Linguistic landscapes in the baltic

Article published in the «Scandinavian Journal of History» — 2003 — Vol. 28 — Issue 3-4 — 165-174 — doi: 10.1080/03468750310003659The study of linguistic landscapes in the Baltic entails far more than charting the large numbers of languages spoken in the region. It involves acquainting oneself with the visible and invisible topographies of the region, understanding how linguistic multiplicity has had both a centrifugal and centripetal effect on regional development, tracing the significant role that Middle Low German had as a language of communication in the entire region, and how language could be used in a number of significations. Only then do we catch the first glimpse of language as a regional phenomenon in the Early Modern Baltic.