), Matthias 54, 86-88, 91; Johann Matthias 86-87 Creolization 120, 172 Crete 88 Cromwell, Oliver 141 Culture 9-13, 18, 20, 26, 28, 41, 44, 54, 69, 85, 96, 99, 105-108, 110, 113, 115, 119, 124, 128, 132, 138, 142-143, 149, 174; definition 7-8; discussion culture 150; elite culture 150; folk culture 176, 180; national 143, 178; social/socio-culture 8, 120; subculture 138; target culture 81, 84; value culture 8; Bardic 171; Dutch 21, 98, 123; English 140, 176; French 110, 112, 125, 138; German 142; Greco-Roman 106; learned/Latin 69; linguistic (Sprachkultur) 52-53, 150; literary 172, 180-181; reading culture 136; see also Practices Curler, Arend van 147 Curriculum 55, 90, 106-107, 135-136, 140, 179 Cyprus 88 Czech (language) 93 Danish (language) 146 Dante Alighieri 18 Danzig 88

185 Davis, Thomas 174 Dedications 56, 87, 91 Deinse (Flanders) 103 Delft 129; Military school 134 Denmark, Danes 43, 102, 145 Descartes, language of 101 Deventer 130 Dhuez, see Duez Dialectics 106 Dialectology 9 Dialects 10-12, 18, 22, 32, 34, 55, 67-69, 97-99, 111, 120; Dutch, Flemish 25, 99-100, 124, 137; French 27, 109; Frisian 34, 140; German 36, 82, 123; Lorraine 101; Lower Saxon 145; urban 23, 122-123; Walloon 24, 138 Dialogues 59-61, 63, 128-130 Diaries 27-28, 35-36, 132, 143; see also Journals, Travel journals Dictionaries 31-32, 60, 62, 63, 67, 85, 87, 91, 97, 109, 128-130, 140; multilingual and polyglot 32, 50-51, 59, 61, 63, 66, 132 Didactics 11, 20, 39, 49-50, 53-57, 62, 81, 87, 128 Didaxology, historical 53, 69 Diets (Dutch, language) 127 Diglossia 12, 132, 150 Discourse, cultural 11 Discussion culture 150 Distinction, social 8, 81, 92, 137-138; language of 110-111 Diversity (variety), cultural 43; linguistic 7-12, 14, 24-25, 27, 35, 38, 41, 43, 58, 62, 99-100, 110-111, 113, 117, 120, 125, 147-148, 150 Dodoens (Dodonaeus), Rembert 118 Dort (Dordrecht), Synod of 115 Douai, university 138 Doux, Catherin Le, see Dulcis Dragoman 80 Drenthe 35, 145 Du Bellay, Joachim 81 Duez (Dhuez), Nathanael 31, 105, 129 Duisburg 142 Dulcis (Le Doux), Catharinus 31, 86, 88-89 Duns Scotus, Johannes 172 Dürer, Albrecht 30 Düsseldorf 142 Dutch (language) 21-25, 31-36, 39, 41, 50, 59-63, 65-67, 86-87, 93, 96-103, 108-109, 114, 116-119, 121, 123, 127-151; standard language 97, 102-103, 115-116, 124, 150; biblical 151; colloquial 129, 131, 143; dialects 23, 117, 137, 142; migrant Dutch 122; Negerhollands (Negro-Dutch) 37, 146; slang 111 Dutch Republic 30, 87, 99, 102-103, 105-106, 109-110, 115, 117, 119, 124, 129, 132, 135, 138-141, 144, 150; Dutch society and culture 21, 24, 27-28, 30, 33-38, 98, 105, 113, 118, 123-124, 131, 134, 139-140, 142-143, 145, 147; Dutch ethnicity 149 Dutchification 109, 132

186 INDEX Dutchness 149 Duytsche Mathematycke 117 Dynamics, cultural 10 East India Company 22, 127 Eck, Rutghera van 114 Ecolinguistics 53, 67, 69 Education 18-20, 26, 36, 52, 58, 68, 81, 84-86, 89, 98, 116, 126-127, 142, 174, 176, 179; policy 11; surveys 133-135; primary 118, 131, 179; secondary 118-119, 131, 133, 136; higher/academic 39, 110, 118-119; adult 134; business 84; linguistic 106, 111, 126-128, 130; Latin 118, 133; moral 63, 108; mutual 126; religious 90 Educational travel 26-27, 83, 84; see also Grand Tour; Travel Effen, Justus van 99 Egypt 19 Eindhoven 30 Elisabeth (Sissi) of Austria 18 Elites 22, 26, 39, 69, 80, 83-84, 92, 116, 131 Elizabeth I, queen of England 88 Elsevier, printing office 24 Emden 142 Émigrés, see Migration Emmerich 142 Empire, Austrian 18; British 18, 42; French 134; Holy Roman (German) 18, 82, 121; Ottoman 80; Russian 18; Spanish 112 England, English Crown, English people 28, 65, 81, 83, 88-90, 99, 102-103, 105-106, 114, 120-121, 136, 140-141, 143-144, 170, 173, 176; see also Britain English (language) 19, 21, 24, 29, 32, 34-35, 39-42, 62, 86-87, 89-90, 92-93, 101, 103-104, 106, 111-114, 116, 126-127, 129, 131-132, 134-137, 139-141, 143-144, 149-150, 170, 172, 174, 178-180; American English 7; Scottish English 104, 141; Hiberno-English 172, 181 Enlightenment 24, 42, 117-118, 173 Epistemology, Episteme 69, 76 Erasmus, Desiderius 106, 108, 117, 128 Erlangen 87 Erpenius, Thomas 26-27, 107 Esperanto (language) 43 Estonians 18 Ethics 44 Ethnic groups, minorities 12, 19, 22, 25, 37-38, 45, 113, 122, 148-149 Ethnology 143 Ethnolects 10 Etruscan (language) 173 Etymology 96 Europe 7, 9, 11-12, 18, 21, 24, 37, 42, 56, 61, 64, 80-84, 90, 93, 96, 98-99, 105, 107, 109-110, 117-118, 124-126, 129, 131, 143, 146-149, 171-172, 175; Central 42, 80, 82-83, 103; Eastern 22, 80, 82-83, 92, 102; Northern 65-66; Southern

