Michelle Waldispühl

• Waldispühl, Michelle(2026). Writing Runes – How and why? Sociolinguistic Approaches to South Germanic Runic. In: Rosselli del Turco, R. (ed.). LE RUNE II: FONTI DOCUMENTARIE SCANDINAVE, CONTINENTALI E INSULARI. XXIII Seminario avanzato in Filologia germanica. Torino: Università degli Studi di Torino.
• Strelluf, Christopher & Waldispühl, Michelle (eds.). 2026. Special Issue: Publicly engaged historical sociolinguistics and present-day conflicts. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2026(301).
• Strelluf, Christopher & Waldispühl, Michelle. 2026. Publicly engaged historical sociolinguistics and present-day conflicts: introduction to the special issue. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2026(301), 1–13.
• Waldispühl, Michelle. 2026. Personal names in cross-cultural settings: Policies, conflicts and lessons from the past. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2026(301), 15-39.
• Waldispühl, Michelle, Megyesi, Beáta, Fornés, Alicia & Kopal, Nils. in press. Grapholinguistic features of historical ciphers and challenges for computer-based transcription and cryptanalysis. In: Kazzazi, K., Schulte, M. & Waxenberger, G. (eds.), From the Maya Script to the Germanic Runes – Case Studies on the Typology of Scripts and Research on Writing Systems. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
• Megyesi, Beáta; Rattenborg, Rune; Láng, Benedek; Waldispühl, Michelle & Héder, Mihály. 2026. Building a Corpus and Database for Rare and Undeciphered Scripts. In Passarotti, Marco & Sprugnoli, Rachele (Ed.), Fourth Workshop on Language Technologies for Historical and Ancient Languages (LT4HALA 2026) @ LREC 2026. European Language Resources Association. ISSN 9782493814586.
• Waldispühl, Michelle & Megyesi, Beáta. 2026. Language choice in eighteenth-century diplomatic ciphers from Europe. In Kazakov, G. & Rjéoutski, V. (eds.), Languages of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World. London: Routledge.
• Waldispühl, Michelle. 2025. Verschlüsselte Briefe im Schwedischen Reich: Mehrsprachigkeit und Geheimschrift während des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs. In Prinz, M., Raag, N, & Stoeva-Holm, D. (eds.), Praktiken der Mehrsprachigkeit im Schwedischen Reich (1611–1721). Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf die Rolle des Deutschen, 85–112. Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Waldispühl, Michelle. 2025. Navigating personal names in multicultural contexts: Discussion. Onomastica Uralica 17, 119–124.
• Waldispühl, Michelle. "Schriftentlehnung". Wörterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (WSK) Online, edited by Stefan J. Schierholz and Laura Giacomini. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2025.
• Waldispühl, Michelle. "Geheimschrift". Wörterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (WSK) Online, edited by Stefan J. Schierholz and Laura Giacomini. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2025.
• Megyesi, B., Fornés, A., Héder, M., Heil, R., Kopal, N., Láng, B., Rattenborg, R. & Waldispühl, M. 2025. Decipherment of Historical Manuscripts with Unknown or Rare Writings: the DESCRYPT Project. In: Antal, E. & Marák, P. (eds.). Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2025, 101–105. D-Space at Tartu University Library.
• Waldispühl, M. 2024. Personal names and migration: An overview. Nordic Journal of Socio-onomastics 4(3), 15–58.
• Solling, D. & Waldispühl, M. 2024. Inledning till temanumret: Personnamn och flerspråkighet i historisk kontext. Introduction to the special issue: Personal names and multilingualism in historical context. Nordic Journal of Socio-onomastics 4(3), 5–13.
• Láng, Benedek; Megyesi, Beáta; Kopal, Nils; Mikhalev, Vasily; Tudor, Crina & Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). Cipher key instructions in early modern Europe: analysis and text edition.Cryptologia. ISSN 0161-1194. doi: 10.1080/01611194.2024.2396800.
• Fornés, Alicia; Chen, Jialuo; Torras, Pau; Megyesi, Beáta; Waldispühl, Michelle; Kopal, Nils & Lasry, George (2024). ICDAR 2024 Competition on Handwriting Recognition of Historical Ciphers. In Smith, Elisa H. Barney; Liwicki, Marcus & Peng, Liangrui (Ed.), Document Analysis and Recognition - ICDAR 2024. Springer. ISSN 9783031705526. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-70552-6_20.
