On 15 June 2012 the symposium 'Language Contact in the West Germanic
Languages, 400-1200' will be held at Utrecht University. This symposium
is organised by the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS (UiL OTS) and
the Philological Society.
This one-day symposium explores the linguistic effects of different
dialect/language contact situations in West Germanic languages during
the period 400-1200. The papers presented will focus on five different
geographical areas and the languages used there, namely English,
Frisian, Dutch, Low German and Central/Upper German. By viewing the
dialect/language contact situations from different perspectives, this
symposium aims to shed more light on the interrelations (a) amongst the
West Germanic languages and (b) between West Germanic, Latin and the
Celtic languages.
This symposium marks the first meeting of the Philological Society,
i.e. "the oldest learned society in Great Britain devoted to the
scholarly study of language and languages" (see PhilSoc website), outside the UK.