Languages and Culture in History
About the Book Series
Co-founding editor: Willem Frijhoff, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands †
The series studies the role foreign languages have played in the creation of linguistic and cultural heritage, at the individual, communal, national and 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.
Editorial Board: Alice Burrows, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, Federico Gobbo, University of Amsterdam, Gerda Hassler, University of Potsdam, Aurélie Joubert, University of Groningen, 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, Vladislav Rjéoutski, German Historical Institute, Paris, Valérie Spaëth, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, Javier Suso López, University of Granada, Pierre Swiggers, KU Leuven
To submit proposals, please contact the Editor at Routledge, Dorothea Schaefter ([email protected]).
Languages of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World: Europe and the USA
1st Edition
Edited
By Gleb Kazakov, Vladislav Rjéoutski
May 13, 2026
This book outlines major trends in language use by early modern diplomats, mainly in the European context, through a series of case studies and overviews of regional diplomatic traditions. During the early modern period, linguistic practices in European diplomacy changed drastically, as the decline...
Women in the History of Language Learning and Teaching: Hidden Pioneers of Practice from Europe and Beyond (1400-2000)
1st Edition
Edited
By Sabine Doff, Giovanni Iamartino, Rachel Mairs
December 02, 2025
This volume addresses the historical neglect of women’s contributions to language learning and teaching. While the historiography of language education has often focused on male-dominated frameworks, overlooking the pivotal roles women have played, the case studies in this book highlight female ...
French as Language of Intimacy in the Modern Age: Le français, langue de l'intime à l'époque moderne et contemporaine
1st Edition
Edited
By Madeleine van Strien-Chardonneau, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle
December 01, 2025
For centuries, French was the language of international commercial and diplomatic relations, a near-dominant language in literature and poetry, and was widely used in teaching. It even became the fashionable language of choice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for upper class Dutch, ...
Language Choice in Enlightenment Europe: Education, Sociability, and Governance
1st Edition
Edited
By Vladislav Rjéoutski, Willem Frijhoff
December 01, 2025
This multinational collection of essays challenges the traditional image of a monolingual Ancient Regime in Enlightenment Europe, both East and West. Its archival research explores the important role played by selective language use in social life and in the educational provisions in the early ...
Language Learning and Teaching in Missionary and Colonial Contexts: L'apprentissage et l'enseignement des langues en contextes missionnaire et colonial
1st Edition
Edited
By Dan Savatovsky, Mariangela Albano, Thi Kieu Ly Pham, Valérie Spaëth
December 01, 2025
This volume assembles texts dedicated to the linguistic and educational aspects of missionary and colonial enterprises, taking into account all continents and with an extended diachronic perspective (15th–20th centuries). Strictly speaking, this “linguistics” is contemporary to the colonial era, so...
Language, Literature and the Construction of a Dutch National Identity (1780-1830)
1st Edition
Edited
By Rick Honings, Ton van Kalmthout, Gijsbert Rutten
December 01, 2025
In exploring the birth of a Dutch identity between 1780 and 1830, this book integrates nationalism studies with literary and linguistic history by highlighting scholarly study of the Dutch language as a factor in the creation of the national identity. These early scholars promoted the Dutch ...
Languages, Identities and Cultural Transfers: Modern Greeks in the European Press (1850-1900)
1st Edition
Edited
By Georgia Gotsi, Despina Provata
December 01, 2025
What was the perception of Greece in Europe during the later nineteenth century, when the attraction of romantic philhellenism had waned? This volume focuses on the reception of medieval and modern Greece in the European press, rigorously analysing journals and newspapers published in England, ...
Linguistic and Cultural Foreign Policies of European States: 18th-20th Centuries
1st Edition
Edited
By Karène Sanchez Summerer, Willem Frijhoff
December 01, 2025
The policies relating to language pursued by European monarchies and states have been widely studied, but far less attention has been given to their linguistic and cultural policies in territories outside their own borders. This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to filling that gap, ...
Multilingualism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: Northern Europe, 16th-19th Centuries
1st Edition
Edited
By Willem Frijhoff, Marie-Christine Kok Escalle, Karène Sanchez Summerer
December 01, 2025
Before the modern nation-state became a stable, widespread phenomenon throughout northern Europe, multilingualism-the use of multiple languages in one geographical area-was common throughout the region. This book brings together historians and linguists, who apply their respective analytic tools to...
Policies and Practice in Language Learning and Teaching: 20th-century Historical Perspectives
1st Edition
Edited
By Sabine Doff, Richard Smith
December 01, 2025
This book brings together studies from Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, and the UK which explore links between policy and practice in language teaching in the twentieth century. The 14 contributions set out to expand the remit of ‘grounded history’ within the field ...
The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History
1st Edition
By Derek Offord, Vladislav Rjéoutski, Gesine Argent
December 01, 2025
With support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Moskau , The French Language in Russia provides the fullest examination and discussion to date of the adoption of the French language....
The History of Grammar in Foreign Language Teaching
1st Edition
Edited
By Simon Coffey
December 01, 2025
Taking a broadly chronological approach, this volume of original essays traces the origins of the concept of ‘grammar’. In doing so, it charts the social, moral and cultural factors that have shaped the development of grammar from Antiquity, via the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Europe, to ...