• Waldispühl, M. & Kopal, N. 2024. Decipherment of a German encrypted letter sent from Sigismund Heusner von Wandersleben to Axel Oxenstierna in 1637. In M. Waldispühl & B. Megyesi (eds.). Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024, 249–253. Tartu: D-Space Tartu University Library.
• Megyesi, B., Láng, B., Kopal, N., Mikhalev, V., Tudor, C. & Waldispühl, M. 2024. A Typology for Cipher Key Instructions in Early Modern Times. In M. Waldispühl & B. Megyesi (eds.). Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024, 183–193. Tartu: D-Space Tartu University Library.
• Waldispühl, M. & Megyesi, B. (eds.). Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024, 249–253. Tartu: D-Space Tartu University Library.
• Megyesi, B., Fornés, A., Láng, B., Waldispühl, M., Esslinger, B., Mikhalev, V. & Kopal, N. 2024. Historical Cryptology. In B. Esslinger (ed.). The CrypTool Book: Cryptography with CrypTool and Sagemath. Boston, London: Artech House.
• Megyesi, B., Fornés, A., Láng, B., Waldispühl, M., Esslinger, B., Mikhalev, V. & Kopal, N. 2024. Historische Kryptologie. In B. Esslinger (ed.). Das CrypTool Buch: Kryptographie mit CrypTool und Sagemath. Boston, London: Artech House.
• Waldispühl, M. 2023. Variation and change. In M. Condorelli & H. Rutkowska (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography, 245–264. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Waldispühl, M. 2023. Die Verbreitung christlicher Rufnamen im mittelalterlichen Norden im Licht der Reichenauer Überlieferung. In M. Marti & L. Thöny (eds.). Swe gameliþ ist. Studien zur vergleichenden germanischen Sprachwissenschaft, 83–101. Heidelberg: Winter Verlag.
• Waldispühl, M. & Wallis, C. 2023. Personal names in medieval libri vitæ as a sociolinguistic resource. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 9(1), 129-161.
• Megyesi, M., Sikora, J., Fornmark, F., Waldispühl, M., Kopal, N. & Mikhalev,V. 2023. Historical language models in cryptanalysis: Case studies on English and German. In C. Dahlke & A. Wacker (eds.). Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2023, 120–129. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
• Mikhalev, V., Esslinger, B., Kopal, N., Waldispühl, M., Láng, B. & Megyesi, B. 2023. What is the code for the code? Historical cryptology terminology. In C. Dahlke & A. Wacker (eds.). Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2023, 130–138. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
• Megyesi, B., Tudor, C., de Leeuw, K., Kopal, N., Láng, B., Lehofer, A. & Waldispühl, M. 2022. Keys with nomenclatures in Early Modern Europe. Cryptologia.
• Megyesi, B., Tudor, C., Kopal, N., Láng, B., Lehofer, A. & Waldispühl, M. 2022. What was encoded in historical cipher keys in the Early Modern Era? In C. Dahlke, & B. Megyesi (eds.). Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2022, 159–167. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
• Souibgui, M., Bensalah, A., Chen, Jialuo, Fornés, A. & Waldispühl, M. 2022. A user perspective on HTR methods for the automatic transcription of rare scripts. The case of Codex Runicus. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 15(4), 1–18.
• Kopal, N. & Waldispühl, M. 2022. Deciphering three diplomatic letters sent by Maximilian II in 1575. Cryptologia 46(2), 103–127.
• NordiCon. Database of medieval Nordic personal names in Continental sources. Released November 2022. Developed by Michelle Waldispühl, Dana Dannélls, Jonatan Uppström and Lars Borin. Karp 5. Språkbanken Text (SWE-CLARIN). 
• Kopal, N. & Waldispühl, M. 2021. Two encrypted diplomatic letters sent by Jan Chodkiewicz to Emperor Maximilian II in 1574-1575. In C. Dahlke (ed.). Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2021, 80–89. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
• Waldispühl, M., Dannélls D. & Borin L. 2020. Material philology meets digital onomastic lexicography: The NordiCon database of medieval Nordic personal names in Continental sources. In Proceedings of the 12th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 860–867. Marseille: European Language Resources Association.
• Megyesi, B., Esslinger, B., Fornés, A., Kopal, N., Láng, B., Lasry, G., de Leeuw, K., Pettersson, E., Wacker, A. & Waldispühl, M. 2020. Decryption of historical manuscripts: The DECRYPT Project. Cryptologia 44(6), 545–559. 
• Waldispühl, M. 2020. Roman and runic in the Anglo-Saxon inscriptions at Monte Sant’Angelo: A sociolinguistic approach. Futhark. International Journal of Runic Studies 9–10, 135–158.
