Die historische Betrachtung der romanischen Sprachen. Zur Zukunft der Sprachgeschichte in der universitären Lehre

Abstract

Once at the core of Romance philology, the teaching of Historical Romance Linguistics has all but vanished from university curricula Even though language change is constitutive for any natural language, most bachelor degree programs focus on synchronic studies these days Nevertheless, instead of arguing for the reintroduction of compulsory Old French or Old Spanish courses, this paper promotes another vision of Historical Linguistics in academic education In line with Christmann (1975) and Böckle / Lebsanft (1989), it will be shown that it is possible to include a solid introduction to Historical Linguistics in today's curricula and, at the same time, adapt it both to modern teaching conditions and the needs of bachelor degree students by taking the contemporary Romance languages as a starting point and applying a diachronic perspective on their features In this context, the recently published History of Spanish by Ranson / Lubbers Quesada (2018) will be presented as an example of a textbook that represents this approach in a nearly perfect manner.