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This paper introduces the field of historical sociolinguistics and gives a brief impression of the advances made during the last three decades. Furthermore, the relationship between local and international perspectives is stressed, while discussing the papers in the present Taal & Tongval issue. Finally, new research perspectives and the importance of using original archive sources come to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various topics published within the issue including one by Ana Deumert on language standardisation theory and practice, one by Leigh Oakes on attitudes towards French and English among French-speaking Canadians and another by Andrew Linn on language norms and functions in the history of Norway.

‘In looking back upon the history of ordinary people, we are not merely trying to give it a retrospective political significance which it did not always have, we are trying more generally to explore an unknown dimension of the past.’ (Hobsbawm 1998: 270) The historiography of modern Western languages has traditionally concentrated on unification and standardization processes. This approach was deeply rooted in 19th and early 20th century (language) ideologies and (language) politics. The language discourse in many Western countries displayed a remarkable collaboration of linguists with politicians, historians and writers in constructing a picture of unified nations with autonomous cultural, especially literary and linguistic, traditions that were sometimes projected backwards to the Middle Ages and beyond. Hence, generations of scholars and teachers have presented language history as a long march toward a uniform standard. Variation and other linguistic digressions were usually either ignored or stigmatised as corrupted language and not considered as suitable data for linguistic research. Up to the end of the 20th century, many textbooks on national language histories were dominated by this teleological view, portraying ‘classical’ authors as role models for language norms and style. As such, language history was largely reduced to the study of literary language, often coinciding with the high variety employed and received by only a tiny minority of the population. ‘Non-standard’ variation – let alone language use from the non-elite – was usually regarded as corrupt and vulgar and, in an act of ‘sanitary purism’ (Milroy 2005, 324–326) or ‘verbal hygiene’ (Cameron 1995), simply cleansed from textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the written Dutch of lower class writers in 19th century Bruges (Flanders, Belgium). None of the scribes conformed to any of the prestige norms for Dutch spelling at the time. They all used an idiosyncratic orthography instead, full of variability but not chaotic. On the level of style and syntax, these texts are characterised by ‘stylistic breakdown’. The combination of these orthographical and stylistic features was not typical for lower class writing as such. In Bruges, middle and upper class writers displayed similar writing patterns, but they abandoned this ‘style’ for the standard earlier than the lower class writers did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘In looking back upon the history of ordinary people, we are not merely trying to give it a retrospective political significance which it did not always have, we are trying more generally to explore an unknown dimension of the past.’ (Hobsbawm 1998: 270) The historiography of modern Western languages has traditionally concentrated on unification and standardization processes. This approach was deeply rooted in 19th and early 20th century (language) ideologies and (language) politics. The language discourse in many Western countries displayed a remarkable collaboration of linguists with politicians, historians and writers in constructing a picture of unified nations with autonomous cultural, especially literary and linguistic, traditions that were sometimes projected backwards to the Middle Ages and beyond. Hence, generations of scholars and teachers have presented language history as a long march toward a uniform standard. Variation and other linguistic digressions were usually either ignored or stigmatised as corrupted language and not considered as suitable data for linguistic research. Up to the end of the 20th century, many textbooks on national language histories were dominated by this teleological view, portraying ‘classical’ authors as role models for language norms and style. As such, language history was largely reduced to the study of literary language, often coinciding with the high variety employed and received by only a tiny minority of the population. ‘Non-standard’ variation – let alone language use from the non-elite – was usually regarded as corrupt and vulgar and, in an act of ‘sanitary purism’ (Milroy 2005, 324–326) or ‘verbal hygiene’ (Cameron 1995), simply cleansed from textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the written Dutch of lower class writers in 19th century Bruges (Flanders, Belgium). None of the scribes conformed to any of the prestige norms for Dutch spelling at the time. They all used an idiosyncratic orthography instead, full of variability but not chaotic. On the level of style and syntax, these texts are characterised by ‘stylistic breakdown’. The combination of these orthographical and stylistic features was not typical for lower class writing as such. In Bruges, middle and upper class writers displayed similar writing patterns, but they abandoned this ‘style’ for the standard earlier than the lower class writers did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called Brugge-project is concerned with language usage and linguistic behavior in 19thcentury Brugge. Two language domains have been thoroughly investigated so far, viz. the language use of the lower class (the "Arbeitersprache") and that of}middle class intellectuals (the "particularists"). Since this is the first major study in historical sociolinguistics in the Low Countries the article starts with a discussion of methodological problems which had to be dealt with. Subsequently the research findings, based on original data never used for (socio)linguistic analysis before, are presented. As far as Arbeitersprache is concerned, the investigation of spelling, grammar and style revealed that both the apparently chaotic orthography and the deviating syntactic structures can, in fact, be linguistically described and ordered in a much more systematic way than it used to be assumed. Also, the fact that the grammatical and orthographic problems of the working class were partly shared by authors from very different social backgrounds convinced us that, as opposed to the usual class centered paradigm, the literacy centered paradigm used here allows for a more reliable comparative research.Traditional views had to be abandoned as far as the "particularists" are concerned as well. It appears that they never strived to add a southern, Flemish flavor to the standard language but that they were opposed to the use of any supra regional variety whatsoever instead. A diglossic situation with the West-Flemish dialect for L- and French for H-functions was what they really favored and in so doing they did not fight French influence in Flanders (as it was assumed so far) but actually tried to enhance it. Finally we were able to meet the methodological desiderata formulated by Romaine and Mattheier not only by re-examining texts and paying attention to their "location in their socio-historical context" but also by accounting for the authors' choice from the full set of alternatives available at the time and by reconstructing who had access to which varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]