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In:Dutch and Contact Linguistics: The Dutch language outside the Low Countries
Edited by Christopher Joby and Nicoline van der Sijs
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 55] 2025
► pp. 197–226

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Chapter 6
Multilingual practices in the Dutch language exile community in early modern Norwich

ORCiD logo with link | University of East Anglia
Published online: 4 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.55.06job
Abstract
In the sixteenth century, many people from the Low Countries whose first language was Dutch or French were forced to escape to Norwich in eastern England. The city therefore had three vernacular language communities. Latin was also used, so Norwich was a quadrilingual city. Because of language contact, multilingual practices emerged. This chapter analyses the practices involving Dutch and other languages. After analysing individual multilingualism, I examine whether translanguaging can offer any insights into these multilingual practices. I do so first by analysing four practices that arose in this multilingual environment, and then the practices of two multilingual members of the Dutch exile community. Here, I focus on a distinctive feature of translanguaging: the attention it pays to individual agency and identity formation in language use.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical background
  • 3.Multilingualism
  • 4.Translanguaging practices
    • 4.1Textile trade terms
    • 4.2Proper names
    • 4.3Code switching between Dutch and other languages in administrative documents
    • 4.4Toponyms
  • 5.Individual case studies of translanguaging:
    Pieter Weynoet and John Cruso
    • 5.1Pieter Weynoet
    • 5.2John Cruso
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
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