Christopher Joby - Böcker

Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, Italian, English, Spanish, and German: those are the eight languages in which Dutch Golden Age poet Constantijn Huygens (1596—1687) wrote his poetry and correspondence. He also knew a bit of Hebrew and Portuguese. Examining a wide range of Huygens’s writings“including personal letters, state correspondence, and poetry“Christopher Joby explores how Huygens tested the boundaries of language with his virtuosity as a polyglot. From Huygens’s multilingual code switching to his writings on architecture, music, and natural science, this comprehensive account is a must-read for anyone interested in this Dutch statesman and man of letters.

In 1565, migrants escaping religious persecution and economic hardship in the Low Countries began to arrive in the city of Norwich in eastern England. Many of the migrants spoke Dutch, whilst others spoke French, with some speaking both languages. By 1578, the migrants, known locally as Strangers, accounted for about 40 per cent of Norwich’s population. The city therefore had three language communities: English, Dutch, and French. Members of each language community used Latin, making early modern Norwich a quadrilingual city.In this book, Christopher Joby examines the language practices that emerged in early modern Norwich and the epistemic outcomes of contact between these four languages. He does this from multiple perspectives, devoting chapters to language education, language practices by social domain, language varieties, the outcomes of lexical interference, proper names, and translation. The final chapter, on language shift, examines the processes by which Norwich returned by the mid-eighteenth century to being an essentially monolingual, Anglophone, city.This is the first book-length study of the language practices and outcomes of contact between languages in an early modern European city, and will be of interest to scholars of multilingualism, historical sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, dialectology, translation studies, and British and European early modern history.

The first book-length biography of John Cruso of Norwich (b. 1592/3), a second-generation migrant poet, translator and military author, that explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period.John Cruso of Norwich (b. 1592/3), the eldest son of Flemish migrants, was a man of many parts: Dutch and English poet, translator, military author, virtuoso networker, successful merchant and hosier, Dutch church elder and militia captain. This first book-length biography, making extensive use of archival and literary sources, reconstructs the life and work of this multi-talented, self-made man, whose literary oeuvre is marked by its polyvocality. Cruso's poetry includes a Dutch amplificatio on Psalm 8, some 221 Dutch epigrams, and elegies (one of which frames the most important Anglo-Dutch literary moment in the seventeenth century, a collection of Dutch and Latin elegies which marked the death of the London Dutch church minister, Simeon Ruytinck, and included verses by Constantijn Huygens and Jacob Cats). As a military author, Cruso published five works, in English, including two translations from the French. These works display his knowledge of the canon of classical and Renaissance literature, which, in turn, allowed him to fashion himself as a miles doctus, a learned soldier, and make a contribution to military science in England prior to and during the English Civil Wars. In focusing on the rich and varied life and works of John Cruso, this book also explores ideas and practices of identity formation in the early modern period, as well as allowing Cruso's life to shed further light on the migrant experience in seventeenth-century Norwich. Joby shows how a second-generation migrant could successfully integrate himself into English society, whilst continuing to engage with his Low Countries heritage.

In The Dutch Language in Britain (1550-1702) Christopher Joby offers an account of the knowledge and use of Dutch in early modern Britain. Using extensive archive material from Britain and the Low Countries, Chris Joby demonstrates that Dutch was both written and spoken in a range of social domains including the church, work, learning, the home, diplomacy, the military and navy, and the court. Those who used the language included artisans and their families fleeing religious and economic turmoil on the continent; the Anglo-Dutch King, William III; and Englishmen such as the scientist Robert Hooke. Joby’s account adds both to our knowledge of the use of Dutch in the early modern period and multilingualism in Britain at this time.

In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of the knowledge and use of the Dutch language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. For most of this period, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan. Using the analytical tool of language process, this book explores the nature and consequences of contact between Dutch and Japanese and other language varieties. The processes analysed include language learning, contact and competition, code switching, translation, lexical, syntactic and graphic interference, and language shift. The picture that emerges is that the multifarious uses of Dutch, especially the translation of Dutch books, would have a profound effect on the language, society, culture and intellectual life of Japan.

In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of the knowledge and use of the Dutch language in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. For most of this period, the Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade with Japan. Using the analytical tool of language process, this book explores the nature and consequences of contact between Dutch and Japanese and other language varieties. The processes analysed include language learning, contact and competition, code switching, translation, lexical, syntactic and graphic interference, and language shift. The picture that emerges is that the multifarious uses of Dutch, especially the translation of Dutch books, would have a profound effect on the language, society, culture and intellectual life of Japan.

This new study provides a comprehensive account of the multilingualism of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687).