• Waldispühl, M. 2020. Historische Rufnamen im Kontakt. Integration der altisländischen Pilgernamen auf der Reichenau in die mittelhochdeutsche Schreibsprache. In L. Kempf, D. Nübling & M. Schmuck (eds.). Linguistik der Eigennamen. (Linguistik – Impulse & Tendenzen 88), 21–42. Berlin/München/Boston: de Gruyter.
• Löfdahl, M., Waldispühl, M. & Wenner, L. (eds.). 2020. Names in Writing. Namn i skrift. Göteborg: Meijerbergs institut.
• Waldispühl, M. 2020. Review of Epigraphy in an Intermedial Context. Eds. Alessia Bauer, Elise Kleivane, and Terje Spurkland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018. 216 pp. ISBN 978-1-84682-716-7. Futhark. International Journal of Runic Studies 9–10, 275–286.
• Waldispühl, M. 2019. Die Liste als Ordnungsmedium in mittelalterlichen Libri vitae. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 49(2), 197–218.
• Waldispühl, M. 2019. Alemannische Wortbildung zwischen Sprech- und Schreibsprache. Richtungsadverbien in Konrad Klausers ‘Sylvula formularum quotidiani sermonis’ (1562). In A. Nievergelt & L. Rübekeil (eds.). ‚athe in palice, athe in anderu sumeuuelicheru stedi‘. Raum und Sprache, 279–296. Heidelberg: Winter. 
• Waldispühl, M. 2018. ‚Nordgermanisch’ oder ‚deutsch’? Überlegungen zur sprachlichen Bestimmung von Namen im Reichenauer Verbrüderungsbuch vor dem Hintergrund von Sprachkontakt und Mehrsprachigkeit. In C. Hoffarth & B. Scheller (eds.), Ambiguität und die Ordnungen des Sozialen im Mittelalter. (Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte), 129–150. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.
• Waldispühl, M. 2017. Flerspråkiga pilgrimer? En kontaktonomastisk pilotstudie av de nordiska namnen från Reichenau. In T. Schmidt & I. Særheim (eds.), Namn som kjelder. (NORNA-rapporter 92), 261–276.
• Waldispühl, M. 2016. Schrift im Gespräch. Medientheoretische Überlegungen zur historischen Schriftinterpretation. In P. Cotticelli-Kurras & A. Rizza (eds.), Variation within and among writing systems. Concepts and methods in the analysis of ancient written documents, 333–352. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
• Waldispühl, M. 2015. Sprachförderung von Lehramtsstudierenden mit Deutsch als Zweitsprache – Fallbeispiel Pädagogische Hochschule Zug, Schweiz. In B. Xhaferri, M. Waldispühl, B. Eriksson-Hotz & G. Xhaferri (eds.), Promoting Learner Autonomy in Higher Education, 263–281. Tetovo: SEEU.
• Waldispühl, M., Xhaferri, B. & Xhaferri, G. 2015. Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about Learner Autonomy at SEEU Tetovo, Macedonia and PH Zug, Switzerland: A comparative study. In B. Xhaferri, M. Waldispühl, B. Eriksson-Hotz & G. Xhaferri (eds.), Promoting Learner Autonomy in Higher Education, 9–38. Tetovo: SEEU.
• Xhaferri, B., Waldispühl, M., Eriksson-Hotz, B. & Xhaferri, G. (eds.). 2015. Promoting Learner Autonomy in Higher Education. Tetovo: SEEU.
• Waldispühl, M. 2014. Runes in Action – Two South Germanic inscriptions and the notion of a “literate” epigraphic culture. Futhark. International Journal of Runic Studies, 5, 65–90.
• Friedli, M. & Waldispühl, M. 2014. Dialektologie als Unterrichtsgegenstand auf Sekundarstufe II. In Deutschblätter 2014. Verein Schweizerischer Deutschlehrerinnen und Deutschlehrer, 21–33.
• Waldispühl, M. 2013. Schreibpraktiken und Schriftwissen in südgermanischen Runeninschriften. Zur Funktionalität epigraphischer Schriftverwendung. Zürich: Chronos.
• Graf, M. & Waldispühl, M. 2013. Neues zu den Runeninschriften von Eichstetten, Neudingen-Baar II, Schwangau und Steindorf. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 70, 41–63.
• Juska-Bacher, B., Ritzau, U., Scherer, J. & Waldispühl, M. (eds.). 2013. Methoden der Linguistik im Fokus: Eine Auswahl projektbasierter Beispiele. Spotlight on Methods in Linguistics: A Collection of Project-Based Examples. Linguistik online 61, 4/2013.
• Glaser, E., Seiler, A. & Waldispühl, M. (eds.). 2011. LautSchriftSprache. Beiträge zur vergleichenden historischen Graphematik. Chronos: Zürich.
• Waldispühl, M. 2011. Methodische Überlegungen zur Rekonstruktion der Schriftverwendung bei den südgermanischen Runeninschriften. In E. Glaser, A. Seiler & M. Waldispühl (eds.), LautSchriftSprache. Beiträge zur vergleichenden historischen Graphematik, 31–46. Zürich: Chronos.
• Büchel, E., Gloor, U., Waldispühl, M. et al. 2010. Sprachland. Sprachlehrmittel für die Mittelstufe. Zürich: Lehrmittelverlag des Kantons Zürich.