124; Western 10, 17, 80, 101-103, 106, 110, 112, 125; Indo-Europeans 173 Exile, see Migration Exulantentheologie 115 Fagel, family 139 Family 104, 115, 117; family records/archives 84-85, 126, 139 Fernando, Anthony 146 Finland 101 Finnish (language) 175 Fishman, Joshua A. 8 Flanders, Flemings 22, 24-25, 28, 35, 82, 101, 103-104, 112, 121, 124, 138, 142 Flemish (language) 24-25, 35, 50-51, 56, 59-6, 128, 137-138; see also Dutch Florence (Firenze) 22, 113, 124 Flushing (Vlissingen) 129 Folklore 176 Fontainebleau 125 Foreigners (visitors, students) 22, 24-25, 26, 28, 65, 82, 84-85, 92, 98, 113, 116, 120-122, 132, 140-141, 146, 151 Forest, Jesse de 144; Rachel de 144 Fort Orange (Albany, NY) 147-148 Foucault, Michel 69 France, French people 18-20, 26-27, 34-36, 38-42, 56-57, 64-66, 81-83, 87-88, 99, 101-102, 105, 109-110, 117, 121, 125, 128-130, 132-134, 136, 138-140, 143, 148, 173, 177; French nation 87, 109; anti-French 99; see also French (language) Francis I, king of France 106, 125 Franciscan friars 172, 174 Franconia 82 Francophiles, Francophilia 29, 131, 139, 142 Franeker 146; university 104 Franglais 40 Frankfurt 34, 59, 93 Franks 124 Fraternities 28 Freiburg/Fribourg (Switzerland) 101 French (language) 7, 19, 21-22, 24-27, 29, 31-34, 36, 38-42, 50-60, 62-63, 65, 67, 86-89, 92-93, 97-98, 102-104, 108-112, 114, 116-119, 121, 124-138, 142-146, 148, 150, 178; anti-French 100; see also Frenchification; Gallicisms Frenchification 124, 137-139 Friesland (Netherlands) 34-35, 39, 101, 104, 123, 140-141, 147 Friesland, East (Germany) 141, 145 Frisian (language) 35, 39, 123, 140; Stadsfrys (town-Frisian) 123 Frisius, Gemma 146 Fugger, family 88-89; Karl 88-89 Fukuyama, Francis 40 Gaelic (Irish, language) 169-181 Gaelic society (Ireland) 170-174

187

Index

Gaelic Union, Gaelic League 176, 179 Gaelicization 178 Gaeltacht 179 Gallicisms 36, 138 Garnier, Philippe 32 Gaul 19 Gelderland 114, 145, 147 Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott 143 Gender 23, 80, 85, 92-93, 139; see also Girls, Women Geneva 27, 146 Genoa 22, 124 Georgia 87 German (language) 19-21, 24-26, 29, 32-36, 40-42, 55, 59, 61, 80, 84, 87-88, 91-92, 101-102, 104, 112-117, 122, 126, 129, 131, 134-137, 139-140, 143, 150, 178; High German 25, 28, 82, 87, 104, 131, 142, 145-146; middle-High 80; Low German (Nederduyts, Dutch) 25, 28, 87, 96, 117, 122, 125, 142, 144-145; see also Saxon Germany, German people 18-20, 22, 25-26, 34, 36, 42, 59, 64-65, 82, 85, 88-90, 92, 105, 114, 117, 120-122, 141-145, 173, 177; anti-German 122-123; see also Empire Gesner, Conrad 64 Ghent 103; Pacification of 103 Gibberish (slang) 33, 102, 111 Giessen 32 Girls 36, 58-59, 62, 65, 84, 90, 119, 133, 178; see also Gender; Women Glossolalia 45 Glottopolitics 67 Goethe , Johann Wolfgang von 143 Gold Coast 37 Goropius (van Gorp) Becanus, Johannes 96 Göttingen, university 42, 88, 143 Gouda 131 Goulart, Simon 146 Governess (teacher) 126 Grammars 31-32, 51, 56-59, 62, 66-67, 81, 85, 91-92, 147; Anti-Grammaire 130 Grammatization 68 Grand Tour 26-27, 31, 83-85, 92, 118, 143; Petit Tour 143 Grande, Marie 146 Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de 51 Grasse 18 Gravius (de Graeve), Bartholomaeus 50, 56-58, 66 Great Britain, see Britain Greece, ancient 39 Greek (language) 22, 26, 32-34, 39, 51, 53, 96-97, 104, 106-107, 110, 131-132 Grégoire, Abbé Henri 18, 109 Grimm, Jacob 173 Grisons (Graubünden) 139 Groningen 35, 134, 137, 142

