Contents

About the authors ix

Introduction 1
Ludger Zeevaert and Jan D. ten Thije

Part 1  Historical development of receptive multilingualism

1. Receptive multilingualism in Northern Europe in the Middle Ages:
A description of a scenario 25
Kurt Braunmüller
2. L
 inguistic diversity in Habsburg Austria as a model for
modern European language policy 49
Rosita Rindler-Schjerve and Eva Vetter

Part 2  Receptive multilingualism in discourse

3. Receptive multilingualism in Dutch–German intercultural team cooperation 73
Anne Ribbert and Jan D. ten Thije
4. Receptive multilingualism and inter-Scandinavian semicommunication 103
Ludger Zeevaert
5. Receptive multilingualism in Switzerland and the case of Biel/Bienne 137
Iwar Werlen
6. The Swiss model of plurilingual communication 159
Georges Lüdi
7. Receptive multilingualism in business discourses 179
Bettina Dresemann
8. Speaker stances in native and non-native English conversation:
I + verb constructions 195
Nicole Baumgarten and Juliane House
viii Receptive Multilingualism

Part 3  Testing mutual understanding in receptive multilingual communication

9. Understanding differences in inter-­Scandinavian language understanding 217
Gerke Doetjes
10. Scandinavian intercomprehension today 231
Lars-Olof Delsing

Part 4 Determining the possibilities of reading comprehension

in related languages
11. Interlingual text comprehension: Lnguistic and extralinguistic
determinants 249
Renée van Bezooijen and Charlotte Gooskens
12. Processing levels in foreign-language reading 265
Madeline Lutjeharms
13. A computer-based exploration of the lexical possibilities
of intercomprehension: Finding German cognates of Dutch words 285
Robert Möller
14. H
 ow can DaFnE and EuroComGerm ­contribute to the concept of receptive
­multilingualism? Theoretical and practical considerations 307
Britta Hufeisen and Nicole Marx

Index 322
 About the authors

Kurt Braunmüller Anne Ribbert

Universität Hamburg Dept. of English
Institut für Germanistik I–Skandinavistik Radboud University Nijmegen
Von Melle Park 6 P.O. Box 9103
D-20146 Hamburg NL-6500 HD Nijmegen
Germany The Netherlands
braunmueller@uni-hamburg.de a.ribbert@let.ru.nl

Rosita Schjerve-Rindler Jan D. ten Thije

Universitätscampus AAKH Department of Dutch Language and Culture
Garnisongasse 13, Hof 8 Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (UIL-OTS)
A-1090 Wien Trans 10
Austria NL 3512 JK Utrecht
rosita.schjerve-rindler@univie.ac.at The Netherlands
Jan.tenThije@let.uu.nl
Eva Vetter
Universitätscampus AAKH Ludger Zeevaert
Garnisongasse 13, Hof 8 Universität Hamburg
A-1090 Wien SFB 538 Mehrsprachigkeit — Teilprojekt H3
Austria Max-Brauer-Allee 60
eva.vetter@univie.ac.at DE-22765 Hamburg
Germany
Renée van Bezooijen zeevaert@uni-hamburg.de
Dept. of Linguistics,
Radboud University Nijmegen Iwar Werlen
P.O. Box 9103 Universität Bern
NL-6500 HD Nijmegen Institut für Sprachwissenschaft
The Netherlands Länggassstrasse 49
r.v.bezooijen@let.ru.nl CH-3000 Bern 9
Switzerland
Charlotte Gooskens iwar.werlen@isw.unibe.ch
Dept. of Scandinavian Studies
University of Groningen Georges Lüdi
P.O. Box 716 Universität Basel
NL-9700 AS Groningen Institut für Französische Sprach- und
c.s.gooskens@rug.nl. Literaturwissenschaft
The Netherlands Stapfelberg 7/9
CH-4051 Basel
Switzerland
Georges.Luedi@unibas.ch
 Receptive Multilingualism

Bettina Dresemann B-1050 Brussel

Universität Erfurt Belgium
Sprachenzentrum mlutjeha@vub.ac.be
Postfach 900 221
D-99105 Erfurt Robert Möller
Germany Université de Liège
bettina.dresemann@uni-erfurt.de Département de Langues et Littératures
­germaniques
Nicole Baumgarten Place Cockerill, 3
Universität Hamburg B-4000 Liège
SFB 538 Mehrsprachigkeit — Teilprojekt K4 Belgium
Max-Brauer-Allee 60 r.moller@ulg.ac.be
D-22765 Hamburg
Germany Britta Hufeisen
nicole.baumgarten@uni-hamburg.de TU Darmstadt
Sprachenzentrum
Juliane House Hochschulstr. 1
Universität Hamburg D-64289 Darmstadt
Institut für Allgemeine und Angewandte Germany
Sprachwissenschaft hufeisen@spz.tu-darmstadt.de
Abteilung Sprachlehrforschung
Von-Melle-Park 6, II. Stock Nicole Marx
DE-20146 Hamburg TU Darmstadt
Germany Sprachenzentrum
jhouse@uni-hamburg.de Hochschulstr. 1
D-64289 Darmstadt
Gerard Doetjes Germany
Fremmedspråksenteret nmarx@spz.tu-darmstadt.de
Høgskolen i Østfold
N-1757 Halden
Norway
gerard@doetjes.de

Lars-Olof Delsing
Lunds Universitet
Språk- och litteraturcentrum
Nordiska språk
Box 201
S-221 00 Lund
Sweden
Lars-Olof.Delsing@nordlund.lu.se

Madeline Lutjeharms
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Vakgroep TALK en Instituut voor
Taalonderwijs
Pleinlaan 2, lokaal E210
Part 1
Historical development of
receptive multilingualism
 chapter 1
Receptive multilingualism in Northern Europe
in the Middle Ages
A description of a scenario*
Kurt Braunmüller
Universität Hamburg

This paper gives a survey of the linguistic situation in northern Europe in the late
Middle Ages. It is based on three earlier research projects and summarises some of
their results, especially as far as language choice and domains are concerned. The
focus lies, however, on the development, role and function of receptive as opposed
to productive bi-/multilingualism and language standardisation. On the basis of Peter
Trudgill’s terminology of language contact, new terms for differentiating forms of lin-
guistic convergence and divergence are proposed. Three case studies highlight the role
receptive multilingualism plays for adult German learners of (eastern) Scandinavian
languages, focusing on the form of the definite article, the use of the periphrastic geni-
tive and the overlooking of V1-patterns in declarative sentences.
Keywords: late Middle Ages, language contact, receptive multilingualism, Scandinavian
languages

1.  Issues and historical development of receptive multilingualism

1.1  A short outline of some issues of receptive multilingualism

Receptive multilingualism definitely plays no salient role when discussing research on
bi- or multilingualism in general. In reality it is rather the opposite: receptive multilin-
gualism is given only marginal attention, if taken into consideration at all. The interest
and focus undoubtedly lies on the various forms of ‘active’ (productive) bilingualism,
their restrictions, problems and perspectives as well as on the interaction between the
command of the respective languages by one and the same person and the alternate
use in different contexts (known as ‘code switching’).
When dealing informally with issues of bilingualism, receptive multilingualism is
likely to be classified as a kind of residual form of a formerly active command of a
specific language, e.g. due to the elapse of time, the lack of practice or the dominance
of another language in almost all domains, often combined with the speaker chan-
ging his/her status from that of a formerly fluent native speaker to a more or less overt
26 Kurt Braunmüller