Popular science publications

• Waldispühl, M. 2026. New Country, New Name? Migrants Navigate Tradeoffs. Migration Information Source, 30. September 2026.
• Kopal, N. & Waldispühl, M. 2022. Kryptische Propaganda. c’t Magazin für Computertechnik 4/2022, 130–137.
• Waldispühl, M. 2019. Att stava ord – förr och nu. In J. Nilsson, S. Nylund Skog & F. Slott (eds.). Sånt vi bara gör, 135–137. Stockholm: Carlssons.
• Morgan-Grap, C., Schöller, B., Waldispühl, M. 2013. Stadtwandelung. Web-Application (Audio tour). NCCR Mediality, Section Public Relations, University of Zurich. www.stadtwandelung.ch.
• Waldispühl, M. 2011. Namen in Runen. In C. Kiening & B. Naumann. Lieblingsstücke. Germanistik in Zürich. 125 Jahre Deutsches Seminar, 212–213. Zürich: vdf Hochschulverlag.
• Waldispühl, M. 2008. Lexikalische Texterschliessung. In Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Nationalen Forschungsschwerpunkt “Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen. Historische Perspektiven” und dem Stiftsarchiv St. Gallen. Geheimnisse auf Pergament: Katalog zur Jahresausstellung in der Stiftsbibliothek St.Gallen (3. Dezember 2007 – 9. November 2008), 48–49.
• Waldispühl, M. 2008. Randbemerkungen zu Priscian. In: Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Nationalen Forschungsschwerpunkt “Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen. Historische Perspektiven” und dem Stiftsarchiv St. Gallen. Geheimnisse auf Pergament: Katalog zur Jahresausstellung in der Stiftsbibliothek St.Gallen (3. Dezember 2007 – 9. November 2008), 51–53.
• Waldispühl, M. 2008. Isruna-Traktat. In: Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Nationalen Forschungsschwerpunkt “Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen. Historische Perspektiven” und dem Stiftsarchiv St. Gallen. Geheimnisse auf Pergament: Katalog zur Jahresausstellung in der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen (3. Dezember 2007 – 9. November 2008), 56–59.

