This volume explores the ways in which historical linguistics and language change interact with ideology. The chapters present twelve in-depth case studies that cover topics ranging from the location of the Indo-European homeland to language policy in the former Yugoslavia.

Camiel Hamans is Associate Secretary-General of the Comité International Permanent des Linguistes (CIPL), having previously held positions at the universities of Amsterdam, Leiden, and Poznan, where he taught Dutch modern and historical linguistics. He is a Fellow of the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Leiden) and of the Wiardi Beckman Stichting, the thinktank of the Dutch Labour Party.
Hans Henrich Hock is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Illinois. His research interests are in Indo-European and general comparative-historical linguistics with a focus on Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan and language contact. He is a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America and an Honorary Life Member of the Societas Linguistica Europaea.

• 1: Camiel Hamans and Hans Henrich Hock: Introduction


• 2: Johanna Laakso: Misunderstanding historical linguistics: Three Uralic examples


• 3: Kristján Árnason: Ideologies and linguistic development in North Germanic


• 4: Hans Henrich Hock: Ideology and recent attacks on historical-comparative methodology: Historical linguistics under siege?


• 5: Hans Henrich Hock: Indo-European linguistic palaeontology and ideology: Nice wheels!


• 6: Brian D. Joseph: Historical linguistics and the Macedonia name issue: What's in a name?


• 7: Anders Ahlqvist: Celtic and English language contact and scholarly attitudes


• 8: Johanna Laakso: Borrowing and historical-linguistic ideology


• 9: Camiel Hamans: The origin of Afrikaans: Purism or language contact?


• 10: John Charles Smith: Moldovan and Maltese and the poverty of historicism in Romance linguistics


• 11: Ranko Bugarski: The breakup of the national language of the former Yugoslavia: Speeding up language change


• 12: Camiel Hamans: The European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages: Turning the tide against linguistic nationalism


• 13: Ferdinand von Mengden and Britta Schneider: Methodological nationalism and (anti-)historicism in the history of linguistics: Linguistic essentialism