­semi‑speaker (cf. e.g. Dorian 1997). Therefore, receptive multilingualism is not classi-
fied as a manifestation of bilingualism in its own right.
There are, however, a few exceptions, e.g. when considering the linguistic situ-
ation in Scandinavia today. The form of interlingual communication exercised in
Scandinavia, which has misleadingly been called “semicommunication” (by Haugen
1966), is considered an important political and cultural goal within inter-Nordic co-
operation. In this framework, receptive multilingualism is an acknowledged form of
multilingualism, based on the genetically close relationship between the three main-
land Scandinavian languages Danish, Swedish and Norwegian and represents a form
of interdialectal communication between these three Ausbau-languages (cf. Kloss
1978: 25). This form of direct, transnational communication is mainly applied when
Scandinavians from different countries meet and although it functions quite well it is
not without problems.1 Some of these problems are due to linguistic divergences ema-
nating from language change and the dialectal parting of a formerly more coherent
linguistic area. Other problems can be traced back to difficulties in trying to incorpo-
rate very divergent and therefore opaque dialects, to the lack of linguistic flexibility or
to considering one’s own variety superior to those of the neighbouring languages. But,
when there is a will there is a way!
One of the main characteristics of (genuine2) receptive multilingualism is that it is
generally applied very consciously. People who decide to make use of receptive mul-
tilingualism feel that there is, at least in some situations or for certain purposes, really
no need for acquiring an active command of the respective language; an approximate
or even a rudimentary understanding of this language is regarded as being sufficient.
Therefore, one may intend to acquire only some reading skills or learn, at least, a few
frequently occurring words and phrases of the target foreign language, in order to
roughly understand what has been written in e.g. a certain publication or what a book
is about. Scientists or librarians may feel such a need for at least some basic know-
ledge of languages they do not speak. Moreover, tourists often try to retrieve some
vital information, e.g. from the menu, from traffic or other signs they are confronted
with and which seem to be relevant for their visit to a country in which they do not
speak or hardly understand the language.
In order to grasp the approximate content of a text, written e.g. in a Romance
language, one has the possibility of successfully making use of Latin word stems, if
available, and/or try to understand the contents of a (shorter) text by means of inter-
nationally used words or via similarities to other more familiar Romance languages.3
All people using receptive multilingualism are fully aware of the fact that this form of
grasping the essential meaning of a message encoded in an (almost) unknown lan-
guage cannot be more than a temporary solution or an ad hoc compromise, but it is a
method sufficient for precisely this purpose.
There are always other means available if more, or more precise, information is re-
quired. In the cases mentioned above, one may look for an abstract in a lingua franca
or a summary in a language you are more familiar with, or try to find a person who is
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 27

able to translate/interpret the respective text, maybe via a lingua franca.

This process, however, does not exclude the acquisition of a deeper knowledge of
the target language which, sooner or later, leads to a better intercomprehension — but
not necessarily to a full and active command of the respective language. Learning an-
other language actively is time-consuming and often unnecessary, especially when
dealing with genetically closely related languages.4

1.2  Receptive multilingualism and nationalism

In former times receptive multilingualism was not so unusual, especially not in face-
to-face trading communication, e.g. on fairs in more distant parts of Europe. Recently,
Smith (2005: 26) pointed out when analysing speaking and writing from 500 to 1000 ad,
that “widespread, full bilingualism” was restricted: “Active competence in one but gen-
eral passive knowledge [viz. receptive multilingualism; K.B.] of the other is one possibil-
ity; equally probable is partial ability in the second language, for example in restricted
spheres of life such as mercantile activity or estate management.” A glance at modern
history will help to understand why receptive multilingualism has lost its status as a
form of multilingualism in its own right.
The main reason for disfavouring receptive multilingualism in the last two centuries
is the rise of nationalism. Since the early nineteenth century, nation, language and iden-
tity have become closely intertwined. A direct consequence of this development was lin-
guistic standardisation, meaning that one common, written and often also spoken ‘na-
tional’ language to be used by all fellow-citizens was created in order to exhibit an overt,
i.e. a visible and audible, indicator for national unity and common (ethnic) descent.
The consequences of this ideology are obvious and quite simple: if you are not able
to speak the indigenous and/or the corresponding national language as, or at least like,
a native citizen, you cannot be regarded as a full member of this country/state. In other
words, a mere understanding of vernacular varieties or even a non-‘perfect’ command
of the national language is no longer considered to be sufficient even if it worked very
well in practice before. The perfect command of the (dominant) vernacular language
has thus taken over a shibboleth function: it is no longer communication or mutual un-
derstanding in every-day life that counts but far more the use of the appropriate linguis-
tic code which, at the same time, serves as an identifying feature for all members of that
nation. Or, to put it in another way, one can only become a citizen of a nation if one is
capable of speaking its (or at least the majority’s) language as ‘perfect’ as possible, i.e. as
a native (!) speaker. ‘Imperfect’ bi- or multilingualism in general, which in almost all
cases can be identified by the speaker’s foreign accent, became stigmatised and receptive
multilingualism was neglected because everybody now required an active command of
the national i.e. the majority’s language. Nationalism thus turned the focus away from
communication and managing every-day life by means of a multiple linguistic, often
diglossic competence, in the direction of an idiomatically ‘perfect’ use of one politically
favoured language, viz. the national language.
28 Kurt Braunmüller

