A9-13

The newly established ICLA Research Committee on Language Contact in Literature: Europe (LCLE) intends to revisit translation, literary multilingualism and related fields as sites of linguistic contact and change within the literary realm. We thus reconsider literature with a focus on the multiple ways in which languages interact and influence each other when they come into contact, both at the level of individual speakers and that of linguistic communities. A number of scholars have proposed to apply a contact linguistics paradigm to translation (Kotze 2020; Malamatidou 2016); this Committee’s goal is to reinvent this approach for the global literary context (e.g. Hassan 2022). As many contemporary scholars of comparative literature (e.g. Yildiz 2012, Gramling 2016) recognize, the traditional focus on national literatures is insufficient to capture the global dimensions of the literary process. We therefore propose language contact in literature as a unified framework that can encompass and facilitate dialogue across several fields: the study of literary translation, multilingual and translingual literature, minor and borderland literature, influence across language boundaries, postcolonial literature, international literary movements and potentially others. Our aim is to identify and distinguish the diverse elements that contribute to literary language contact in its various guises, including linguistic and sociological factors, techniques and processes, as well as aesthetic and stylistic considerations. At the same time, we aspire to understand how different settings of language contact relate to one another, how they interact and what distinguishes them. To achieve these purposes, linguistics offers valuable theoretical support.

We invite original research papers that address the following areas and topics:

- The notion of language contact and how it can be productively applied to literature

- The array of elements/factors involved in a language contact in literature framework and their modulations

- The stylistics of language contact

- Manifest and latent multilingualism as an expression of language contact

- Translation as language contact

- What linguistic theories and approaches can contribute additional perspectives and nuance to the study of literary language contact

- The role of the author’s linguistic background and of the reader

- Potential challenges and limitations, notably in terms of particular language pairs, integrating and reconciling existing terminologies and extending the approach beyond the European context

- Specific case studies on literary translation, multilingual and translingual literature, minor and borderland literature, influence across language boundaries, postcolonial literature or international literary movements

- Additional areas in literary study where a language contact framework may apply

Any questions should be addressed to Eugenia Kelbert (eugenia.kelbert@savba.sk) and Marianna Deganutti (marianna.deganutti@savba.sk).

The paper presents the case study of a literary production in a minority language that exists in a borderline between two important literatures in Europe: Italian and Greek. The language called by its native speakers Griko, is a mixture of the medieval Greek and southern Italian dialects. It is almost not used in everyday life anymore and can be defined as a ‘performative post-linguistic vernacular’ (Pellegrino 2016). After its existence in an exclusively oral form after the fall of Constantinople, several attempts by local activists to promote literary creativity in this language have been made from the second half of the 19th century onwards. The paper analyses the main strategies adopted by the authors, such as translations from Latin, Italian, Ancient and Modern Greek; borrowings from the local folklore and its elaborations; bilingual works; novels written in Italian but including specific words and phrases in Griko; musical and theatrical performances facilitating the understanding for the audience not familiar with the language. It also takes into consideration the activities of the local authorities who organized poetry festivals and competitions to stimulate the literary creativity of residents who speak the language. The study identifies the folklore genres that are productive for local writers. Thus, funeral laments occupy a special place in the local heritage, often compared with the Ancient Greek texts (Romano 1979; Montinaro 2004), and are considered an important cultural identity marker of the Greek-speaking villages (Figlieri 2023: 302-304). Other productive genres are children's entertainment poetry (nursery rhymes and lullabies), epideictic speech, and prayer. The religious texts attracted the attention of numerous authors who tended to restore, at least to some extent, the liturgical and ritual function of the Greek idiom that lost it with the local population’s conversion to Catholicism in the 16 century (Aprile 1994: 61-72). The corpus of the religious texts in Griko includes translations from Latin and individual creative works elaborating different examples from the canonical writings. One more aspect of the process of a literary creation in the minority language is the translation of canonical texts from the ‘big’ literatures (Haller 1999). Here, the choice of the works to translate is as interesting as the stylistic features of the translation dictated by the limitations of the language in which the authors write. To study all these aspects of the borderline literary tradition, it is necessary to pay respect to the multilingualism of the authors and the readers, their linguistic competencies, the limitations of the language, and the influence of the neighbouring literatures and cultures, so the language contact framework seems to be fruitful for such analysis.

