Philippe Wolff (1913–2001)

Western Languages: AD 100-1500 covers exactly what the title implies -- development of languages in Western Europe form the Roman Empire and Latin to the various modern languages at beginning of the modern era.

This book has much to recommend it. The author provides clear examples, wonderful maps, and simple terminology. He provides a nice overview of the political/historical context for the developments in each of the major languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, and English). Where there are gaps in knowledge, he states that as opposed to making wild speculations.

On the downside, the actual writing is a bit strange at times. The book was originally written in French, so the strangeness may come from the translation. Another problem is the lack of footnotes to various points. There are 12 footnotes for a 200 page book! And similarly, the lack of references in English at the back of the book. The book also left out some of the Western European languages such as the Celtic languages and Basque.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book and I learned somethings from it, but I really wish it had a more scholarly bent to it with better footnotes and references.… (mehr)

Ohhhh, I've written this book (this essay, anyway) before. Take a field distant from the one you're ostensibly writing in; do a crash course; misunderstand everything; apply it to the material at hand anyway because nobody in your field would know any better; and what you end up with, in Wolff's case, is a bit of historical review that purports to demonstrate the utility of linguistics for getting a new perspective on history, but really just misuses an outdated-anyway version of the field.


This is a half-decent review of medieval history with some tidbits about language thrown in, some correct and some false.… (mehr)