• Strelluf, Christopher & Waldispühl, Michelle (2026). Publicly engaged historical sociolinguistics and present-day conflicts: introduction to the special issue. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. ISSN 0165-2516. 2026(301), s. 1–13. doi: 10.1515/ijsl-2025-0154. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Waldispühl, Michelle (2026). Personal names in cross-cultural settings. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. ISSN 0165-2516. doi: 10.1515/ijsl-2025-0156. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Names are linguistic units that not only individualise and identify people but also function as social markers, are embedded in cultural and political discourses, and underlie national laws. These social aspects of names and naming systems can cause conflicts in multilingual and multicultural contexts. Names are everywhere and at the centre of our daily social interaction, yet are understudied in sociolinguistic research. Focusing on Western, Central and Eastern European contexts, this article presents an exploratory, theory-driven historical-sociolinguistic study of personal names in cross-cultural settings. It draws on case studies as presented in secondary sources about examples including highly mobile multilingual individuals, name choices by emigrants and multilingual minorities, forced name changes of minority groups under nationalising regimes and institutional conflicts over the spelling of foreign names. Analytically, the study includes a multi-level approach including the public and the private sphere and synthesises the examples in theoretical concepts – individual parallel names, interlingual allonymy, identity and indexicality, and translanguaging – to link historical and contemporary cases and to explain how language ideologies and processes of language standardisation and nation-building underpin current onomastic conflicts. The article argues that a historical, theory-driven perspective is crucial for understanding present-day onomastic conflicts.

• Megyesi, Beáta; Rattenborg, Rune; Láng, Benedek; Waldispühl, Michelle & Héder, Mihály (2026). Building a Corpus and Database for Rare and Undeciphered Scripts. I Passarotti, Marco & Sprugnoli, Rachele (Red.), Fourth Workshop on Language Technologies for Historical and Ancient Languages (LT4HALA 2026) @ LREC 2026. European Language Resources Association. ISSN 9782493814586. s. 184–196. doi: http:/lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2026/workshops/lt4hala/2026.lt4hala-1.0.pdf. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Historical sources written in rare or undeciphered scripts represent an immense but underexploited part of the world’s cultural and linguistic heritage. Their study is often hindered by fragmentary preservation, non-standard symbol systems, and the absence of interoperable digital resources. While recent advances in imaging, transcription, and computational analysis have improved access to historical texts, most tools rely on large quantities of labeled data and standardized encodings, requirements that are rarely met for rare or unknown writing systems. This paper presents the design and methodology of a new corpus and database dedicated to rare and undeciphered scripts worldwide. The resource integrates high-quality images, transliterations, transcriptions, linguistic annotations, and metadata within a unified data model tailored for low-resource and non-standard scripts. By adhering to FAIR principles and existing standards for linguistic and cultural heritage data, the database enables reproducible, interdisciplinary research across philology, linguistics, cryptology, and computer science. The paper outlines the data collection and digitization workflow, describes the metadata and database architecture, and demonstrates applications in analysis and decipherment.

• Waldispühl, Michelle & Megyesi, Beáta (2026). Language Choice in Eighteenth-Century Diplomatic Ciphers from Europe*. I Kazakov, Gleb & Rjéoutski, Vladislav (Red.), Languages of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World. Routledge. ISSN 9781003698753. s. 204–228. doi: 10.4324/9781003698753-12. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper investigates the language choices made in 766 entirely or partly encrypted manuscripts—ciphertexts and keys—used in diplomatic correspondence in the eighteenth century. The encrypted sources originate from archives in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Saxony, and the Vatican. The comparison of language choices reveals the prominence of French in the documents from all the regions except the Vatican. However, the local languages, such as German in Saxony, Dutch in the Netherlands, and Hungarian in Hungary, were used more frequently than French in these regions. As case studies show, the choice for a non-local language, often French, depended mainly on an external addressee. In the few multilingual documents present in our dataset, the languages used have different functions.