The linguistic price of this development is very high: if one relies more or less on the
standard (or national) language, one loses familiarity with local dialects and other var-
ieties within this society, not to speak of the deteriorating ability to understand diver-
gent but genetically closely related neighbouring languages. What is more, one expects
nowadays a focused language with little or no variation, clear-cut grammatical rules
and a clearly defined vocabulary and consequently disfavours all characteristics of a
diffused language (in the sense of LePage and Tabouret-Keller 1985), including e.g. ad
hoc word formations, incomplete or elliptic, viz. context-dependent, sentence construc-
tions.
Unified standards, launched either by chancelleries or the first book printers in the
late Middle Ages, were originally created as a means to enable textual understanding
and the distribution of documents and printed matters, respectively. But at the same
time, they acquired a paradigmatic or leading function, especially for official docu-
ments and religious texts from the fifteenth and sixteenth century onward. Therefore,
it was only inevitable consequence for (European) nationalism to proceed in this way
in order to create an optimal linguistic homogeneity within a certain territory: minor-
ity languages were soon regarded as undesired languages, not only disturbing ethnic
homogeneity but also the linguistic and national identity. Speakers of minority lan-
guages were therefore looked upon suspiciously seen as the majority of the popula-
tion neither understood these languages nor were they interested in learning them.
Moreover, the majority population felt that the members of (indigenous, not to speak
of immigrant) minorities were not really interested in becoming an integral part of that
nation, its goals, norms and customs. Statements such as ‘I am a Dane and my mother
tongue is German’ nowadays sound, at least, contradictory, if not absurd (cf. Menke
1996).
This development has, however, not yet come to an end. English as a lingua franca
has bit by bit taken over the function of a supra-national standard language — leading
to the same negative effects both for linguistic flexibility as well as for receptive multi-
lingualism.5 If you find it too hard to listen and adapt to genetically related languages,
you will most likely consider English as an appropriate solution of your communication
problem. This strategy may certainly be effective for simpler tasks, such as ordering a
meal (as a tourist) or retrieving basic information in general, but not for more compli-
cated tasks. Furthermore, one might have the impression that the use of a lingua franca
is a fair compromise seen as all interlocutors have to use the same language, i.e. no one
has the privilege of speaking his/her mother tongue. But in receptive multilingualism
between genetically closely related languages, the use of the native language changes
with every turn in discourse. What remains is a kind of ‘principle of least effort’, often,
however, accompanied by scepticism that you could have presented your message in a
much better manner when making use of a language you are really familiar with.
The situation in Scandinavia differs also in this respect: even in the era of national-
ism, Scandinavia in toto was in the focus of patriotism (called ‘Scandinavism’) and not
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 29

only the respective countries (Denmark, Norway,6 Sweden and even Finland) them-
selves. In a way, it therefore seems rather natural that receptive multilingualism (or
‘semicommunication’) and nationalism did not directly interfere with each other but
rather supplemented each other.
But today, the impact of English as the dominant international lingua franca can-
not be overlooked: many younger Scandinavians do not even try to use receptive mul-
tilingualism but prefer to converse in English from the very beginning of any inter-
Scandinavian contact. Globalisation seems to be overriding Scandinavism in the long
run.
One result of these normative processes, mentioned above, was that receptive mul-
tilingualism became obsolete seen as due to it favouring direct mutual understanding
beyond any kind of (national or ethnic) borders sometimes even at any price, relying
on the possibilities which are inherent in any linguistic diasystem. The knowledge of a
diasystem implies much more than just the mastering of the grammatical rules and the
vocabulary of a (standard) language: it enables an understanding of obsolete forms and
sentence constructions occurring in older texts, neighbouring dialects, wide-spread
sociolects and many other linguistic varieties such as jargons, languages for specific
purposes and, last but not least, genetically closely related languages, which, strictly
speaking, do not represent much more than dialects that have become national lan-
guages due to language policy and language cultivation.

1.3  Outline of the further discussion

The main aim of this paper is to present an overview of all forms of multilingualism
and language contact phenomena we have come across in Northern Europe in the late
Middle Ages and in early Modern Times.
I will, at first, discuss the main divergences between receptive multilingualism and
(productive) multilingualism in [2.1.], followed by an overview of the functions and
domains of the languages to be found in Northern Europe at that time in [2.2.], togeth-
er with an (abridged) discussion on the historical development in the north European
lowlands and the Baltic in general, with special emphasis being placed on language use
and acquisition related to any form of multilingualism in [3.]. The paper concludes
with a summary of three case studies in [4.], which reveal the impact of Low German
on mainland Scandinavian languages and dialects due to language contact, mainly
during the era of the Hanseatic League. These case studies relate to the morphologic-
al form of the definite article [4.1.], an ‘imported’ periphrastic genitive construction,
called garpe-genitiv [4.2.], and changes in the preference in word order [4.3.].
The main triggering factor in all these instances was receptive multilingualism, ac-
companied by hypotheses on the structure of the target language, followed by (imper-
fect) L2 learning strategies and finally disseminated by a group of adults with high so-
cial prestige and influence.
30 Kurt Braunmüller

2.  Forms of multilingualism in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages

2.1  Receptive vs. productive multilingualism

Table 1 shows some of the most relevant features which distinguish receptive multilin-
gualism from (productive) bi- or multilingualism in the Late Middle Ages and in Early
Modern Times. Most of these features can also be applied to our times — if, of course,
receptive multilingualism is practised at all. Issues related to the acquisition of a read-
ing competence have not explicitly been taken into consideration due to the very re-
stricted domains of literacy and writing in general in earlier times.
The scenario for receptive multilingualism in the late Middle Ages therefore seems
quite clear:7 in almost all cases the domains for this kind of asymmetric communi-
cation have been restricted to face-to-face interaction in clearly defined settings, i.e.
receptive multilingualism is normally practised in purpose-oriented situations, pre-

Table 1.  Features distinguishing receptive multilingualism from (productive) bi- or multilin-
gualism in the Late Middle Ages and in Early Modern Times
Receptive Multilingualism
Predominantly for informal communication
Purpose-oriented, no (productive)
acquisition of the target language is intended
Face-to-face communication, especially
in diglossic trading situations and other
business contacts* may occur
Establishing communication at any price,
frequent ad hoc-accommodations, no rules
Highly context- and addressee-dependent
Emphasis on communication exchange and
efficiency in interaction
Informal but pragmatically controlled
learning by listening and speaking where no
grammatical norms have to be observed
Dominance of pragmatics and the situational
context
Includes the possibility to become a (fluent)
speaker of the target language; may gradually
include occasional (lexical) code switches.
(Productive) Bi-/Multilingualism
Both for formal and informal communication
Function-oriented (with reference to persons,
topics or domains)
No restrictions in principal but a distribution
of the languages involved
Person-, topic- or domain-related language
use (including code-switching, if appropriate)
Low mandatory context or addressee
dependence
All linguistic functions are available (if not
restricted due to domains or functions)
All kinds of natural-language acquisition and
L2 learing, especially for the acquisition of a
lingua franca (e.g. Latin or Low German)
Dominance of linguistic awareness with
respect to domains, styles, norms and
grammatical correctness
Language use may be restricted to functional
distribution; therefore no necessity for a full
linguistic competence in all languages spoken.

*However, the origin of a pidgin differs from receptive multilingualism since the languages involved are
not mutually understandable.
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 31

