Traders of goods, traders of languages: a historical sociolinguistic investigation of Bolzano archives

Abstract

This work presents a first enquiry of the correspondence of merchants in Bolzano by focusing on one of the wealthiest families in the history of this town: the Menzes. Their commercial, official, and private letters are preserved in different archives in Bolzano and will help to reconstruct the linguistic repertoire of high-status merchants from South Tyrol in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. The data show that the three languages most often used (Italian, German, French) have different sociolinguistic statuses. Italian is restricted to commercial correspondence, French appears to be the most prestigious language, and German constitutes the dominant language in all aspects of society and is found in both private and commercial letters. Furthermore, a possible model for the linguistic repertoire is proposed for the middle-high class of traders at the end of the 18 th century.

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