How identity drives language change

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner will discuss how identity drives language change. We will investigate the most important factors of language change, how much we are all influenced by linguistic role models, why different generations sound different from one another and how social groups segregate by speaking in a particular way.

Miriam has written and edited numerous books and articles on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics of Judaeo-Arabic and Yiddish, scribal practice, and Jewish–Muslim relations in Egypt and Muslim Spain as reflected in the Genizah sources.