Call For Papers: Multilingualism in the Ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine Worlds: Between Theory and Practice. Bi-, Multi-, and Translingualism as Language Ecology

We are seeking chapter contributions for an edited volume to be published by Brill.

Multilingualism is not a recent phenomenon, yet its full complexity in the ancient and medieval worlds remains underexplored. Scholarship has tended to approach language contact through the lens of bilingualism — two languages, two systems, in structured relation — and to treat languages primarily as writing systems and textual artifacts amenable to formal analysis. What has received less sustained attention is the broader ecological reality: the ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine worlds were environments in which bi-, multi-, and translingual practices conditioned and were themselves conditioned not only by literary production but also by social life and political positioning.

This edited volume proposes language ecology as its overarching framework (Haugen 1972; Halliday 1990). Rather than treating languages as discrete, bounded systems that come into contact, a language ecology approach understands them as living, interdependent entities shaped by the socio-political and cultural environments they inhabit and, in turn, shape those environments.

For further information and timeline: https://datadrivenhumanities.github.io/Multilingualism-Brill/