• Megyesi, Beáta; Fornés, Alicia; Héder, Mihály; Heil, Raphaela; Láng, Benedek & Kopal, Nils [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). Decipherment of Historical Manuscripts with Unknown or Rare Writings: The DESCRYPT Project. NEALT Proceedings Series. ISSN 1736-8197. doi: https:/hdl.handle.net/10062/109750. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We present a newly funded research program, DESCRYPT, aimed at deciphering and analyzing historical texts with rare or unknown scripts. The project leverages advancements in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence (AI), and image processing, alongside traditional philological methods, to develop innovative tools for transcription, recognition, and interpretation of historical writings with rare/unknown scripts, including ciphertexts. By integrating interdisciplinary expertise, DESCRYPT addresses the challenges posed by complex and undeciphered texts, preserving and unlocking the secrets of our shared cultural heritage.

• Waldispühl, Michelle (2025). Schriftentlehnung. Wörterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (WSK) Online. ISSN 2752-0994. doi: https:/www.degruyterbrill.com/database/wsk/entry/wsk_id_wsk_artikel_artikel_16402/html. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Waldispühl, Michelle (2025). Navigating personal names in multicultural contexts: Discussion. Onomastica Uralica. ISSN 1586-3719. 17, s. 119–124. doi: https:/mnytud.arts.unideb.hu/onomural/kotetek/ou17a.html. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper examines the interplay between personal names and multicultural contexts, reflecting on discussions held during the workshop “Personal Names in Multilingual Contexts” held at the 28th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS) in 2024 in Helsinki. It highlights the challenges associated with naming practices among immigrant communities, specifically addressing how legal, social, and administrative frameworks affect these practices. Key themes include the conflict arising from differing conventions for given names and surnames across cultures, as well as the technical challenges of transliteration and the representation of diacritics in official records. Adopting a panoramic view of the papers and the workshop's concluding discussion, the paper synthesizes insights regarding the importance of names as markers of identity and cultural affiliation. It emphasizes the necessity for inclusive policies that accommodate diverse naming practices, advocating for a collaborative approach integrating technical solutions with cultural awareness to foster a supportive environment for immigrants and efficient administrative processes. Future research directions are also suggested, particularly regarding the historical contexts of naming practices and the need for global perspectives that encompass broader linguistic and cultural paradigms.

• Waldispühl, Michelle (2025). Verschlüsselte Briefe im Schwedischen Reich: Mehrsprachigkeit und Geheimschrift während des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs. I Michael, Prinz; Nicolaus, Raag & Dessislava, Stoeva-Holm, (Red.), Praktiken der Mehrsprachigkeit im Schwedischen Reich (1611–1721) Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf die Rolle des Deutschen. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISSN 9783447122528. s. 85–112. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Dieser Beitrag präsentiert mehrsprachige Praktiken in den geheimschriftlichen Briefen, die Johan Adler Salvius während der Jahre 1632–1635 an Axel Oxenstierna sandte. Die Brieftexte sind nicht nur eine Mischung von Klar- und Geheimtext, sondern weisen zahlreiche Codeswitches zwischen Schwedisch, Latein, Deutsch und Französisch auf. Die Studie gibt eine Übersicht über die quantitativen Anteile der jeweiligen Sprachen in Klar- und Geheimtext und geht exemplarisch auf die Funktionen des Codeswitchings ein. Bei den geheimschriftlichen Passagen zeigt sich ein besonders interessantes Zusammenspiel zwischen den unterschiedlichen semiotischen Ressourcen. Die Sprachwahl folgt hier teils den Prinzipien des Codeswitchings im Klartext, teils nehmen die Texte jedoch kreative Formen an, in denen in einer Passage Ausdrucksweisen verschiedener Sprachen, unterschiedliche Verschlüsselungspraktiken und Klartext zur Anwendung kommen. Diese Praktiken werden als Ausdruck mehrsprachiger Personen gedeutet, die ihre Mehrsprachigkeit im Umgang mit Verschlüsselungsverfahren nicht nur gezielt und strategisch, sondern auch spielerisch einsetzten.

