Vernacular Languages in the Long Ninth Century, University of Kent, June 28–30, 2018
The long ninth century was an important period for the history of vernacular languages in Europe in both Eastern and Western Christendom. Some of those languages appeared for the first time in written form and others changed considerably. This conference will compare and contrast the different histories of a wide variety of languages in this period including Old English, Old Norse, Frisian, Slavonic, Old Irish and Old High German. We will address questions such as: To what extent were their histories inter-connected? Why was this happening in the ninth century? To what extent was this mainly a religious and elite phenomenon or was it more widespread?