Hanna Rutkowska - Böcker

The study of orthography (spelling and writing systems), and its development over the history of language, is central to many areas of linguistic enquiry, offering insight into syntactic and morphological structures, phonology, typology, historical linguistics, literacy and reading, and the social and cultural context of language use. With contributions from a global team of scholars, this Handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of this rapidly developing field, tracing the development of historical orthography, with special emphasis on the last and present centuries. Chapters are split into five key thematic areas, with a focus throughout on the interplay between theory and practice. It also explores the methods used in studying historical orthography, and the principles involved in the development of a spelling system. Providing a critical assessment of the state of the art in the field, it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in writing systems and historical linguistics.

The essays in this collection demonstrate that much can be learned from studying features such as word-division, printer’s type, and spelling conventions. These features – termed «accidentals» by W. W. Greg – typically receive little attention when editors discuss how a text became actualized in a particular medieval manuscript or early modern print. To study these features, it is essential to consider a text in the context of the manuscript or print housing it, rather than a modern edition. The texts discussed range in genre from religious (Ælfric’s Letter to Sigeweard, and the Gutenberg and Wycliffe Bibles) and literary (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) to scientific (florilegia), while their material bearers range in date from the late Old English period into the Early Modern English one.