• Waldispühl, Michelle (2025). Geheimschrift. Wörterbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (WSK) Online. ISSN 2752-0994. doi: https:/www.degruyterbrill.com/database/wsk/entry/wsk_id_wsk_artikel_artikel_16648/html. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Megyesi, Beáta; Fornés, Alicia; Nils, Kopal; Benedek, Láng; Waldispühl, Michelle & Mikhalev, Vasily [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). Historical Cryptology. I Esslinger, Bernhard (Red.), Learning and Experiencing Cryptography with CrypTool and SageMath. Artech House. ISSN 9781685690175. s. 97–138. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Historical cryptology studies (original) encrypted manuscripts, often handwritten sources, produced in our history. These historical sources can be found in archives, often hidden without any indexing and therefore hard to locate. Once found they need to be digitized and turned into a machine-readable text format before they can be deciphered with computational methods. The focus of historical cryptology is not primarily the development of sophisticated algorithms for decipherment, but rather the entire process of analysis of the encrypted source from collection and digitization to transcription and decryption. The process also includes the interpre- tation and contextualization of the message set in its historical context. There are many challenges on the way, such as mistakes made by the scribe, errors made by the transcriber, damaged pages, handwriting styles that are difficult to interpret, historical languages from various time periods, and hidden underlying language of the message. Ciphertexts vary greatly in terms of their code system and symbol sets used with more or less distinguishable symbols. Ciphertexts can be embedded in clearly written text, or shorter or longer sequences of cleartext can be embedded in the ciphertext. The ciphers used mostly in historical times are substitutions (simple, homophonic, or polyphonic), with or without nomenclatures, encoded as digits or symbol sequences, with or without spaces. So the circumstances are different from those in modern cryptography which focuses on methods (algorithms) and their strengths and assumes that the algo- rithm is applied correctly. For both historical and modern cryptology, attack vectors outside the algorithm are applied like implementation flaws and side-channel attacks. In this chapter, we give an introduction to the field of historical cryptology and present an overview of how researchers today process historical encrypted sources.

• Waldispühl, Michelle & Kopal, Nils (2024). Decipherment of a German encrypted letter sent from Sigismund Heusner von Wandersleben to Axel Oxenstierna in 1637. I Waldispühl, Michelle & Megyesi, Beáta (Red.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024. D-Space at Tartu University Library. ISSN 9789916833841. s. 249–253. doi: 10.58009/aere-perennius0116. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We present our work on an encrypted letter from the Thirty Years’ War written by the ally of the Swedish Empire, Sigismund Heusner von Wandersleben in 1637 and sent from Kassel to the Swedish High Lord Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. We describe our analysis of the ciphertext including information on the cipher type, the process of cryptanalysis and challenges for the decipherment. We include the edition of the letter in the current state of decipherment and summarize its content.

• Fornés, Alicia; chen, jialuo; Torras, Pau; Megyesi, Beáta; Waldispühl, Michelle & Kopal, Nils [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). ICDAR 2024 Competition on Handwriting Recognition of Historical Ciphers. I Smith, Elisa H. Barney; Liwicki, Marcus & Peng, Liangrui (Red.), Document Analysis and Recognition - ICDAR 2024. Springer. ISSN 9783031705526. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-70552-6_20. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Megyesi, Beáta; Láng, Benedek; Kopal, Nils; Mikhalev, Vasily; Tudor, Crina & Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). A Typology for Cipher Key Instructions in Early Modern Times. I Waldispühl, Michelle & Megyesi, Beáta (Red.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024. D-Space at Tartu University Library. ISSN 9789916833841. s. 183–193. doi: 10.58009/aere-perennius0107. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We present an empirical study on instructions found in historical cipher keys dating back to early modern times in Europe. The study reveals that instructions in historical cipher keys are prevalent, covering a wide range of themes related to the practical application of ciphers. These include general information about the structure or usage of the cipher key, as well as specific instructions on their application. Being a hitherto neglected genre, these texts provide insight into the practice of cryptographic operations.

• Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). Personal names and migration: An overview. Nordisk tidskrift för socioonomastik (NoSo). ISSN 2004-0296. doi: 10.59589/noso.42024.17635. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper seeks to offer a broad examination of themes related to personal names within the context of migration. It gives a survey of how language contact effects the name form and reviews various socio-onomastic perspectives, including name choice and multilingual identity, name changes and social belonging, names in multilingual interaction, as well as legal considerations surrounding foreign names in contemporary societies. For a thorough perspective, this overview includes research pertaining to both present-day and historical situations.

• Solling, Daniel & Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). Inledning till temanumret: Personnamn och flerspråkighet i historisk kontext. Nordisk tidskrift för socioonomastik (NoSo). ISSN 2004-0296. doi: 10.59589/noso.42024.30934. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Láng, Benedek; Megyesi, Beáta; Kopal, Nils; Mikhalev, Vasily; Tudor, Crina & Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). Cipher key instructions in early modern Europe: analysis and text edition. Cryptologia. ISSN 0161-1194. doi: 10.1080/01611194.2024.2396800. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We present an overview of instructions for the use of European historical cipher keys in early modern times. We describe the structure of instructions and the content presented to the key users. We exemplify various key instruction types and give a text edition of typical examples in various languages. The study is based on the analysis of more than 1,600 cipher keys collected from archives and libraries in ten European countries. We examine the practical implementation of cipher keys to the extent that instructions offer insights into everyday cryptographic practices. We focus on the typical rules scribes were expected to adhere to and the common errors they were instructed to avoid. We aim to reconstruct the apprehensions and considerations of the authors of cipher keys: They sought to offer assistance to users while likely harboring concerns regarding the potential misuse of their intellectual product. Given the secretive nature of cryptology, the documentation of knowledge transfer is scarce. In addition to the detailed manuals authored by well-known cryptologists, anonymous cipher key instructions offer valuable insights into this knowledge transfer process. By studying these instructions, historians gain direct access to a realm of knowledge that would otherwise remain hidden from their view.

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• Waldispühl, Michelle & Megyesi, Beáta (2024). Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2024. D-Space at Tartu University Library. ISBN 9789916833841. 258 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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• Waldispühl, Michelle (2026). Writing Runes – How and why? Sociolinguistic Approaches to South Germanic Runic. doi: https:/www.collane.unito.it/oa/items/show/291#c=0&s=0&m=0&cv=0. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Strelluf, Christopher & Waldispühl, Michelle (2026). International Journal of the Sociology of Language Volume 2026, Issue 301 - Special Issue: Publicly engaged historical sociolinguistics and present-day conflicts; Issue Editors: Christopher Strelluf and Michelle Waldispühl. doi: https:/www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/ijsl/2026/301/html. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Volume 2026, issue 301 of the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language was published in 2026.

• Waldispühl, Michelle (2026). New Country, New Name? Migrants Navigate Tradeoffs. doi: https:/www.migrationpolicy.org/journal/feature/migrants-name-changes. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Migrants’ choices about whether to change their name reflect competing pressures to fit in with the new society and maintain ties to identity, family, and cultural heritage. Some people may alter or shorten their names, use different characters, or adopt parallel names to accommodate social customs, language standards, and official systems in their new homes. Foreign-sounding names have been found to trigger discrimination by employers and others. Many individuals nonetheless retain their names to uphold links to their homeland or history, or will use different names at home and in public to navigate multiple cultural settings.

• Platou, Jeannette; Bendiksen, Kristian & Waldispühl, Michelle (2025). Team Europa: Sveits. [Radio]. NRK. doi: https:/radio-beta.nrk.no/serie/studio-2-p2/MKAK02023625. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Waldispühl, Michelle & Einar, Lie Slangvold (2024). Hva slags land er Sveits? [Radio]. https://radio.nrk.no/serie/studio-2-p2/sesong/202408/MKAK020. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Einar, Lie Slangsvold; Einar, Lie Slangsvold & Waldispühl, Michelle (2024). Det mangfoldige Sveits. [Radio]. https://radio.nrk.no/serie/studio-2-p2/sesong/202408/MKAK020. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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