dominantly in trading or negotiations, in which the terms of trade and the principles
of commerce have widely been acknowledged and the interaction patterns involved
follow common and accepted rules.
Therefore, the linguistic form, as far as grammatical and stylistic correctness or
the choice of the appropriate register is concerned, only played a marginal role; with
the purpose of the interaction or the facts conveyed by a message clearly prevailing.
Linguistic fluency or a comprehensive understanding of the addressee’ s language were
neither necessary nor expected at all.
The leading norms of this kind of interaction were based on pragmatic adequacy.
Even (emblematic) code switching could occur, though predominantly in long-term
contacts, seen as sporadic quotes or loans from the addressee’s language not only dem-
onstrate sufficient mutual understanding but also express a certain empathy and un-
derstanding for the interlocutor, his situation and linguistic background. Furthermore,
such code switches explicitly underline the speaker’s willingness to accommodate and
accept the addressee’s linguistic variety without any restriction.8
It is, however, important that the addressee (a) consents to converse in this asym-
metric way following some sort of ‘let-it-pass strategy’, but (b) that he is really willing
and able to practise receptive multilingualism, without (c) trying to use a lingua franca
as a more appropriate means to achieve understanding on the basis of a third/neutral
language, (d) nor should he prefer conversing only in his native language, due to him
considering his own language to be superior to the addressee’s dialect/language or to
other languages in general.
Therefore, receptive multilingualism as mutually acknowledged linguistic behaviour
works best when carried out between interlocutors of the same social status with at
least some essential contextual conditions, as presented in table 1 being fulfilled, such
as face-to-face interaction between speakers of genetically closely related languages,
emphasis on informal communication exchange or predominantly purpose-oriented
speech situations.
In any case, you can never take for granted that receptive multilingualism will work
without problems or even function at all before you have agreed on this form of com-
munication with the addressee — unless you know in advance that receptive multilin-
gualism is the generally accepted form of communication, as is still the case in main-
land Scandinavia today.
As far as the late Middle Ages and early Modern Times are concerned, one has to
be aware of the fact that receptive multilingualism represented only one aspect of mul-
tilingualism to be taken into account. Functional diglossia was the default linguistic
principle at that time: almost all domains were tied to certain languages, and no one
really expected you to master all domains in one and the same language or you to be
capable of expressing everything in any language you are familiar with (cf. e.g. Jahr
1995 or Nesse 2003).
This also applied for the use of a lingua franca which was domain-related in a simi-
lar way when used in conversations with people abroad or in unfamiliar situations
32 Kurt Braunmüller

(see 2.2.). Therefore, nobody really expected a comprehensive or, as we nowadays pre-
fer to say, ‘perfect’ command of such a language: if you used e.g. Latin with word order
patterns descending from the syntax of one’s own vernacular, nobody would have re-
fused such a text barely due to it not living up to the classical Latin antiquity and its
stylistic norms. Since Latin was both a lingua franca and a language without any na-
tive speakers, it was open for all kinds of language contact, especially with respect to
word order and semantic reinterpretation.
Even dialect mixing was widely accepted during the Middle Ages and in early
Modern Times. Low German (as a native language) had always been open to all kinds
of (lexical) loans from the southern German speaking territories. In one of the earli-
est documents written in German, the famous Hildebrandslied, dialectal variants from
two remote, divergent German speaking territories are found side by side in one and
the same manuscript: the archaic Old High German poem was imbedded in a short,
Low German, narrative frame, without any comment or justification. Moreover, intra-
sentential code mixing was also tolerated and could apparently be used without any
notification (for more details see Braunmüller 2000a: 278ff.).
Since language standardisation was not yet on the agenda in the Middle Ages, one
was, basically, free to use varying dialectal forms side by side or to mix up differ-
ent dialects, without anybody really blaming you for doing so, seen as no commit-
ted guidelines existed for (inter)dialectal communication. Most well-known writers
tend to show (considerable) individual variation in their text production but they do
not mix their dialects very often with other variants of the same linguistic diasystem,
which was simply due to the fact that their own dialect was the only language they had
an active command of.
Receptive multilingualism also played a supplementary role: its main purpose was
to learn to understand your neighbours, both those in the immediate vicinity and
those living further away. The range of application for receptive multilingualism was
thus always the same, namely to recognise the corresponding sounds, inflexional end-
ings and terms in other, related dialects and to establish the appropriate equivalen-
cy rules with reference to one’s own dialect. Therefore, receptive multilingualism was
very common in every-day life in the Middle Ages and beyond seen as no one spoke
(or wrote) in exactly the same way nor used the same vocabulary.
So, why should one strive for standardisation in a situation in which everybody
was faced with linguistic variation? If an institution such as the Hanseatic chancel-
lery in Lübeck aims to codify official texts and documents, written exclusively in Low
German since the end of the fourteenth century, it is not primarily intended to cre-
ate a standard language or to abolish dialectal variation far more to brand these doc-
uments as authentic (viz. written in Lübeck) and authorised by the Hansa. It would
thus be more appropriate to consider this development as an early attempt to establish
some kind of linguistic brand rather than a first step towards a general standardisa-
tion of Low German as a written language, in order to reduce dialectal variation. The
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 33

Hansa was not, unlike the former European Economic Community (EEC), a precur-
sor of a political union, but remained a trading union with vacillating forms of net-
working.9
By the way, standardisation is actually no proper manner of minimising the burden
of learning (genetically) related linguistic varieties, rather the opposite holds true: on
the one hand, decoding a message will, admittedly, become much easier for the hear-
er/reader due to the reduction of variation; but on the other hand, the speaker/writer
has to learn a large amount of new grammatical forms and equivalent words in order
to make use of this trans-regional form of language. On top of that, getting used to ex-
tensive standardisation sooner or later considerably reduces linguistic flexibility and
practice in understanding neighbouring dialectal variants. That is why Norwegians,
accustomed to interdialectal communication in every-day life, always achieve the best
marks in inter-Scandinavian comprehension tests, whereas Danes and Swedes, both
acquainted to more or less standardised forms of language, perform rather badly (cf.
e.g. Delsing and Åkesson 2005: 136ff.).
Since the roles of production and reception change quite frequently in communi-
cation, there is actually no real winner in such a process, as far as linguistic economy
and effectiveness is concerned. In any case, standardisation makes sense as far as for-
eign-language learning is concerned: one can rely on one, clearly defined linguistic
norm, which has to be learned, but can neglect the rest of the target language’s under-
lying diasystem.

2.2 Functions and domains of languages in the Middle Ages

and early Modern Times
The linguistic situation in the (late) Middle Ages was completely different from the
situation and practice we regard as normal or self-evident nowadays:
As we have stated in the preceding sections, domain-, situation- and person-related
multilingualism, including receptive multilingualism, was the norm, definitely not
monolingualism or a dominance of national languages. Even supranational languages
such as Low German (in Northern Europe and around the Baltic Sea) or global lan-
guages like Latin (but also Greek, in the Balkans and the countries surrounding the
eastern part of the Mediterranean) principally showed the same functional distribu-
tion but were restricted to fewer domains. Beside their function as a lingua franca in
trading situations or even in long-distance travelling (cf. Burke 1989), they were also
used as languages for specific purposes (LSP). Thus, the domains of Latin were pri-
marily the Bible, the church and Christianity in general, furthermore sciences and arts,
and finally every form of advanced schooling and higher education.
Referring to Smith (2005: 50), one may add “that it was in the early Middle Ages that
Latin first emerged as an international mandarin language throughout most of Europe.”
Furthermore, she makes clear that the culture of writing in vernaculars has its origin
34 Kurt Braunmüller

