This one-day workshop, held at Balliol College, Oxford, brings together international scholars from a range of disciplines to explore how and why languages were taught, learned, and sustained across the diverse and shifting socio-cultural landscapes of the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean. By weaving together these perspectives, the workshop seeks to uncover patterns and connections that are often overlooked when studied within the confines of a single field.

Integrating history with historical sociolinguistics, the project aims to identify shared trends, comparable elements, and distinctive features in language learning and transmission. This approach offers a renewed perspective on the interconnected Mediterranean world—a region where multilingualism, mobility, and intercultural exchange were central to daily life. The impact of these dynamics on language teaching, preservation, and use has often been underestimated.

The workshop offers a comparative examination of the strategies employed by polities and communities, élites and subaltern groups alike. It investigates the relationship between literacy and spoken language, the emergence of new teaching methods, and their long-term influence on writing practices, diplomacy, translation, and the role of lingua franca. Particular attention is given to less-visible actors—students, scribes, teachers, and migrants—whose linguistic practices shaped cultural and social life, even when their voices are largely absent from the historical record.

Rather than simply comparing different regions, the workshop seeks to rethink how language functioned as a social and cultural force in a deeply interconnected Mediterranean. It highlights how linguistic creativity crossed boundaries and contributed to the formation of shared and shifting identities.

The event will include dedicated time for discussion and reflection, offering participants the opportunity to engage in a broader conversation about language, identity, and cultural transmission. At its core, the project reimagines the medieval and early modern Mediterranean not merely as a space of commerce and conflict, but as a vibrant arena of teaching, learning, and multilingual exchange.