Language and the Grand Tour: Linguistic Experiences of Travelling in Early Modern Europe

The Grand Tour was the classical continental trip to France and Italy, undertaken by young aristocratic men in early modern Europe, ostensibly for educational purposes. Using amusing stories and vivid quotations collected from travellers' writings, Arturo Tosi charts the rise of modern vernaculars and the standardisation of European languages. The travellers' writings provide a valuable source of information about language contact, and illuminate how socialisation with the locals led, on the one hand, to conscious borrowings from prestigious foreign peers and, on the other, to linguistic disorientation when confronted with lower-class speech and rural vernaculars. The first of its kind to approach the Grand Tour from a linguistic perspective, this book is a timely addition to this burgeoning area of study, presenting a unique case study of population movement, language change and education in early modern Europe.

About the Author

Arturo Tosi is Emeritus Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. His previous books include Immigration and Bilingual Education (1984), The Language of Italian Communities in the English-Speaking World (1991), and Language, and Society in a Changing Italy (2001).