Gronings (regional language) 123 Groot (Grotius), Hugo de 107-108, 110 Guarini, Gian-Battista 31 Guicciardini, Lodovico 65-66, 113 Guilds 56, 83, 86, 115, 127 Guyana 144 Haarlem 59, 128, 138 Habsburg 50, 86, 125 Hachette Guide 27 Hague, The 30, 34, 98, 129, 138, 140; stadholder’s court 97; States General 97, 115, 124 Hainaut 24, 127, 138, 144 Halle 42, 143 Halma, François 130 Hamburg 87 Hanseatic League 39, 80 Haren, Carolina van 131 Harlingen 145 Hart, Simon 121 Heaney, Séamus 181 Hebrew (language) 26, 32, 39, 41, 51, 96-97, 104, 106-107, 121, 132 Hegemony (imperialism, superiority), linguistic 42, 44, 101, 109, 111, 124 Heidelberg 87, 104, 146 Heinsius, Daniel 119 Heliodorus 32 Henri IV (of Navarre), king of France 88 Heritage, cultural 7 Herrnhuter Brudergemeinde 87 Heyns, Peeter 57-59, 128 Heyns, Zacharias 59, 128 Hierarchization, cultural 42 Hilvarenbeek 96 Hoffer, Adriaen 111 Hofmeister 85 Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van 131 Holland 22, 25, 34, 89, 98, 102, 108-109, 112, 114, 117, 120, 123, 135, 141, 146; Kingdom of 133-134; see also Netherlands Holy Scriptures, see Bible Homer 32 Hondschoote 138 Honnête homme 105 Höschel, David 89 Huguenots 87, 99, 106, 121, 128-129, 144 Humanism 41, 89, 106, 110, 128 Humanities 10 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 42, 93 Humour, jokes 33-35, 122-123, 139, 177; see also Anecdotes Hungarian (language) 80, 92 Hungary 88 Huygen, Jan 145 Huygens, family 110; Constantin 110, 124, 138 Hyde, Douglas 176, 178

188 INDEX Identity, identification 9-13, 19, 36-37, 41, 43, 52, 81, 97, 111, 114, 116, 120, 124, 139, 143, 148-151, 174-175, 180; linguistic identity 12, 25, 52, 69 Ideology 10-11, 33, 50, 69, 84, 115, 139, 179; educational 81 Idioms, see Jargon, Languages Ido (language) 42 Imitation, imitatio 39, 65, 110 Immigration, see Migration Imperialism, see Empire; Hegemony Indians (Amerindians, natives), see Americans (native); Language Initiation rituals 28, 84 Intermediaries 55, 111; see also Mediation Internships 83-85, 92 Interpreters 22, 80-81, 88, 127, 145; see also Translators Intimacy 28, 30, 36 Ireland 169-181; see also Gaelic society Irish (language), see Gaelic Isabel, queen of Castile 67 Italian (language) 20, 26-29, 31-35, 40, 55-57, 61-62, 65-66, 86-89, 91-93, 97, 104-105, 108, 113-114, 116, 124-125, 127, 129-131, 135-137, 146 Italianists 29 Italy 20, 26, 29, 31, 65, 81-83, 88, 134, 143 Iter litterarius 83 Japicks, Gysbert 123 Jargon (idiom), professional 32, 100, 109, 111 Jarichs, Jan Hendricksz 146 Jespersen, Otto 43 Jesuits 38, 81, 89, 107, 148, 172 Jesus Christ 44 Jeuriaens, Teuntgen 145 Jews, Jewish 23, 44, 57, 132; Ashkenazi 23, 121; Sephardic 23, 121 Joan of Arc, Saint 101 Jogues, Saint Isaac 38, 148 John of the Cross, Saint 31-32 Journals 117; see also Diaries, Travel journals Joyce, James 177 Jülich 141 Kant, Immanuel 143 Kassel, Collegium Mauritianum 89 Kavalierstour 84 Kersteman, Franciscus Lievens 109 Kevelaer 142 Kiechel, Samuel 65 Kieft, Willem 38, 143-144, 148 Kierstede, Hans 145 Kiliaan, Cornelis 66-67 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb 143 Koch, Peter 67 Koerbagh, Adriaen 97 Koiné, koineization 120, 122 Komenský, see Comenius Konstanz 88

