Students who successfully finish the course will possess:
(1) knowledge about the socio-political situation of the Modern Celtic minority languages and their speakers;
(2) understanding of the general principles of language change through contact and how these shape and have shaped the Modern Celtic languages;
(3) familiarity with the methods and results of language contact research on the history of Western European languages (with a focus on the involvement of Celtic);
(4) capability to conduct basic research on the ways in which language contact shaped a selected issue in the language in which the student is specialized.
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The Modern Celtic minority languages have been marginalized politically, socially and culturally by the dominant languages of English and French in their respective societies. This course explores the political and social situation speakers of these languages find themselves in today, but it also explores the historical causes that have led to the current situation. As such, this course represents a socio-historical linguistic exploration of the Celtic languages from their earliest period to the present.
Language contact has played an important and often underestimated role in the history of the languages of Western Europe. Part of this course is dedicated to exploring the methodological and theoretical state of the art concerning language change by language contact. For pre-modern periods, and especially pre-historic times, the focus by necessity, lies on language structure (rather than loanwords) and on methods for detecting language change through language contact. For the modern period, we can see more clearly the sociological factors involved in minoritizing the Celtic languages and can explore their effects.
Since the course is part of a 'specialisation' of Celtic Studies, the focus will be on the Celtic languages, both as modern, minority languages and as ancient, politically dominant languages. The course will explore how Celtic languages shape and were shaped by other languages, such as English, Latin, French, German and Dutch, both in modern times, but especially in the past, i.e. in cases of historical language contact. If students participate who have expertise in one of the above-mentioned non-Celtic languages rather than in Celtic itself, that language will be capable of forming the topic of the paper.
This Course is part of the In-depth Courses Language contact and language change in Celtic.
LAS and TCS students who follow this course as part of the core curriculum of their major, need to complete a compulsory preparation course/assignment. See for more information: https://tcs.sites.uu.nl/
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