Abstract
This paper first briefly outlines the general political, economic, cultural and linguistic situation in the era of the Hanseatic League. Then the dichotomy ‘language contact’ vs ‘dialect contact’ is discussed in detail. The main focus lies, however, on a thorough investigation of various forms of bilingualism and especially on the concept of semi-communication. It is shown that this concept (roughly, the way Scandinavians today communicate with each other by means of their vernaculars) has played an important role in most linguistic contacts in the area of the Hansa. Several pragmatic and semiotic conditions as well as communicational maxims are presented, together with some interlinguistic rules of thumb. The paper concludes with a summary of the main characteristics of the various language contacts to be observed during the age of the Hansa and of the typological consequences for the modern Scandinavian languages.
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