Koselleck, Reinhart 9 Krol, Bastiaen Jansz 145, 147-148 Kurtenius, widow 130 La Ramée (Ramus), Pierre de 106 La Rochelle 38, 88, 139, 144 Laet, Johan de 107 Language, see also Manuals; Masters; Preceptors; Private teachers; Schoolbooks. Language, academic 106-111, 114; book 131; diplomatic 27; everyday 9, 20-22, 25, 27-30, 35, 38-42, 99-101, 105-106, 116, 131, 143, 145, 179-180; group 45, 116, 120; international 42, 80, 84, 93, 110, 112, 138; literary 8-10, 21, 23, 90, 101, 110, 150, 170-172, 176, 181; national 10-11,18, 29, 52, 81, 96, 98, 100-101, 107, 111, 119, 149; native 7, 9-11, 38, 148, 174, 176-178; sacred 41, 45, 66; second(ary) 42, 53, 59, 93, 101, 131, 137, 178; secret 43, 172; spoken 10, 23, 113, 120, 125, 131, 138, 141-145, 174, 177, 180-181; standard/standardization 10-12, 19, 35, 38, 42, 53, 67-68, 82, 93, 97-98, 100-103, 105, 109, 111-112, 115-116, 120, 123-124, 145, 150; trade (merchant) 21-22, 34, 124-125, 131, 138-139, 146; universal (transnational) 7, 10, 38-43, 55, 82, 105-112, 119, 125; vernacular 7, 10, 23, 26-27, 29, 31, 35, 38-39, 42, 45, 52, 66-68, 80, 97, 108, 123; vulgar 12, 38, 113; see also Lingua adamica; Lingua franca; Lingua materna Language acquisition/learning 54-57, 59, 62-64, 68, 79, 81, 83-84, 90, 92, 99, 105, 129, 140; competence 49-69, 82; cultivation (Sprachkultur) 11, 53, 67, 97, 101, 110, 116, 120-121, 125, 176; of culture 110, 123, 129, 138; immersion 179; language of instruction 117, 130-131, 135; language of paradise 41, 43, 96; language pessimism 96, 98, 125; policy/politics 9, 11, 53, 81, 92-93, 109, 170, 178-179; pride 97, 125; purism 97; teaching/ instruction of language 11, 22, 29, 39, 49-58, 62-64, 68, 83, 87, 89-93, 99, 105, 111, 119, 128, 130, 140, 143; usage 9-10, 12-13, 24, 30, 80, 108, 110, 114-115, 137, 139, 145-146, 148, 150 Languages, (American-)Indian 37-38, 81, 107, 145-149; artificial (invented) 42-43; Celtic 173-176; classical 39-41, 52, 66, 68, 104, 106-107, 110, 113-114, 132, 135, 150; conflict of 11; dead 39, 41-42, 110, 176; domestic 7, 26, 131, 145; Eastern 93, 107; exotic 81; foreign 7, 9-11, 23, 29-30, 32-33, 35, 39, 53, 57, 59, 62, 81, 84-85, 87, 89-90, 92-93, 97, 99, 105, 113-114, 117, 126, 129, 131-133, 136, 150; hierarchy of 19, 39, 99, 112, 135; Indo-European 173; living 41-42, 107, 110, 115, 173-174, 176; modern 26, 31, 39-42, 50, 52, 62, 66, 68, 80, 85-87, 90, 104-105, 107, 109-110, 112-113, 126-128, 132, 150; regional 7, 12, 69, 82, 97, 101-102, 104, 109, 112, 122-124, 142, 145; Romance 57, 67, 124; scholarly 21, 24-25, 108, 173, 175-176; Western 88, 107

189

Index

Langue d’oc 125; langue d’oil 125 Latin (language) 7, 10, 21-22, 24-28, 31-34, 36, 39-42, 50-51, 55, 57-58, 61, 66-69, 80, 90-92, 96-97, 103-110, 112, 114, 116-119, 126-127, 129136, 143-144, 170; alphabet 178; Church Latin 110; medical 110; medieval 40; scholastic 10, 12, 110; Neo-Latin 41, 108, 119, 131; see also Languages, classical Latinity 173 Lavater, Johann Kaspar 143 Le Doux, Catherin, see Dulcis Le Pipere, Paul 103 Leeuwenhoek, Anthony van 118 Legislation 150, 171; linguistic 81, 112, 173, 179 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 142 Leiden 22, 24-27, 30-31, 66, 119-120, 129, 138, 144; Engineering school 117; Plantin printing office 66; university 96, 104, 107, 117, 121, 133, 144 Leipzig 32, 88 Lengua del imperio 112 Leo the Hebrew (Abravanel) 31 Lesssing, Gotthold Ephraim 143 Leuven, see Louvain Lexicography 60-62, 67, 87 Libraries 25, 29, 109, 130, 173; private 30-32, 85, 103, 105, 108, 135-137 Liège 24, 25; dialect 138 Lille 24, 138 Lingua adamica 41, 96 Lingua franca 17, 26, 29, 37-42, 109, 111-112, 124, 130, 138, 146 Lingua materna 56, 65, 113 Linguistics (historical) 8-13,20, 41, 52, 55, 67, 107; comparative 10, 79, 82, 173; linguistic turn 9 Lipsius, Justus 96-97 Lisbon 84 Literacy 169-176 Logic 106 Loire valley 26 London 22, 88; Royal Society 81 Loonen, Pieter 140 Lore, antiquarian 171 Lorraine 129; Lorrain (dialect) 106 Louis XIV, king of France (the Sun King) 18, 137, 139 Louvain (Leuven) 30, 50-51, 56, 61, 64, 66, 142, 172, 174; Collegium Trilingue 51, 66; Irish College 172; University 57, 64, 66, 96, 106 Low Countries 20, 39, 52-53, 58, 64-65, 113, 121, 125-126, 142; Spanish/Southern (Habsburg) 24, 30, 32, 50, 52, 55, 57-59, 61-62, 64, 66-67, 144; see also Netherlands Lucassen, Jan 120 Luther, Martin 146, 156 Lutherans 34, 82, 86, 98, 120-122, 141, 143, 145-146