in Latin “as a form of cultural osmosis around the periphery of the Roman world” (p.
32) which coincides with our hypothesis on early Germanic bilingualism relating to the
creation of the first runic script (see Braunmüller 2004b and Beuerle and Braunmüller
2004).
Low German and, as a consequence of the Reformation, High German were able to
take over some of these functions, especially as far as trading, legal texts (such as mu-
nicipal laws or bylaws) or Bible texts are concerned. However, at the beginning of this
development we find receptive multilingualism in face-to-face situations. This kind of
trans-regional/national communication revealed a considerable amount of linguistic
variation and thus required familiarity with non-standardised forms of communication.
In other words, the expansion of the scope of one’s own diasystem, accompanied
by receptive multilingualism as the default way of unmediated communication, made
two things possible: (A) a considerable upgrading of one’s own vernacular beyond
its original territory (in our case, primarily for German speakers, beyond the North-
German lowlands towards Scandinavia and some other parts of the Baltic area), and
(B) the intense impact of (Middle) Low German on the mainland Scandinavian lan-
guages and their dialects.
Therefore, language change due to language (or rather dialect) contact based on both
close genetic relationship and widely practised receptive multilingualism, especially at
the beginning of these contacts, not only paved the way for intensive lexical borrow-
ings, including the adoption of new word formation patterns (cf. e.g. Diercks 1993),
and minor grammatical changes but also for the incorporation of certain German
word order structures into the mainland Scandinavian languages (cf. the most recent
survey on this topic in Braunmüller 2004a).
Table 2 illustrates the scenario of the languages found in mainland Scandinavia dur-
ing the Middle Ages and in the sixteenth century.
The most interesting aspect in this context is certainly the far-reaching changes that
the Scandinavian vernaculars and dialects underwent as a consequence of the exten-
sive language contact with Low, and later, with High German. However, it is not easy to
decide which processes actually occurred. Suitable candidates for characterising these
developments seem to be: (a) creoloids, (b) koinés or (c) some sort of interlanguage or
interdialect (cf. Trudgill 2000: 79ff.).
Since mutual understanding and receptive multilingualism between Germans and
Scandinavians was possible one could argue to classify these developments as cases
of dialect contact, but as early as the Middle Ages there was no doubt that Danish
and Swedish — written forms of Norwegian gradually disappeared due to the political
union with Denmark beginning in 1380 — were (national) languages and not some
kind of dialect. Furthermore, there are no arguments in favour of classifying these lan-
guages as ‘jargons’ since they neither originated from double-source pidgins nor from
double-source creoloids seen as they always remained what they were: Scandinavian
languages in their own right — though with a vast amount of lexical loans and some
grammatical extensions and restructurings.
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 35

Table 2.  Scenario of the languages found in mainland Scandinavia during the Middle Ages and
in the sixteenth century
Languages and their use in mainland Scandinavia during the Middle Ages
The pre-Hanseatic era The early Hanseatic era and The late Hanseatic era and the
the late Middle Ages 16th century
Low German only as a Low German as a lingua Low and High German as
vernacular (spoken in the franca (predominantly used prestigious, trans-regional
Northern Lowlands of as a trading language; RM languages and as LSP (RM
Europe) was common in trans-re- decreasing, L2- and 2L1-
gional communication) bilingualism prevailing)
Latin as LSP and a lingua Latin as LSP and a lingua Latin as LSP and a lingua
franca franca franca
vernaculars and dialects vernaculars and dialects restructured vernaculars (due
(with some influences from (with loans from Low to heavy impact from German)
Latin due to Christianity) German)
minority languages (of minority languages (un- minority languages (un-
various origins) changed due to diglossia) changed due to diglossia)

When analysing the impact of Low German on mainland Scandinavian languages,10

one may observe admixture, of course, and cases of simplification, but no reduction.
According to Trudgill’s contact typology (2000: 82), creoloidisation occurs in lan-
guage contact situations, whereas koinéisation is found in dialect contact situations.
Furthermore, both categories show different degrees of admixture and simplification
(with less foreign impact in koinéisation). But how can we measure the extent of that
foreign impact, also in relation to the size of the respective population? Would the
terms ‘interlanguage’ and ‘interdialect’, respectively, better fit the phenomena to be ob-
served? The reason for creating an interlanguage is primarily to establish communica-
tion, whereas the emergence of an interdialect is the result of accommodation (p. 83).
In any case, German–Scandinavian contact doesn’t seem to match any form of socio-
linguistic classification we are aware of.
However, the problem of not being able to distinguish sharply between a language
(contact) on the one hand and a dialect (contact) on the other, is by no means a new
one. Heinz Kloss (1978: 25ff.) therefore distinguished between Abstand- and Ausbau-
languages to terminologically dispose of the dilemma that two closely related dialectal
variants within one and the same diasystem received the status of independent lan-
guages: looked at from a linguistic point of view the respective languages behave like
dialects but have received a higher status due to political and/or social decisions.
The latter term best fits the situation we are faced with: (Middle) Low German can
be regarded as an Ausbau-language in relation to south and east German dialects — ­
although neo-grammarians would not agree for (mainly) phonological reasons.
However, it evidently has more lexical and grammatical features in common with
other German dialects than e.g. with Frisian or Middle English. Danish and Swedish
36 Kurt Braunmüller

can also be regarded as Ausbau-languages due to their historical development; other-

wise one would rather speak of ‘regiolects’ representing the two main branches of east
Scandinavian.
I would like to suggest the term unilateral convergeoid for a one-sided, genetically
closely related convergence language, such as Danish or Swedish, and the term uni-
lateral convergeolect for the same contact phenomenon only on a level of dialects (cf.
the situation in Norway). “Converge-” is directly associated with various forms of ac-
commodation and therefore fits all contact phenomena between mutually intelligible
variants. I use the term “unilateral” because the dominant language, in this case (Low)
German, has not or hardly been influenced by this development.
The complementary term would be divergeoid. It could be used for characterising
distance-keeping (or purist) languages such as Modern Icelandic in which the native
speakers (or at least an influential group of them) for ideological reasons try to keep all
foreign influences away from their mother tongue. Finnish, when considering the re-
lationship to Estonian, could be regarded as an appropriate candidate for a divergeoid
as well. The profiles of such languages are characterised by them creating or, at least,
maintaining distance to all neighbouring and therefore potential contact languages.
Moreover, when considering the linguistic distance between Low German and
all other German dialects, you could classify Middle Low German as a divergeolect.
(Modern Low German has, however, changed its status. It has changed into a conver-
geolect or almost a dialect of High German due to the prestigious role of this variety of
German as a national/standard language.) The linguistic basis for this classification is,
however, completely different from that applied by the neo-grammarians of the nine-
teenth century seen as it is not founded on a (predominantly) phonological split or
some other bifurcating grammatical changes but has its origin in the social status of
that language.
The other languages located in Northern Europe do not require any comments
beyond their characterisation in the table above. We will, however, come back to
the functional distribution of these languages in the section 3, when comparing the
Scandinavian situation with the situation in Britain during the late Middle Ages.