Roberto Bazlen is a pivotal figure in Italian publishing and cultural history. Hailing from Trieste, he belonged to a generation of plurinational and multilingual literates who found intellectual freedom in the spaces between rigid national labels such as “Italian” or “Austrian.” Bazlen’s intellectual identity was shaped by the experience of the border, allowing him to bridge cultures during an era marked by wars and mass displacement. His cultural mediation played a crucial role in founding the publishing house Adelphi and in the enduring dissemination of Central and East-Central European literature in Italy. The multilingualism of Central European authors in the Adelphi canon, such as Elias Canetti, Johannes Urzidil, the Singer brothers, and Joseph Roth, became emblematic of the intellectual tradition of “Mitteleuropa” as popularised in Italy, serving as a key example of cross-cultural influence.

This paper explores the multilingualism of Adelphi’s “Mitteleuropa” catalogue, starting with its founder, Bazlen—“the writer who does not write”—and his role as a mediating polyglot reader. It examines the resemanticisation of the term “Mitteleuropa” in Italy and considers in which way the linguistic background of this combined author-reader figure informs an editorial approach rooted in a style shaped by the border. This style, grounded in the singularity of writing-producing human experience, underpins a literary conception which aims to an inner transformation of the reader—the “singular book” (it. “libro unico”).

I argue that Bazlen’s conception arises from a stylistics of language contact, shifting focus away from national, classical, and pedagogical canons toward what Deleuze and Guattari describe as “minor literature,” emerging from linguistic and cultural margins. While the myth of national irrelevance or equivalence in Austria-Hungarian literature has been critically deconstructed by generations of scholars, this paper underscores the contemporary importance of fostering multilingual authorship and readership that transcends the notion of literature rooted in a homogeneous linguistic framework. Such an approach cultivates an appreciation of language contact as a productive force in literature, offering valuable insights for overcoming cultural provincialism through book selection and publishing, and resisting reductive tendencies such as fandom. Ultimately, this vision of literature prioritises diversity, transformation, intellectual exploration, and the creative act of mediation.

In my presentation I will focus on specific literary phenomena, which are saturated by manifest and latent multilingualism. Hungarian transborder literature and émigré literature have come to form two distinct categories in the literary historical discourse, and they are a result of two distinct forms of mobility. Transborder Hungarian literature came to denote works produced in the Hungarian language within the territories of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Serbia (the former Czechoslovakia, USSR, and Yugoslavia respectively), where significant Hungarian minority populations exist as a result of the post-WWI redrawing of the region’s borders. This conceptual categorization could be seen as an example of what Brubaker calls “the movement of borders over people” (2015, 136). Émigré literature, or as it is often referred to locally, the Hungarian literature of the West – as “the movement of people over borders” (Brubaker ibid.) – has been produced by authors who left Hungary in 1946-48 during the consolidation of state-socialist rule and the aftermath of the 1956 revolution.

Firstly, I will concentrate on these two literary phenomena from the institutional categorization perspective: how the inherent linguistic otherness, i.e. the coexistence of these literatures with other, surrounding languages dislocates both the traditional descriptive categories with which Hungarian literary history operates, and the viability of a literary canon based on the borders of the nation state.

Secondly, through analyzing István Domonkos’s Rudderless (1971) poem and Andrea Tompa’s The Hangman’s House (2010I) novel, I elaborate a nomadic poetics that challenges the normative frames of grammar, syntax, genre, and medium by creating diverse multilingual language contacts.

This paper examines two nineteenth-century literary texts by authors of Romani background in different regions, Ferenc Sztojka Nagyidai (1855-1929) and Martin J. Mathiassen Skou (1849-1919), and discusses the languages present in them. Both works employ the majority language alongside Romani, with the latter appearing in specific contexts within the narratives or parts of the editions. These texts do not follow a bilingual publication model but rather a multilingual one, where the choice of language reflects the cultural dynamics within the narrative. Romani sections appear without translation in these instances, which demonstrates the significance of Romani within the literary and cultural framework.

Drawing on these early examples of original literary texts by Romani authors, this paper explores several interconnected themes: the early development of Romani literature alongside other European literary traditions, highlighting authorial agency and literary expression; the inherently multilingual nature of (early) Romani writing, shaped by the linguistic repertoires of its authors and their communities; and the crucial role of the Romani language as both an identity marker and a means of depicting cultural settings within literature.

Situating these works within broader discussions of literary multilingualism and language contact, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how linguistic diversity shapes literary production. On the one hand, it challenges traditional, monolingually framed perspectives on literary history, while on the other, it highlights the early history and inherently multilingual nature of early Romani literature.