Luython, Glaude 60 Lyons 22, 83-84, 136, 139 Mac Cumhaill, Fionn 170 Machiavelli, Niccolò 31 Macpherson, James 173 Magazin de Planté 62-64 Magdeburg 145 Maintenon (Françoise d’Aubigné), Madame de 102 Maîtres de langues, see Language masters Mangan, John Clarence 174 Manhattan 33, 144-145 Manuals, language 50, 56, 63, 66-67; conversation 62; merchant 128; see also Schoolbooks Marburg, university 88-89 Maria Theresa, empress 90 Marin, Pierre 130 Market 61-62, 68, 91, 105, 128-129; for books 91; linguistic 102, 126, 129, 140 Marly 125 Marseilles 18 Martens, Dirk 66 Martin, Graham Dunstan 8 Massachusetts 144 Masters, instructors, teachers 23, 174; language masters 22, 29, 31, 49, 55-56, 79, 81, 83, 85-93, 104, 111, 118-119, 126-130, 140, 144-145; maîtres de langue 86-87, 90-91; schoolmasters 58, 60-61, 103, 106, 127-129, 140, 171, 179; guild 127; schoolmistresses 90, 119; see also Preceptors, Private Teachers Mathematics 90, 117 Mathenesse, Margaretha van 114 Maurice, prince of Orange 30 Mazuy, Patricia 102 Mechlin (Mechelen) 142 Mediation, mediators 63, 80, 83, 125, 141; see also Intermediaries Mediterranean Sea 124 Megapolensis, Johannes 38, 147-148 Mellema, Elcie Édouard Léon 60 Mercator sapiens 107 Merchant adventurers 141 Merchants 25, 34-35, 38, 56, 58-59, 62, 65, 68, 81-85, 97, 112-113, 115, 121, 128, 139-140, 144 Meurier, Gabriel 56-59, 61-64, 66, 127-129, 144 Meuse 133 Mhac an tSaoi, Máire 180 Michelin Guide 27 Middelburg 119, 139 Middle Ages 21, 24-26, 39-41, 64, 67-68, 83, 88, 110, 124, 141, 170-172, 178 Mieris, Frans van 137 Migration, Immigrants, Émigrés 12, 22-25, 59, 63, 66, 87, 89, 96, 102, 105, 114-117, 119-124, 128, 130, 134, 141, 144-146, 149-150, 173-175, 179; exile 121, 126, 172

190 INDEX Ministers, see Reformed Church Minorities, linguistic 18, 21, 101 Minuit, Peter 145, 147 Missions, Christian 38, 80-81, 148 Modernity 41, 142, 177 Mohawk (language) 148; tribe 38, 148 Mokum (nickname for Amsterdam) 23 Molkwerum 34, 140 Monarchy, universal (monarchie universelle) 42, 125 Moniteur universel, Le 98 Monolingualism 12, 18, 25, 28-30, 56, 150 Morality, moral education 39, 44, 59, 62-63, 108, 112, 128, 139, 173 Moravia 89, 99; Moravian Brethren 87 Moritz, landgrave of Hesse 89 Mother tongue 36, 65, 100, 115-118, 122, 126, 131, 137; see also Language, vernacular Mousnier de la Montagne, Jean 144 Mulhouse 20 Multiculturalism 23, 42 Multilingualism 9, 12, 21-24, 27-30, 32-35, 38-40, 42, 50-69, 80-81, 92, 95, 99-101, 104-105, 109-116, 119, 121, 123-124, 127, 129, 134, 139, 143-144, 149-150 Munich 90; Nymphenburg school 90 Münster (Westphalia) 142 Music 24, 26, 29, 105, 150, 172, 178, 180 Mutual education 126 Myl (Mylius), Abraham van der 96 Names 26, 28, 64, 90, 121, 145-146; given (Christian) 178; place names 174 Nantes 139; Edict of 130 Naples 34 Napoleon Ist, emperor 134, 139 Nassau, family 30 Nassau-Dietz, William Frederik count of 35 Nation, nationhood, nationalism 11-12, 39-45, 50, 52, 56, 63, 86, 96-98, 111-112, 119, 149-150, 174-181 Nation states 80-81 Natives, see Americans (native) Navy 23, 115, 135 Nebrija, Antonio de 57, 67 Negerhollands (Negro-Dutch, linguistic variant) 37, 146 Negro, Francisco 146 Neo-Latin (language), see Latin Netherlands 20-21, 82-83, 98-99, 101, 104, 112, 116, 118, 129, 131-132, 140-143, 145, 149-151; Eastern 104, 114, 123, 141; Northern 97-100, 115, 119, 129, 141, 144; Southern/Spanish 32, 105, 115, 127-128, 137, 140; Western 121; see also Batavian Republic; Dutch Republic; Holland; Low Countries. New Amsterdam 38, 144, 147-148 New Netherland 33, 37, 143-148 New York 33, 37-38, 143, 149; Bronx 145