3. The historical situation in Northern Europe in relation to the forms

of multilingualism

The historical situation and the development of the various forms of multilingualism
in the lowlands of northern Europe, in the Baltic and in mainland Scandinavia can be
outlined as follows:

A.  Due to the close genetic relationship between Low German and the Scandinavian
languages/dialects an unmediated, basic mutual understanding in face-to-face com-
munication was possible. Merchants (of the Hanseatic League) speaking Low German
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 37

realised that they were not only able to understand just remote dialectal variants of
Low and High German but also the Scandinavian languages and some of their dialects
to a certain extent. This form of understanding was, however, heavily dependent on
trading situations in which the contextual factors such as the terms of trade and the
outlines of (international) business communication largely had to be the same.
The historical context at that time was also optimal due to the north German mer-
chants succeeding in gradually taking over the traditional Visby-trade across the Baltic
Sea by the end of the twelfth century. Furthermore, intensive trading contacts existed
between the German, Frisian and Dutch lowlands on the one hand and Jutland on the
other from the very early Middle Ages onwards.
On top of that, Low German and, to a minor extent, also Dutch as the most western
variant of the Low German dialectal continuum, were highly respected by the upper
classes all over northern Europe which led to intensive loans from Low German taking
place. Even deep-rooted Scandinavian terms were replaced by loans from this prestig-
ious ‘global’ language.11
B.  Consequently, the next step was the use of receptive multilingualism as a suffi-
cient means in specific face-to-face trading situations in which is was not necessary to
actively learn the Scandinavian customer’s/addressee’s language. There was, however,
not much time to become acquainted with any details of the Scandinavian languages
seen as merchants from abroad were not allowed to stay over a longer period of time in
the respective host countries. A stay over a period of a few weeks was normal, several
months was the maximum, and that only in summer. The privilege to stay also during
winter was implemented much later (cf. Brattegard 1945: 15ff. or Nesse 2002: 85f.).
At the beginning, the merchants themselves travelled around, predominantly from
one (coastal) trading place or important town to another, directly offering their goods
and products. In later times, the vast amount of trading activities were carried out by
younger representatives of the merchants. The merchants themselves preferred to stay
at home directing their business via long distance communication by means of letters,
messengers or trading representatives.
C.  The privilege of the Hanseatic merchants being allowed to settle in the Scan­
dinavian countries led to two diverging linguistic developments: either their mercantile
agents were strictly separated from the local inhabitants of these trading places/towns
like in Bergen/Norway (cf. also Nesse 2003) or Nowgorod/Russia or they settled in
more or less enclosed parts of towns (cf. e.g. in Tønsberg/Norway, Køge/Denmark, or
in Kalmar or Stockholm/Sweden). The first scenario evidently did not encourage (pro-
ductive) multilingualism but, at most, the acquisition of a rather restricted L2-com-
petence of the local linguistic variety (for more details on the situation in Bergen see
Jahr 1995: 14ff. or Nesse 2002: 75ff., for the situation in Russia/Nowgorod see Gernentz
1988). The second scenario, however, in one way or another led to natural 2L1-bilin-
gualism and to vivid communication and social exchange between the merchants and
the indigenous population.
D.  In some places, especially around the Baltic Sea, High German — also referred
38 Kurt Braunmüller

to as Martin Luther’s and the Reformation’s language — as a kind of dialectal variant or

extension of the Low German diasystem took over the function of a lingua franca in
most domains. It was, however, only used in a supplementary manner. However, the
quality of the German–Scandinavian language contact, based on interdialectal simi-
larity, did not change (see Braunmüller 2000b: 10ff.).

The final step in the history of the Low German–Scandinavian contacts was either the
closing down of the Hanseatic offices and storehouses or the integration of the immi-
grant, (Low) German speaking population into the local societies. In both cases, re-
ceptive multilingualism came to an end sooner or later for different reasons (retreat vs.
assimilation), or continued as sequential L2-bilingualism in the upper classes. High
German, later followed by French, remained the leading foreign language and lingua
franca for many Scandinavians up to the nineteenth century. It remained the easiest
linguistic key for them to gain admission to European culture and technology, to trade
and to contacts with the southern parts of the continent in general.
If you compare the situation in the Baltic to that in late medieval London (for lin-
guistic data see Wright 1996 and for a more detailed analysis Braunmüller 2000c), you
will observe many analogies, as far as the simultaneous use of various languages and
their distribution is concerned, although the historical preconditions and local cir-
cumstances differ significantly: there is, however, no basis supporting the assumption
that receptive multilingualism played any role in communication in the Thames and
harbour area of London at that time, which is not surprising seen as English, Anglo-
Norman French and Latin cannot necessarily be regarded as mutually intelligible lan-
guages.
The most striking observation made is related to the fact that there is the intensive
and frequent macaronic use of these three languages, although the switching between
the languages is far from random (cf. Wright 1997: 347). One of the most salient fea-
tures of that kind of (macaronic) multilingualism is the interlinguistic use of abbrevia-
tions and suspensions. A small, p-like letter p could be used as a prefix and an apostro-
phe-like sign 9 as a suffix, representing the morphemes par, per, pre, pur and -re, -er,
-arius respectively (see Wright 1996: 9). Furthermore, if you find a word like carpent 9
in such a text from late medieval London you first have to make sure which is the
unmarked or matrix language: if it is predominantly Latin, this expression obviously
means carpentarius, whereas if it is English is has to be read as carpenter.
This observation reveals two general characteristic strategies of multilingualism:

1. Decoding primarily relies on the analysis of the lexical morphemes. Derivational (or
inflectional) morphemes play only a marginal or supplementary role.
2. Wherever it is possible, diverging grammatical structures are avoided, in syntax,12
morphology and word formation. There is no doubt that bilinguals prefer parallel
grammatical structures, especially with respect to word order (cf. e.g. Braunmüller
2001 or Nichols 1992 and Nettle 1999: 137f. for a global perspective of this observa-
tion).
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 39

Furthermore, the business records presented in Wright (1996) reveal that Latin, also
as an LSP, was under permanent pressure from the two indigenous languages, the lan-
guage of the upper-class (Anglo-Norman) and the colloquial language used by the rest
of the population (English), the result being that Latin would be rebuilt as an analytic
language. It became more and more similar to the other two vernaculars with respect
to word order and (analytic) morphological structure, which can also be observed
when studying Latin in its other function as a lingua franca. The motivation preced-
ing this typological change, was — according to strategy (2) — to reduce the burden of
having to manage several linguistic codes simultaneously.
In Scandinavia, a similar development could be observed. Low German and later
also High German word order patterns were adopted as models due to their prestig-
ious roles in international communication and, especially High German, for its shin-
ing example of idiomatic translations of Bible texts in the sixteenth century. Yet at the
same time written High German itself became more and more dependent on Latin
stylistic norms, as far as OV word order in dependent clauses or the extensive use of
hypotactic sentence structures were concerned. (For a recent, detailed discussion of
the impact of Latin on German word order see Chirita 2003.)
On top of that, Latin, Low German and a Scandinavian language (here: Swedish)
may have been used in the same context and for the same purpose but with differences
relating to code switching. Therefore, it may occur that Latin words or phrases are
found embedded in e.g. letters with Swedish as matrix language, whereas the opposite
has not (or hardly) been observed with a prestigious language such as Low German
functioning as matrix language. These and other observations presented in Tiisala
(2004) clearly show that multilingualism, also in writing, was default in late medi-
eval Scandinavia but that not all languages had the same status and prestige (Tiisala
2004: 196: “The Hanse never apologises for writing in German”). Or, to put it in an-
other way, languages like Latin or (Low) German were never dependent on loans and
formulas from other languages. Moreover, they supplied the correct form for certain
types of texts, e.g. letters, which contained a salutatio, benevolentiae captiatio, narra-
tio, petitio and finally a conclusio. If you preferred to use your own language you had
to obey these rules, even if the precise terminology was still missing or under elabor-
ation.

