Setting the Stage in Europe

Abstract

The chapter sketches a panorama of the spread of monotheistic religions in premodern Europe. Each such religion operated through its own specific holy language, written down in its own script, and connected to a given holy book. These holy languages were usually much removed from everyday speech (vernaculars). The Reformation opened the gate for the use of vernaculars in writing, first in Western and Central Europe, before the process spread to Eastern Europe and the Balkans between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Many new languages were created in this manner.