Description
First published following the first International Colloquium on «Problemes i Mètodes d’Història de la Llengua», held in Girona in 1991, this volume contributed to the consolidation of the history of language as a line of research at the University of Girona and also as a field of research within Catalan studies. Thirty years after its initial publication, this commemorative edition brings together the papers discussed at that first colloquium and includes additional material that makes them relevant today.
The contributions by Alberto Vàrvaro, Josep Maria Nadal, Mirko Tavoni, Juan Gutiérrez Cuadrado, José A. Pascual, Francesco Bruni and Xavier Lamuela address issues that remain central: linguistic change, the relationship between internal and external history, speakers’ linguistic awareness, the processes of language modernisation, writing, variation and the very boundaries of the discipline. The included texts by Eloi Bellés, Íria Caballé and Míriam Sellés help to understand the subsequent development of the Girona colloquia and their importance in the development of studies in the history of the Catalan language.
This is not, therefore, a mere reprint. It is the revival of a book that still serves today to reflect, with theoretical ambition and historical awareness, on what it means to study a language over time.