The Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville was one of the most widely read works of the early Middle Ages, as is evidenced by the number of surviving manuscripts. August Eduard Anspach’s handlist from the 1940s puts their number at almost 1,200, of which approximately 300 were estimated to have been copied before the year 1000. This article, based on a…[Read more]

The adverb ungemete, unigmetes in Beowulf and elsewhere in Old English verse creates significant metrical problems. I revive and expand the proposal of Fulk (1992) to read this as *unmet. This restoration receives support from metrics and from the comparison with Old Saxon unmet of the same meaning, and the alteration to ungemet(e), etc., in the…[Read more]

The establishment of an Aghlabid, then Fāṭimid-Kalbid dominion in Sicily had a deep impact not only on the island and on Mediterranean power constellations, but also on mainland Italy, especially in its Southern parts. Although the Peninsula was under continuous attack between the ninth and eleventh centuries, all attempts to place it under su…[Read more]

While analysing lexical data of Western Kho-Bwa languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Trans-
Himalayan family with the help of a computer-assisted approach for historical language
comparison, we observed gaps in the data where one or more varieties lacked forms for certain
concepts. We employed a new workflow, combining manual and automated steps,…[Read more]

While analysing lexical data of Western Kho-Bwa languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Trans-
Himalayan family with the help of a computer-assisted approach for historical language
comparison, we observed gaps in the data where one or more varieties lacked forms for certain
concepts. We employed a new workflow, combining manual and automated steps,…[Read more]

While analysing lexical data of Western Kho-Bwa languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Trans-
Himalayan family with the help of a computer-assisted approach for historical language
comparison, we observed gaps in the data where one or more varieties lacked forms for certain
concepts. We employed a new workflow, combining manual and automated steps,…[Read more]

Eduard Sievers’ Altgermanische Metrik remains a foundational work for Germanic metrical research, even 125 years after its publication in 1893. His impact on the field may be roughly divided into three broad approaches: 1) the impulse for the typological categorization and labelling of verses; 2) the four-position principle as the basis for a…[Read more]

This is a brief summary of my research results in the field of historical-comparative linguistics and on the subject of language reconstruction. The main focus is on the scientific examination of proto-languages. In this paper, I want to pursue the question about the possibility of a genetic relationship between Proto-Indo-European and…[Read more]

This document summarizes all contributions to the blog “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice” from 2019, online also available under https://calc.hypotheses.org.

This document summarizes all contributions to the blog “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice” from 2019, online also available under https://calc.hypotheses.org.

This article presents the collation map, a diagrammatic method for visually mapping the texts of complex medieval Western manuscripts against their material structures. Beginning with an overview of collation formulae – currently the most frequently used method of representing collation – the article argues that the collation map is a more use…[Read more]

This chapter will deal with the origin of the people known as the Britons as defined under the headword ‘Briton, n.1. A member of one of the Brittonic-speaking peoples originally inhabiting all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, and in later times spec. Strathclyde, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany’ in the OED, rather than the neologistic sense…[Read more]

Workshop presentation about reconstruction of sounds preserved only in marginal daughter languages attested later than the earliest daughters

Workshop presentation about reconstruction of sounds preserved only in marginal daughter languages attested later than the earliest daughters

Discussion of recent new proposals for the reconstruction of the PIE sounds called “laryngeals”

Discussion of recent new proposals for the reconstruction of the PIE sounds called “laryngeals”

This is the uncorrected proofs version of my review of Ingrid Rembold’s Conquest and Christianization for The Mediaeval Journal. Some wording may differ from the final published version. Please refer to the journal website.

When comparing the more than 7000 human language varieties spoken today, one encounters a huge diversity in all domains of language, ranging from phonology via morphology up to syntax and pragmatics. In the seminar, we explored how language diversity can be studied empirically. In order to do so, we looked at linguistic approaches to the study of…[Read more]

When comparing the more than 7000 human language varieties spoken today, one encounters a huge diversity in all domains of language, ranging from phonology via morphology up to syntax and pragmatics. In the seminar, we explored how language diversity can be studied empirically. In order to do so, we looked at linguistic approaches to the study of…[Read more]

This is the first page only. Full article is available at https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.124.4.0523 (JSTOR subscription required) or https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/310940 (open access).

Abstract:
A wide variety of edits can be identified in the Linear B administrative documents from Mycenaean Greece. The writers of these documents…[Read more]