Languages of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World

This book outlines major trends in language use by early modern diplomats, mainly in the European context, through a series of case studies and overviews of regional diplomatic traditions.

During the early modern period, linguistic practices in European diplomacy changed drastically, as the decline of Latin and German as diplomatic languages paved the way for the rise of French as a pan-European medium of diplomacy. While it was no secret that French was the dominant language of European elites during the eighteenth century, surprisingly little is known about the way this cultural trend translated into a major linguistic shift in diplomacy. This volume offers a broader perspective, tracking these changes throughout the early modern period. Spanning three centuries and extending across and beyond continental Europe, the contributors map the pace, the mechanisms, the reasons and the limits for changes in the use of languages in early modern diplomacy and explore the linguistic practices of diplomats as an indicator of wider social, cultural, and political changes.

A novel study of European diplomacy and linguistic interactions, this book will be of interest to historians, in particular those working on language practices in diplomacy and the social history of languages.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 licence.