What role does language play in the formation and perpetuation of our ideas about nationality and other social categories? And what role does it play in the formation and perpetuation of nations themselves, and of other human groups? Language and Nationality considers these questions and examines the consequences of the notion that a language and a nationality are intrinsically connected. Pietro Bortone illustrates how our use of language reveals more about us than we think, is constantly judged, and marks group insiders and group outsiders. Casting doubt on several assumptions common among academics and non-academics alike, he highlights how languages significantly differ among themselves in structure, vocabulary, and social use, in ways that are often untranslatable and can imply a particular culture. Nevertheless, he argues, this does not warrant the way language has been used for promoting a national outlook and for teaching us to identify with a nation. Above all, the common belief that languages indicate nationalities reflects our intellectual and political history, and has had a tremendous social cost. Bortone elucidates how the development of standardized national languages - while having merits - has fostered an unrealistic image of nations and has created new social inequalities. He also shows how it has obscured the history of many languages, artificially altered their fundamental features, and distorted the public understanding of what a language is.

Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is becoming increasingly frequent, thereby promoting a need to acquire successful methods in understanding language. Applied Psycholinguistics and Multilingual Cognition in Human Creativity is an essential reference source that discusses the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language, as well as its applications in human development, the social sciences, communication theories, and infant development. Featuring research on topics such as international business, language processing, and organizational research, this book is ideally designed for linguists, psychologists, humanities and social sciences researchers, managers, and graduate-level students seeking coverage on language acquisition and communication.

Haitian Creole is the creole language with the largest number of speakers: about ten million in Haiti and two million in diaspora communities in North American, France, and the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the French overseas departments. Haitian Creole presents a comprehensive view of the structure and development of Haitian Creole. It provides a detailed analysis of the phonology and grammar of the language and points out key differences between these two fundamental aspects of the language and corresponding features of French, its original target language. The book contains a detailed description of the productive strategies of vocabulary development and deals with the origin of Haitian Creole, as well as its relationship to the other French-based creoles in Louisiana, the Caribbean, French Guiana, and the Indian Ocean. A signal innovation with regard to other descriptions of the language is the treatment of linguistic variation, both in geographical dialects and variation as determined by social factors, as well as the presentation of earlier forms of Haitian Creole, as attested by texts from the Colonial period. Another major contribution is the discussion of language planning and related issues concerning the use of Haitian Creole in education and its status relative to French, the other officially recognized language of Haiti.

The beginning Greek student faces a vexing dilemma: a myriad of vocabulary words to learn and little time to learn them. One of the century's leading Greek scholars offers a solid solution by organizing Greek words according to their frequency of appearance in the New Testament. This text helps students maximize their study by concentrating on the words that appear most often in the Greek New Testament. (67)

This ambitious study of all proper names in the Chanson de Roland is based for the first time on a systematic survey of the whole geographical and historical literature from antiquity to after 1100 for the Geographica, and on working through (almost) the entire documentary tradition of France and its neighbouring regions from 778 to the early 12th century for the personal names. The overall result is clear: the surviving song is more tightly and profoundly structured, even in smaller scenes, than generally assumed, it is also richer in depicting reality, and it has a very long prehistory, which can be traced in outline, albeit with decreasing certainty, (almost) back to the Frankish defeat of 778. Here are some individual results: for the first time, a detailed (and ultimately simple!) explanation not only of the 'pagan' catalogue of peoples, but also of the overarching structure of Baligant's empire, the organisation of North Africa, the corpus of the Twelve Anti-Pairs as well as the 'pagan' gods are given, and individual names such as Bramimunde and Jurfaret, toponyms such as Marbrise and Marbrose are explained. From Roland's Spanish conquests (v. 196-200), the course of the elapsed set anz toz pleins is reconstructed. Even the names of the weapons prove to be a small structured group, in that they are very discreetly adapted to their respective 'pagan' or Christian owner. On the Christian side, the small list of relics in Roland's sword is also carefully devised, not least in what is left out: a relic of the Lord; this is reserved for Charlemagne's Joiuse. The author explains for example, why from the archangel triad only Michael and Gabriel descend to the dying Roland, whereas 'the' angel Cherubin descends in Rafael's place. Munjoie requires extensive discussion, because here a (hitherto insufficiently recorded) toponym has been secondarily charged by the poet with traditional theological associations. The term Ter(e) major is attested for the first time in reality, namely in the late 11th century in Norman usage. For the core of France, the fourth cornerstone - along with Besancon, Wissant and Mont-Saint-Michel - is Xanten, and its centre is Aachen. The poet's artful equilibration of Charles's ten eschieles and their leaders is traced. The "Capetian barrier" emerges as a basic fact of epic geography. Approximatively, the last quarter of the study is devoted to the prehistory of the song, going backwards in time: still quite clearly visible is an Angevin Song of Roland from around 1050, in which Marsilie, Olivier, Roland, Ganelon, Turpin and Naimes already have roles similar to those in the preserved Song. Behind it, between about 970 and shortly after 1000, is the Girart de Vienne from the Middle Rhone, already recognised by Aebischer, with the newly invented Olivier contra Roland. Finally, in faint outlines, an oldest attainable, also Middle Rhone adaptation of the Roland material from shortly after 870 emerges. For the Chanson de Roland, Gaston Paris and Joseph Bedier were thus each right on the main point that was close to their hearts: the surviving song has both the thoroughly sophisticated structure of great art that Bedier recognised in it, and the imposingly long prehistory that Paris conjectured.

Thanks to the digital revolution, even a traditional discipline like philology has been enjoying a renaissance within academia and beyond. Decades of work have been producing groundbreaking results, raising new research questions and creating innovative educational resources. This book describes the rapidly developing state of the art of digital philology with a focus on Ancient Greek and Latin, the classical languages of Western culture. Contributions cover a wide range of topics about the accessibility and analysis of Greek and Latin sources. The discussion is organized in five sections concerning open data of Greek and Latin texts; catalogs and citations of authors and works; data entry, collection and analysis for classical philology; critical editions and annotations of sources; and finally linguistic annotations and lexical databases. As a whole, the volume provides a comprehensive outline of an emergent research field for a new generation of scholars and students, explaining what is reachable and analyzable that was not before in terms of technology and accessibility.

The Politics of Speech in Later Twentieth-Century Poetry: Local Tongues in Heaney, Brooks, Harrison, and Clifton argues that local speech became a central facet of English-language poetry in the second half of the twentieth century. It is based on a key observation about four major poets from both sides of the Atlantic: Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tony Harrison, and Lucille Clifton all respond to societal crises by arranging, reproducing, and reconceiving their particular versions of local speech in poetic form. The book's overarching claim is that "local tongues" in poetry have the capacity to bridge aesthetic and sociopolitical realms because nonstandard local speech declares its distinction from the status quo and binds people who have been subordinated by hierarchical social conditions, while harnessing those versions of speech into poetic structures can actively counter the very hierarchies that would degrade those languages. The diverse local tongues of these four poets marshaled into the forms of poetry situate them at once in literary tradition, in local contexts, and in prevailing social constructs.