About the project
Medieval Scandinavia had a unique written culture. After centuries of using runes and Scandinavian languages, Latin and the Latin alphabet began to take hold. Over time, people returned to writing in Scandinavian languages – now using the Latin alphabet instead of the runes.
For four hundred years, Scandinavian and Latin, the runic and Latin alphabets coexisted in inscriptions and graffiti. We find every possible combination of languages and scripts, sometimes even in the same text.
But why use one language and script over another – and why mix them? When and where did people in Scandinavia shift language and script?
The project “EpiCentres” seeks to answer these questions by investigating a rich but understudied corpus of inscriptions in the Latin alphabet, alongside the contemporaneous runic tradition.
Through these texts, EpiCentres analyses far-reaching processes that both shaped Scandinavia’s literate culture and offer unique insights into Europe’s multilingual past.
Objectives
EpiCentres pursues three objectives.
1. Identify and analyse Scandinavia’s epigraphic centres
The project identifies and analyses the main hubs for the production and display of inscriptions in different languages and alphabets – Scandinavia’s epigraphic centres – and traces how their use changed over time and space.
EpiCentres also aims to make the corpus of Latin-alphabet inscriptions from medieval Scandinavia publicly accessible for the first time through a new digital database.
2. Explore the interaction between Latin and vernacular traditions
The project investigates how Latin and vernacular traditions developed together using a comparative approach.
Epigraphic traditions in different languages and scripts have mostly been studied separately. EpiCentres instead proposes a holistic approach that explores their interaction and identifies shared and diverging practices in textual composition, orthography, palaeography, and text display.
3. Explain the social motivations behind the choice of language and alphabet
EpiCentres draws on sociolinguistics and sociosemiotics to explain the social motivations behind choosing or combining languages and alphabets, and to uncover the cultural identities shaped through these choices.
