Trading Tongues: Merchants, Multilingualism, and Medieval Literature

Professor of English Jonathan Hsy offers a fresh approach to the multilingualism of early English authors like Geoffrey Chaucer, and others like French lyricist Charles d’Orléans. Hsy illustrates how languages commingled in late medieval and early modern cities by juxtaposing literary works with Latin and French civic records, mixed-language merchant miscellanies, and bilingual phrasebooks.