The chapter explores language ideologies and various solutions to which Greek, Latin, and Syriac intellectuals resorted when they needed to articulate their attitudes to the alloglottic Other, while forging their distinctly Christian and specific confessional identities. The discussion starts with the views of early Christian apologists on foreign languages and continues by inquiring into further transformations that their initial universalist views underwent in the post-Constantinian era. The chapter highlights the main points of the cultural dialogue between the “Christian universalists” and “cultural isolationists” and analyzes the formation of a distinct rhetoric of alienation of foreign language speakers in Christian discourse. The trend was most visible in the Greek milieu, where the feeling of cultural superiority over “barbarians” had been especially deep-rooted. Then, the chapter explores how representatives of different literary traditions – this especially concerns Latin writers – attempted to promote the status of their own tongues as legitimate and authoritative vehicles for Christian self-expression. The final section analyzes metalinguistic remarks in Syriac literature – remarks that bear witness to acute linguistic awareness among local writers and their ability to resist the major cultural biases of their colleagues from the Classical tradition.

The Introduction explains the purpose and scope of the book, and the research questions it addresses, as well as its place within recent scholarship – both in relation to works focusing on languages in Late Antiquity and to more theoretical studies of various forms of group identity and its attributes. We open with a discussion on changes in the linguistic views of the increasingly Christianized elites in the late antique Mediterranean and the ways they experienced and conceptualized linguistic differences. The chapter defines such important concepts as “metalinguistic comments,” “the alloglottic Other,” “communities of linguistic sensitivities,” “objectification of language,” “linguistic awareness,” and “a different language”; clarifies the linguistic and religious terminology to be used; outlines the geographical scope, chronological limits, and the range of primary sources analyzed; and describes the book structure. The Introduction also explicates possible methodological problems in research like this and suggests the ways in which one could overcome them –avenues this book further explores.

This chapter places the identity-affirming events in and around Canada's centennial year in 1967 front and centre, with special emphasis on the linguistic dimension. A brief overview of historical dictionary projects in five countries, their notorious cost overruns and decade-long delays is offered to put into perspective the achievement of the Big Six and their historical Dictionary of Canadianisms. Canadianisms are linguistically defined and illustrated in this chapter, using the second edition's six-tiered typology, which leads into a knowledge-theoretical discussion of how one can detect words, meanings, and uses that are "distinctly characteristic" of Canadian English. The dictionary series, which was finally completed in 1967 with the third and fourth volumes, was received with much praise. Historical sales data of the Dictionary of Canadianisms helps reconstruct how the Canadian flagship dictionary, which was praised so much in 1967, could have been forgotten within a decade.