Newspapers 24, 127 Ni Dhomhnaill, Nuala 181 Nicosia 88 Nijkerk 147 Nijmegen, treaty 138 Noah 107 Nobility, gentry 21, 36, 81, 84-85, 88-89, 92, 114, 123, 172 Noël, see Berlaimont Nominalia 64 Nordic 170 Normandy 101 North Sea 90 Norway 102, 122, 145 Norwegian (language) 175 Norwich 22 Novial (language) 43 Nuremberg 79-92 Ó Direáin, Mairtin 180 Ó Riordáin, Seán 181 Ó Siubhlaigh, Máire (Mary Walker) 178 O’Brien, Flann 180 Occitania 101 Oesterreicher, Wulf 67 Oral history 103 Oratory of Jesus 30, 39 Orient 19, 88 Orthography 174 Ossian, Poems of 173 Overbeke, Aernout van 34-36, 140 Overijssel 108, 123-124, 145 Oxford, university 106 Padua 88 Palatinate 88, 141, 145-146 Palestine 88 Pallavicino, Ferrante 31 Pamphlets 30, 32-33, 103 Paris, Parisians 18, 26, 56, 101, 123, 125, 138-139; Académie Française 109; Collège de France 106; Irish College 172; Latin Quarter 22; Sorbonne 19 Patois 18, 98, 109, 172 Patricians 83-85, 88, 92 Paul, Saint 45 Peasantry 19, 34, 122, 171, 175-176 Pedagogy 54, 56, 90, 99, 106, 126, 132, 142, 179 Peddlers 121 Peek & Cloppenburg, store 121 Péls, Andries 138 Pentecost 44 Perception 9-11, 13 Performance, performativity 8, 37, 45, 54, 108, 172, 176, 178 Persian (language) 96, 107 Petit-nègre (linguistic variant) 172 Philadelphia 88 Philip II, king of Spain 50-51

Index

Philology 10, 52, 76, 81, 96, 106, 173-176 Philosophy 31, 40, 80, 84, 97, 106, 118, 142-143, 172 Phoenician (language) 173 Picardy 60-61, 88 Pictet, Adolphe 173 Pidgin 38, 111, 120, 124, 147, 150 Piélat, Barthélemy 129-130 Pierbenedetti, Andrea 31 Pietism 140. 142-143, 150 Pillotus, Joannes 56 Plantin, Christophe 58-59, 61, 66-67 Pléiade, La 81 Pluralism, plurality 128; cultural 23; linguistic 12, 17-18, 20, 23, 28-29, 36, 38, 40, 43-45 Plurilingualism 12, 35, 50, 52, 80-83, 92, 139 Poetry 80, 170-172 Poland 20, 34, 43, 88, 102 Polish (language) 129 Pollini, Girolamo 31 Pöllnitz, barons of 30 Polyglossia 12, 91, 133 Pontifical State 31, 88, 125 Popular literature/prints 31-32, 34, 61, 69, 103, 122, 130, 145, 175 Portugal 28, 33, 37, 65, 83, 146 Portuguese (language) 23, 37, 93, 121, 129. 131, 137, 146 Practices, commercial 140; cultural 8, 3, 29, 32, 52, 113; linguistic 22, 52, 103, 108, 120, 124-125; mystical 45; reading 30 Pragmatics 9, 81 Prague 22, 89 Prayer, language of 121; books 11, 129 Preceptors, praeceptor 27, 106; see also Masters Prefaces 50, 57-58, 62-63, 66, 87, 91 Prestige, cultural/social 107, 169-181; linguistic / language of 21, 33, 42, 55, 110-111, 135-138 Printing press 21, 30, 56, 66, 68, 171-172, 175 Private journal, see Diaries Private (free-lance) teachers, tutors, educators 22, 24-25, 29, 32-33, 86, 88-90, 126, 130, 135, 140 Professors, university 25-26, 51, 88-89, 104, 117, 119, 132, 137 Pronunciation 35, 40, 62, 97, 100, 106, 123-124, 129, 174 Protestantism 24, 38, 80, 86, 88, 90, 130, 142, 144, 171-172, 175; see also Reformation Prussia 19, 87 Public sphere 74, 180 Puritans 121, 140-141 Rabus, Pieter 117 Ramism 106; see also La Ramée (Ramus) Ratisbon 87, 106 Reading 11-12, 30, 39, 51, 59, 80, 85, 92, 98, 102, 104, 132, 136, 146, 175-176, 181 Reception 37