4. Three examples for the role of receptive multilingualism in L2-language

learning

In the following section I will illustrate the function of receptive multilingualism in

second-language acquisition, primarily by adults, with focus placed on morpho-syn-
tax and word order. If the target language is relatively similar to one’s own variety one
tries to find the easiest way to learn this language. Receptive multilingualism can be
40 Kurt Braunmüller

regarded as a promising starting point both for short-cuts in language use and simpli-
fied L2 language learning.

4.1  The morphological form of the definite article

Both Low German and the Scandinavian languages used pre-positioned definite art-
icles. In Middle Low German this article always had a d- in the onset (cf. de/di Man(n)
‘the man’ or dü/de/di Frū ‘the woman’), whereas in the medieval Scandinavian lan-
guages two phonologically divergent forms occur: (a) hinn/hin/hit [nom.sing.masc./
fem./neutr.] as in (h)inn gamli maþr ‘the (old) man’ and (b) sá/sú/þat or, in the later
Middle Ages due to analogy, þann/þan/þat [nom.sing.mask./fem./neutr.; also occur-
ring with the vowels æ or e, as in þæn(n) or þen(n)] as in þa/æ/enn gamli maþr ‘the
(old) man’ in informal and oral communication.13 Without preceding attributes in a
noun phrase the h-article always occurs post-positional. It is cliticized to the noun and
the h is deleted at the juncture. The post-positioned, cliticized definite article is inflect-
ed in accordance with the noun: maþrinn ‘the man’ [nom.sing.masc.], mansins ‘the
man’s [gen.sing.masc.], maninum ‘to the man’ [dat.sing.masc.] and so on. Futhermore,
it can be observed that all forms of the þ-article were pronounced as [ð/__V] due to
their weak stress position in syntax, as is the case in Modern English as well. Otherwise
it would remain voiceless like in English, too (cf. words like thin, thermometer, thank,
thorn, thumb etc.).
When speakers of Low German, a language which does not have articles in post-
position, realised that there was a possibility of interdialectal understanding based on
receptive multilingualism between them and their Scandinavian trading partners, they
most likely neglected the inflectional definite article as an inflectional ending seen as
it was of minor importance for the decoding of a message as far as receptive multi-
lingualism was concerned. However, the þ/[ð]-articles occupied the same position in
noun phrases as the (German) d-articles. Therefore, German speakers would not only
have analysed and understood the Scandinavian phrases correctly as forms corres-
ponding to the definite article of their own language but they would also have inter-
preted these forms as being morphologically related to their d-articles.
Since the allophone [ð] was not part of any medieval German phonological system,
adult second language learners had (objective) difficulties in grasping this sound cor-
rectly and, furthermore, in pronouncing it in a correct manner. Due to the morpho-
phonological and syntactic equivalence they replaced the fricatives in the Scandinavian
þ/[ð]-articles with the corresponding obstruent d (as in the German definite articles).
This new approach at finding a reasonable explanation for the d-onset in the main-
land Scandinavian article system is based on the observation of certain principles of
receptive multilingualism and L2-language learning by adults. It is claimed that the
Scandinavian speakers of one of the next generations following the contact with Low
German adopted the obstruent (viz. German) pronunciation of þ/[ð > d] in the onset
as their own, possibly as a kind of prestige pronunciation which could be heard in the
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 41

whole of Scandinavia due to the ubiquitous presence of non-native L2-speakers of the

Scandinavian languages.
This approach explains adequately why the Old Scandinavian þ-article did not sur-
vive, in comparison to other articles such as the t-article as in Modern Faroese (tann/
tann/tað [nom. sing.masc./fem./neutr.] ‘the/this’) or the th-/[ð] article as in Modern
English (the, but cf. also this, that etc.), but was replaced by the voiced obstruent d- (as
in Mod. Scand. den/det//de [sing.utr./neutr.//pl.] ‘the/(this)’).14 An explanation based
on a natural phonological change — i.e. avoiding the higher marked fricatives [ð-] in
favour of obstruents [d-] — can, in principle, not be completely ruled out. But if one ar-
gues in that way, one would have to find an adequate explanation for Modern Icelandic
and Modern English still having plenty of words with fricatives [θ-/ð-] in their onset.
In neither of the languages can such a large impact from languages without such dental
fricatives such like Low/High German be observed.15

4.2  An ‘imported’ periphrastic genitive construction

The next example illustrating the role of receptive multilingualism for L2-language
acquisition is the adoption of a Low German/West Germanic periphrastic possessive
construction, which is informally called garpe16 genitive in Norway: Norw./Dan. far
sin hat (cf. Germ. (dem [dative]) Vater sein Hut) ‘father’s hat’ [lit. ‘(the) father his hat’].
In many Indo-European languages, ‘possession’ cannot merely be expressed by gen-
itive constructions (inflectional or periphrastic ones) or possessive pronouns (i.e. the
genitive form of the personal pronouns) but also by phrases expressing a benefactive
role, morphologically rendered, if available, as dative (cf. High Germ. (dem) Vater sein
Hut/Buch, non-standard Germ. Wem ist dieses Buch? ‘Whom does this book belong
to?’ or Lat. mihi librum est ‘this is my book’).
If German merchants used such benefactive expressions in receptive multilingual-
ism communication with Scandinavians they could rely on the interdialectal, genetic
relationship connecting the two languages and on the existence of equivalent gram-
matical structures in both languages. Their Scandinavian counterparts would not only
have understood these phrases but could have integrated them into their own language
without problems or any further adoption: they clearly recognised sin ‘his/her’, occur-
ring both in Low German and Scandinavian as a possessive pronoun, and thus treated
the post-posed structural position of this part of the phrase either as a (now) obso-
lete syntactic position or, more likely, as a kind of apposition (in the case of Danish or
Swedish) or accordingly to the default position of the possessive pronoun which was
(and still is) post-positive in Norwegian (and West Scandinavian in general).
Thus, they (re)analysed noun (or determiner) phrases like [[far]NP [sin hat]NP]DP,
according to other, related (analytic) constructions, such as [[taket]DP [på huset]PP]DP
‘the roof of the house’, as noun/determiner phrases with modifiers to the right of the
head noun. These phrases are typical for SVO languages, disregarding, however, the
semantic role of far as an underlying benefactive constituent: i.e. “a hat belonging to
42 Kurt Braunmüller

fatherbenefactive” was re-analysed as “fatheragentive owns this [sc. his] hat”. In other words,
surface structures in connection with easily identifiable, translinguistic morphemes
(also called ‘diamorphs’) were re-interpreted in such a manner that they corresponded
to the default structure of the other noun/determiner phrases.

