Abstract:
Taking into consideration the phenomenon of multilingualism from a historical and linguistic perspective, my dissertation aims at studying how multilingualism was perceived in Germany during the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times and what functions multilingual texts undertook in these contexts. Through the analysis of two collections of glosses, the Pariser Gespräche (10th century) and the Kasseler Glosssen (9th century), the vernacular glosses of the Lex Alamannorum (8th century) and lastly Luther's Table Talk (16th century), I will demonstrate that functional multilingualism was present in the didactic, legislative and religious spheres of these times.
