Advances in Historical Orthography, C. 1500-1800

Book excerpt: "The study of historical orthography in the early modern era has followed different strands, according to various geographical areas and periods of time. Areas of discussion and investigation have ranged from the question of biscriptality, the topics of codification and nation-building to spelling reform, to the role of the introduction of printing technology in orthographical developments and standardisation. The variation related to the study of historical orthography across Europe should not surprise us, if we consider the obvious differences across languages in Europe on different linguistic levels (including orthographic, phonetic, syntactic and so on), the different political decisions made in the administration of educational curricula (especially at university level) and the natural divergence of interests related to profound historical, cultural and political differences in every corner of Europe - all of which undoubtedly represent an element of richness and diversity which should be valued and fostered in the future for the sake of progress in the field"--