191 Rederijkerskamers, see Rhetoric Reformation 30, 67, 80, 82, 145, 171-172 Reformed Church, ministers 25, 87, 103-105, 115, 117, 121, 138, 141, 146, 148, 150 Refuge, Second 128, 130 Refugees 12, 23, 17, 120-121, 128, 137 Regiolects 10, 111, 123; see also Dialects; Languages, regional Rehlinger, Karl 89 Reichstage (Imperial Diets) 82 Reiniers, Grietje 147 Religion 23, 26, 39, 45, 52, 90, 97, 117, 124, 140-141, 171-172 Remonstrants 30 Renaissance 40-41, 53, 67, 81, 84, 117 Renan, Ernest 19 Renesse van der Aa, Sophie 114 Rensselaerswijck 145, 147 Republic of Letters 119 Ressen (Rescius), Rutger 66 Revival(ism), cultural 110, 125, 176-181 Revolution, Batavian 131, 137; Brabant 21; French 18, 20, 39, 42, 90, 109, 131; industrial 90; printing 65 Rhetoric 12, 35; Chambers of (rederijkerskamers) 96-97, 128 Rhine 25, 133 Rhineland 141, 145 Rider, John 32 Ritterakademien 85, 87 Rivarol, Antoine de 40-41, 112, 125 Roelofs, Sara 145 Rojas, Ferdinando de 31 Roman-Catholics, see Catholics Romanticism 173-175, 178 Rome 22, 27-28, 31, 39; Congregatio de Propaganda Fide 172; Curia 27; national churches 28; Irish College 172; Roman law 109 Rotterdam 22, 129, 139-141; Illustrious School 117 Rouen 22, 139 Roussillon 101 Routines 36-38, 42 Russia 18, 22, 102 Russian (language) 80, 92 Sailing letters 100 Sailors, seafarers 33, 98, 121-122, 144; idiom 110 Saint-Ambrose, guild 127 Saint-Bartholomew massacre 88 Saint-Cyr 102 Saint-Omer 138 Saintonge 144 Saint-Petersburg 22 Salamanca 31, 172 Salis, family de 137, 139 Samos 88 Sandwich (England) 103 Santo Domingo 146

192 INDEX Sarpi, Pietro 31 Sasbout, Mathias 60 Satire 31, 122, 138 Saumaise (Salmasius), Claude 132-133 Saumur 27 Savoy 88, 130 Saxon, Lower (language) 123, 142, 145; Old 140 Saxony 145; Lower 117, 141, 143 Scandinavia 82-83, 144 Scandinavians 23, 121-122 Schatcamer 146 Schenectady 147 Schiller, Friedrich von 143 Schleyer, Johann Martin 43 Scholars, scholarship 8-10, 12, 21-22, 24-26, 33, 52, 64, 68, 88, 106, 108, 110, 115-119, 132, 149, 173, 175-176 Scholastics 110 School, schooling 29, 36, 58-59, 104, 119, 133-135, 179, 181; informal 23; school festivals 81 Schoolbooks, textbooks 18, 31, 59, 66, 91-92, 105, 127-130, 132, 134, 138, 140 Schoolmasters, schoolmistresses see Masters Schools, artillery 134; boarding 133, 135-136, 140; elementary/primary 22, 131, 133, 135, 176; elite 102; engineering 117; English 140; French 40, 58, 87, 103-104, 118-119, 130, 132-133, 135, 138, 140; grammar/Latin 22, 27, 39-40, 103, 106, 108, 110, 116, 118, 130, 132-133, 144; illustrious 11, 107, 117, 132; immersion 179; modern 55; private 130; travelling 58 Schurman, Anna Maria van 121, 135, 136 Science, language (idiom) of 4, 41, 120 Scotland, Scots 89, 102, 105, 120-121, 139, 141, 178; Scottish churches 140-141 Scots, Scottish (language) 141; Scottish English 104, 141; Scots-Gaelic 169 Scotus Eriugena, Johannes 172 Scotus, Johannes Duns, see Duns Scotus Scultetus, Abraham 146 Seasonal workers 141-142; see also Migration Sedan 144 Seespiegel (Sea Mirror) 146 Segregation 25 Self-study, see Autodidaxy Semantics, historical 13, 64 Serbs 18 Sermons 32, 90, 122, 145-146 Servants, domestic 23 Seville 22 Sicilians 18 Simón, Guillermo 57 Skaldic (language) 170 Skills 37, 115; linguistic 103, 118, 126, 134, 140 Skinner, Quentin 98 Slade, Matthew 144 Slander 102 Slang 111 Slavery 37, 88, 146

Slavonic (language) 20, 80 107 Sleidanus, Johannes 146 Sneek (Friesland) 104 Snouckaert van Schauburg, family 139 Sociability 26, 28, 115 Social groups, status, strata 7, 9, 67, 83, 85-86, 93, 107, 111, 134, 138, 142, 173; cohesion 38, 112; intercourse, interaction 11-12, 21-23, 63-64, 81, 120, 175-176, 179 Socialization 42 Socio-culture 8 Sociolects 10, 18, 22-23, 32, 108, 111, 124 Sociolinguistics, historical 9, 10, 13, 20, 53-55, 101-103, 112 Songs 29, 114 Sorèze 136 Spain, Spaniards 19, 21, 28, 58, 65-67, 81-83, 101, 104-105, 107, 125, 171 Spanish (language) 7, 19, 26, 31-32, 34-35, 40, 50, 55-58, 60-62, 65-66, 87, 93, 104-105, 112-113, 121, 127, 129, 131, 135-137, 150; see also Castilian Speaking, speech 10-12, 19-29, 31-33, 35-36, 41-45, 52, 63, 65, 86, 97, 100-103, 110, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 134, 137-138, 142, 144-145, 147-150, 170, 172, 174-179; speech act 12; Sprachkultur 53; native speakers 7, 22, 25, 86, 93, 104, 110, 128, 132, 137-138, 176, 178; speaking in tongues 44-45 Spectators 99, 139 Speyer 88 Spiegel, Hendrick Laurensz 117 Spies, Marijke 150 Spinoza, Benedictus de 22 Stadsfrys, see Frisian Stadtholders 30, 35, 110, 116 Standardization, see Language, standard Stetten, Georg von 89 Stevin, Simon 96, 117-118, 125 Straparola, Giovanni Francesco 31 Strasbourg 86; university 88 Students 22, 24-29, 51, 64, 66-67, 79, 81, 83, 85, 91, 106, 108, 113, 118, 129, 134, 143 Stuyvesant, Peter 33 Süsskind, Patrick 18 Swabian (regional language) 82 Sweden, Swedes 18, 33-34, 102, 126, 144 Swedish (language) 137, 145 Switzerland 20, 101, 105, 137, 139, 146, 173 Symbols, symbolism 7-8, 12-13, 41-44, 58, 85, 111, 113, 150, 175, 177-180 Syria 88 Syrian (language) 107 Teachers (instructors), language 119, 127, 130; see also Language Masters, Preceptors, Private teachers Teachers, female 85, 89-91, 93, 127; see also Gender; Schoolmistresses; Women

