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Multilingualism in Eurasian Premodern Societies – Introductory Remarks
Title / Series / Name
Medieval Worlds
Publication Volume
Publication Issue
23
Pages
Editors
Keywords
Historical multilingualism
Urban space
Eliteness
Identity
SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
Urban space
Eliteness
Identity
SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
Files
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Szende-Katalin_2025.pdf
Adobe PDF, 119.51 KB
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28721
Abstract
This introductory essay outlines the aims, scope, and initial results of the work package Multilingualism in Eurasian Premodern Societies: Social Hierarchies and Spaces, part of the Cluster of Excellence »Eurasian Transformations«. The work package investigates multilingualism as a pervasive feature of premodern Eurasian societies and explores how language use intersected with social diversity, identity formation, and spatial organisation. By combining social, spatial, and linguistic approaches, the initiative seeks to illuminate the functional and ideological dimensions of historical multilingualism and to situate it within broader patterns of communication, mobility, and power. Since the 1990s, scholarship has recognised multilingualism not as an exception but as a structural norm of premodern polities. Building on this foundation, the work package examines multilingual practices in key urban settings – administrative, religious, and commercial – where social hierarchies were negotiated and reproduced. A series of workshops and a major conference held in Vienna between 2025 and 2026 addressed administrative multilingualism, elite linguistic repertoires, religious language spaces, and the linguistic dynamics of trade. These events highlighted how languages served as instruments of governance, social distinction, and economic interaction, and how multilingual practices were embedded in the spatial logic of cities and empires. The contributions by Marijana Mišević and Lena Sadovski exemplify the project’s approach. Mišević analyses Ottoman–Ragusan multilingual diplomatic communication and the shifting role of Slavic expertise in early Ottoman administration, while Sadovski investigates the pragmatic coexistence of Latin, Venetian, and Slavic in late medieval Spalato, emphasising the social distribution of language skills and the significance of vernacular communication. Together, these studies open up new comparative perspectives on multilingualism in premodern Eurasia and lay the groundwork for further interdisciplinary research within the Cluster of Excellence.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2025-11-27
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1553/medievalworlds_no23_2025s4