This volume examines the use of French in European language communities outside France from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Each chapter offers unique insight into the existence of francophonie in a given language community and the volume as a whole explores broad sociolinguistic and sociohistorical questions about the function of French.

Vladislav Rjéoutski is Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Moscow. A cultural and social historian with an interest in education and the press in eighteenth-century Europe, he has published books on French-speaking educators, French emigration and Franco-Russian contacts. Gesine Argent is Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. She works in the field of sociolinguistics and has a particular interest in debates about language use, language attitudes, linguistic purism and identity negotiation, especially in relation to foreign linguistic influences. Derek Offord is Research Professor in Russian at the University of Bristol. He is a specialist in pre-revolutionary Russian intellectual, literary and cultural history and his recent books include a monograph on Russian travel writing and a co-edited history of Russian thought.

«This book provides a valuable overview to linguists who wish to understand the complexities of how French arose as a lingua franca and a language of cultural, political and social prestige in early modern Europe.» (Judith Bridges, Linguist List August 2015) «[...] the book is a valuable addition to the study of the use of the French language in Europe within a historical perspective.» (Samira Hassa, The French Review vol. 90.2 2016)

Contents: Gesine Argent/Vladislav Rjéoutski/Derek Offord: European Francophonie and a Framework for Its Study – Peter Burke: Diglossia in Early Modern Europe – Marianne Ailes/Ad Putter: The French of Medieval England – Alda Rossebastiano: Knowledge of French in Piedmont – Nadia Minerva: The Two Latin Sisters: Representations of the French and the French Language in Italy – Madeleine Van Strien-Chardonneau: The Use of French among the Dutch Elites in Eighteenth-Century Holland – Manuela Böhm: The Domains of Francophonie and Language Ideology in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Prussia – Ivo Cerman: Aristocratic Francophone Literature in Bohemia – Amelia Sanz-Cabrerizo/Begoña Regueiro-Salgado/Luis Pablo-Núñez/Silviano Carrasco: Francophonies in Spain – Margareta Östman: French in Sweden in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries – Maciej Serwański/Katarzyna Napierała: The Presence of Francophonie in Poland from the Sixteenth Century to the Eighteenth – Ileana Mihaila: The Beginnings and the Golden Age of Francophonie among the Romanians – Derek Offord: Francophonie in Imperial Russia – Laurent Mignon: French in Ottoman Turkey: ‘The Language of the Afflicted Peoples’? Inhaltsverzeichnis