193

Index

Teaching materials 83, 87, 91-93 Technostructure 64, 66, 68 Teding van Berkhout, Pieter 108 Textbooks, see Schoolbooks Theatre 11, 23, 128, 171, 176, 178; plays 59; school theatre 81 Tongues, gift of 44-45 Toponymy 174 Tour, Grand, see Apprentices’ tour; Grand Tour; Migration Trainees 84 Training, academic 27-28; language 84; military 134-135; vocational 79, 83-84 Transfer, cultural 38, 40-41, 43, 81, 84-86 Translations 30-32, 39, 51, 53, 56, 81, 88, 102, 113, 118, 140, 142-143, 176, 178; see also Bible Translators 80, 127; see also Interpreters Travels 26-29, 31, 82, 84-85, 88, 92, 104, 113, 121, 128, 142; travel guides 27, 31; travel journals, travelogues 27-28, 129, 132; see also Diaries Trent, Council of 31 Trilingualism 21, 32, 58, 60, 106, 116, 118 Tübingen 89 Turkey 22, 88 Turkish (language) 80, 124 Tutors (Hofmeister), see Private teachers Twiller, Wouter van 147 Tyrol 20 Ulster 170 Unity (unification), linguistic 7, 17, 38, 41, 43-44, 109, 111, 148 Universities 21-22, 24-26, 40-42, 57, 64, 85-90, 104, 106-107, 127, 132-133, 143, 172, 179; university nations 22, 26 Urban VIII, Pope 31 Utopia 41, 45 Utrecht 51, 114, 120, 141, 145-146; Union of (1579) 97 Vagrants 122; see also Migration Valenciennes 138 Valerius (Valère), Cornelius 51 Value-culture 6 Values 7-8, 20, 23, 36, 40-41, 68, 98, 126, 130, 150; classical 39; symbolic 110-112 Variety (variants), linguistic, see Diversity Vatebender, Gerrit 131 Venice 31, 84, 88, 124 Venosa 31 Versailles 125 Vienna 22, 30, 89 Villalón, Cristóbal de 57 Villers-Cotterêts, Edict of 1080 Virgil 31 Virgines Anglicanae 90, 93 Virginia 144, 147

Virtuosi 118 Virtuosity 172 Vitae Sanctorum 172 Vocabularies, word lists 10, 13, 31, 35, 38, 41, 59-64, 81, 84, 128-129, 140, 147 Volapük (language) 43 Vollenhove, Johannes 124 Vondel, Joost van den 31, 97 Vorsterman, Willem 60 Voss, department store 121 Vroom & Dreesmann, department store 121 Waesberghe, Jan van 56, 59-63, 130 Wagenaar, Lucas Jansz 146 Wales 19, 39 Walker, Mary (Ó Siubhlaigh, Máire) 178 Wallonia, Walloons 22-25, 27, 36, 102, 120-121, 128, 130, 138, 144-145; dialect 24, 138; Walloon church 25, 134, 138 Walz (Apprentices’ tour) 83 Ward, Mary 89 Warmond 118 Weber, Eugen 19 Welser, Marcus 89 Welsh (language) 20, 39, 169 Wesel 142 West India Company 33, 107, 127, 143, 145 Westhoek (Flanders) 101 Westphalia 122, 141; dialect 123 White, Hayden 9 William IV, prince of Orange 116 Winthrop, John 144 Wittenberg, university 89 Wolff, Christian 142 Woman’s Complaint 172 Women 83, 89-92,113-114, 119, 122, 132, 134, 140; see also Gender; Girls; Teachers World Wars 20, 42, 179 Wurttemberg 88 Yiddish (language) 22-13, 111 Yorkshire 89 Youth, young people 22, 26-27, 31, 35-36, 50, 59, 65, 83-86, 88-89, 92, 105-106, 108, 111, 113, 122, 131, 138-139, 143; see also Children Zamenhof, Ludwik 43 Zeeland 111-112, 141 Zeeuws (regional language) 123 Zeuss, Johann Caspar 173 Zierikzee 111 Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig von 87 Zürich 146 Zutphen 103-105, 114, 123, 134 Zwingli, Ulrich 146 Zwolle 59, 128, 135