Languages in Europe and their Diachronies

Explore the past & present of European languages and advance your knowledge on modern theoretical approaches to the study of ancient languages

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CIVIS focus area
Society, culture, heritage
Open to
  • Bachelor's
  • Master's
  • PhD candidates/ students
Field of studies
  • Social Science and humanities
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
8 April - 31 July 2024

This CIVIS Blended Intensive Programme will introduce participating students to an interdisciplinary way of studying the past and present of languages, focusing on ancient and medieval European languages.

Students will acquire advanced knowledge of the modern theoretical approaches to the study of ancient languages, both in relation to the analysis of their grammar and to the examination of the correlations between society (for instance, in the cases of language contact), culture and linguistic development.

Moreover, students will be involved in small linguistic and computational historical linguistic projects that aim to build advanced knowledge of the methodology of describing, analysing and explaining the grammar and the development of ancient languages.

This CIVIS Blended Intensive Programme includes an introduction to the methodology of computational and statistical analysis of ancient Indo-European languages and the challenges of linking digital heritage data with historical linguistic studies.

Main topics addressed

  • Computational historical linguistic analyses: “From texts to grammar”
  • New methodologies of describing, analyzing and explaining the grammar and the development of ancient languages
  • Modern theoretical approaches to the study of ancient languages

Learning outcomes

Students will acquire advanced knowledge of the modern descriptive and analytical approaches to the study of ancient and medieval languages, both in relation to the analysis of their grammar and to the examination of the correlations between society (for instance, in the case of language contact) and language change. The students will also be introduced to the methodology of computational and statistical analysis of ancient and medieval Indo-European languages and the challenges of linking digital heritage data with historical linguistic studies.

This CIVIS Blended Intensive Programme is devoted to the dissemination of the new approaches to ancient and medieval languages: modern linguistic theories in collaboration with technology and modern statistical analyses (historical computational linguistics and modern linguistic approaches as well as the perspective of digital heritage).

Dates: 8 April - 31 July 2024 Language: English (B2)
Location: Naxos, Greece ECTS: 6*
Format: Blended Workload: 180 hours
Contact: nlavidas@uoa.gr  

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university. 

Physical mobility

25-31 July 2024, Naxos, Greece

This CIVIS course is a blended-learning programme that consists of an intensive online Spring School, online workshops and an intensive Summer School (40 hours of face-to-face classes) that will be held in Naxos, Greece in July 2024.

Selected students will be supported by a grant for physical mobility to Greece.

Virtual part

8 April - 30 June 2024

  • 8-12 April 2024: Linguistic and computational historical linguistic intensive classes, lectures and masterclasses aiming at an advanced knowledge of the methodology of describing, analyzing and explaining the grammar and the development of ancient languages.
  • April - June 2024: Online workshops. Dates to be announced (once per month, from April to July). Small computational historical linguistic projects “From texts to grammar”

Requirements

This course is open to Bachelor's and Master's students at CIVIS member universities with previous knowledge in: Humanities, Linguistics, Languages.

A B2 level in English is required.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

Students from CIVIS’ strategic partner universities in Africa cannot apply for participation in this course.

Application process

Interested students should apply by filling in the online application form by 7 November 2023. 

Students will be selected based on the following criteria: CV and motivation letter.

Apply here

Assessment

Advanced undergraduate students will have to complete small assignments and prepare a small research essay (or take a final written exam).

Postgraduate students (MA and PhD) will have to present research findings in class, complete small assignments and prepare a research essay (or take a final written exam).

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

GDPR Consent

The CIVIS alliance and its member universities will treat the information you provide with respect. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information on our privacy practices. By applying to this course you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

For more information

Please visit this page for more information http://CIVIS-Diachronic-Linguistics-2024.uoa.gr

 

  • Nikolaos Lavidas is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Department of Language-Linguistics, Faculty of English, School of Philosophy). His research covers a range of topics associated with Indo-European historical linguistics and the directions of language change (in particular the development of transitivity and voice in Indo-European languages), syntax-semantics interface, (historical) language contact and historical corpora.
  • Antonio R. Revuelta Puigdollers is Associate Professor of Ancient and Modern Greek at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a sworn translator of Modern Greek. His main research areas are the semantics, syntax and pragmatics of Greek; his work also includes incursions into other languages such as Latin. He is the co-author of a new syntax of Ancient Greek and has authored several entries in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics.
  • Katrin Axel-Tober is Professor of German Linguistics at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research focuses on the synchronic and diachronic syntax of German. She has published the books Studies on Old High German Syntax: Left Sentence Periphery, Verb Placement and Verb-Second (Benjamins, 2007) and (Nicht-)kanonische Nebensätze im Deutschen: Synchrone und diachrone Aspekte (Walter de Gruyter, 2012) as well as several articles on sentence structure, complementizers, null subjects, and modal verbs.
  • Artemij Keidan is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies, Sapienza Università di Roma. His main areas of expertise include the history of grammatical thought, Indo-European morphology, philosophy of language, and issues in syntax and phonology, both general and applied to ancient (such as Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic, Slavic languages) and modern languages.
  • Joanna Kopaczyk is Professor in Scots and English (English Language & Linguistics) at the University of Glasgow. She is a historical linguist with a special interest in the medieval and early modern history of the Scots language. She uses corpus-driven methods to uncover textual standardisation and she is also interested in formulaicity in language, as revealed through all kinds of repetitive patterns. She has recently co-edited books on Applications of Pattern-Driven Methods in Corpus Linguistics (John Benjamins, 2018) and on Binomials in the History of English (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

  • Adina Dragomirescu is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bucharest (Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters) and Senior Researcher at (as well as and head of) the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics (Romanian Academy). Her main research areas are Romanian and Romance Syntax, historical syntax, and language contact. She wrote two single-authored books (on unaccusative verbs in Romanian, and on the Romanian supine), and she contributed to collective works such as: The Oxford History of Romanian Morphology (2021), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (2016), The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics (2022), The [Oxford] Grammar of Romanian (2013), The [Oxford] Syntax of old Romanian (2016).

  • Alexandru Nicolae is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bucharest (Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters) and Researcher at the “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics (Romanian Academy). His research focuses on comparative and diachronic linguistics, and covers a range of topics associated with Romanian, the Romance languages and the Balkan Sprachbund (e.g., grammaticalization, language contact, word order, definiteness, cliticization, genitives, etc.). Nicolae contributed to reference works like The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (2016), The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics (2022), The [Oxford] Grammar of Romanian (2013), The [Oxford] Syntax of old Romanian (2016), and published three single-authored monographs, two of which are devoted to word order change and other diachronic phenomena in Romanian.