4.3  Changes in the preference in word order

The last example is taken from syntax. As we have argued before, receptive multilin-
gualism can be applied if you take for granted that the target language follows the same
syntactic principles you are used to from your own language/dialect.
Since both Low (and High) German featured overt SVO-patterns in main clauses
it was quite easy to decode most of the addressee’s utterances immediately: you could
rely on the fact that the finite verb was generally placed in second position and that the
unmarked order of the post-verbal noun phrases was that the indirect object was situ-
ated before the direct object. Differences in the placement of local or temporal adverbs
might have occurred but that did not really prevent sufficient mutual understanding in
speech situations based on receptive multilingualism. If the finite verb, however, occu-
pied the first position in a sentence (V1), you would still be able to interpret this utter-
ance as you might consider the sentence to be elliptic or stylistically marked in one way
or another. Moreover, V1 patterns also occurred in your variety, but were restricted to
questions and imperatives. In any case, you would have had the impression that the
same syntactic rules you were already acquainted with applied to the target language
as well.
German merchants and craftsmen who settled in Denmark or Sweden felt obliged
to learn to speak the local vernaculars but they obviously simplified the syntax of the
respective languages, at least with respect to SVO word order, which is quite typical
both for adult L2-language learning and for creoles. One of the consequences of this
strategy was that the type-frequency of topicalised objects and fronted verbs (V1 sen-
tences) decreased and that the sentence structures of main clauses became more and
more uniform with respect to the sentence initial position: more than 80% of all con-
stituents occurring in this position were now either subjects or adverbs (for further de-
tails of this investigation see Braunmüller 2006). The percentage rate of V2-structures
in the Scandinavian languages before having contact with the Germans was consider-
ably lower due to the sentence-initial rhematic position of the finite verb in prose texts
(narrative as well as legal texts) being quite common. The range of these V1-structures
ranged from about 8% (average number) to almost 33%.17

5.  Concluding remark

This tour d’horizon aimed at showing that receptive multilingualism was one aspect
of a complex diglossic/multilingual situation in northern Europe in the late Middle
 Receptive multilingualism in the Middle Ages 43

Ages — and in early Modern Times as well. Nationalism put an end to this way of
unmediated communication between genetically closely related languages outside
Scandinavia.
But receptive multilingualism also represents a starting point for second-language
acquisition, especially for adults. Therefore, it is important to investigate the principles
and strategies of receptive multilingualism in more detail than has been the case until
now. Medieval northern Europe and present-day Scandinavia represent excellent fields
for further investigations.

Notes

*  To a large extent this survey is based on data and evidence from three research projects,
all funded by the German Research Foundation DFG, (a) “Middle Low German and its role
in the typological and lexical restructuring of the old Scandinavian languages” (1990–1995),
(b) “Semicommunication and receptive multilingualism in contemporary Scandinavia” (1999–
2005) and (c) “Historical Scandinavian syntax in multilingual contexts” (2001–2008) — the last
two projects being carried out within the Collaborative Research Centre 538 on Multilingualism
at Hamburg University. Due to the very limited space only the gist and the results of these re-
search projects can be presented here. Newer data and observations will, however, be presented
and discussed in chapter 4. I would like to thank the two anonymous revisers for their sugges-
tions and criticism which this paper has certainly profited from.
1. Cf. Braunmüller (1999: 308–47) for some basic information, Braunmüller and Zeevaert
(2001) for a bibliographical survey and Delsing and Åkesson (2005) for the latest empirical in-
vestigation available.
2. This means that an active command, i.e. speaking or writing this language, has never been
intended.
3. Cf. Klein and Stegmann (2000: 31ff.) for the EuroCom-project on intercomprehension of
Romance languages or Munske and Kirkness (1996) as far as foreign (or loan) words in European
languages are concerned.
4. Cf. the linguistic situation in mainland Scandinavia mentioned above but also between
German and Dutch (see Ház 2005), Czech and Slovak, Spanish and Catalan or Portuguese, just
to name a few related languages, not to speak of genuine interdialectal communication as found
in Norway or in the German speaking regions of Switzerland.
5. For a comprehensive discussion of the different functions of English as a lingua franca and
a native language today cf. e.g. House (2003).
6. Norway is a special case in this respect. Its nation building took place at quite a late stage
(the union with Denmark came to an end in 1814, but not before 1905 did Norway become fully
independent). For more details on the special conditions of Norwegian nationalism cf. Sørensen
(2001) or Storsveen (2004).
7. For more details on the situation in Scandinavia see Diercks and Braunmüller (1993),
Braunmüller (1995) or Nesse (2002) and for medieval London see Wright (1996).
8. More evidence on code switching in receptive multilingualism/semicommunication in
44 Kurt Braunmüller

Scandinavia today can be retrieved from the very comprehensive discussion in Golinski (2007:
159 ff.), who analysed various forms of code switching, predominantly between Danes and
Swedes around the Öresund, and from Braunmüller (2002: 14ff.), where the phenomenon of
inter-Scandinavian linguistic accommodation at any price is discussed.
9. For a more general survey of some details of this development, see Peters (2000: esp.
1500f.).
10. I.e. Danish, Swedish, Norwegian (by the end of the Middle Ages mostly represented in its
dialects since the literary domains, due to the union with Denmark from 1380 onwards, were
more and more taken over by Danish), but not Sami or Finnish.
11. For an outline of this scenario see Diercks and Braunmüller (1993) and esp. Engelbrecht
(1993), as far as the historical background is concerned.
12. See the corpus presented in Wright (1996) and our studies on the development of
Scandinavian word order in the late Middle Ages, as demonstrated e.g. in Braunmüller (1995)
and (2006).
13. In Faroese only this demonstrative pronoun which also is used as definite article, tann, tann,
tað ‘this; the’, shows the regular sound change from Old Norse þ to t. All other demonstrative
pronouns and deictic expressions have, however, an h- in the onset (< Old Norse þ as well), due
to divergent accentuation patterns, which also can be observed in Icelandic (see Petersen 2004).
The reason for this one and only exception within deictic expressions has obviously been to
avoid a morphological merger with the personal pronoun hann ‘he/him [acc.]’.
14. For a survey on the distribution of the definite articles in the modern Mainland Scandinavian
languages and their dialects see Dahl (2004).
15. Danish, the second national language of Iceland during the union with Denmark (1380–
1944), has such a dental fricative.
16. This term is based on a pejorative Norwegian characterisation of the Low German trades-
men and means ‘boastful’ or ‘big-mouthed’ people.
17. Cf. also the discussion in Mørck (2005) or the thesis of Heusler (1921: 175–82) who consid-
ers VSO as being the normal word order in Old Norse prose texts. Data from eastern Scandinavia
dating back to the pre-Low German era, viz. up to around the end of thirteenth century, are
difficult to obtain due to the lack of substantial written sources. The texts available are either
legal texts (landscape laws) or based on translations/adoptions from the Bible, such as the Old
Swedish Pentateuch paraphrase from the mid-fourteenth century.

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