Were Stone-Age languages really more complex than their modern counterparts? Was Basque actually once spoken over all of Western Europe? Were Welsh-speaking slaves truly responsible for the loss of English morphology? This latest collection of Peter Trudgill's most seminal articles explores these questions and more. Focused around the theme of sociolinguistics and language change across deep historical millennia (the Palaeolithic era to the Early Middle Ages), the essays explore topics in historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, language change, linguistic typology, geolinguistics, and language contact phenomena. Each paper is fully updated for this volume, and includes linking commentaries and summaries, for easy cross-reference. This collection will be indispensable to academic specialists and graduate students with an interest in the sociolinguistic aspects of historical linguistics.

This collection brings together Peter Trudgill's essays on the sociolinguistic aspects of historical linguistics for the first time.

About the Author
Peter Trudgill is a world-renowned theoretical dialectologist, with Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Uppsala, East Anglia, La Trobe, British Colombia, and Patras. Recent publications include Dialects Matters: Respecting Vernacular Language (2016) and Investigations in Sociohistorical Linguistics (2010).


Book Information
ISBN 9781108708647
Author Peter Trudgill
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 280g
Dimensions(mm) 227mm * 153mm * 10mm