The majority of our evidence for language change in pre-modern
times comes from the written output of scribes. The present volume
deals with a variety of aspects of language change and focuses on
the role of scribes. The individual articles, which treat different
theoretical and empirical issues, reflect a broad cross-linguistic
and cross-cultural diversity. The languages that are represented
cover a broad spectrum, and the empirical data come from a wide
range of sources. This book provides a wealth of new data and new
perspectives on old problems, and it raises new questions about the
actual mechanisms of language change.
