Fifth AMC Symposium (2026)

The Fifth AMC Symposium is scheduled for 7-9 December 2026 in person in Edinburgh.

The current version of the programme for the symposium can now be found HERE.

Background

The theme of this year’s symposium is “Types of Evidence in Historical Linguistics”

How do we know what a language was like in the past? How do we know that it has changed (or is changing)? The study of language change, and of historical linguistics more generally, uses many different kinds of evidence, including among others: comparison, written and spoken records/corpora, population dynamics, social variation, typology and linguistic theory. This symposium is intended to offer a forum to consider and compare them, and to reflect on what they can tell us.

  • Which kinds of evidence exist?
  • Which kinds of question can we answer on the basis of different types of evidence?
  • How much data is enough?
  • Which methods do we need to investigate different kinds of evidence?
  • Do their results converge?

The 5th AMC Symposium will bring together specialists working with different types of evidence to discuss these questions. While we particularly encourage abstracts for regular talks and posters that engage with the key symposium themes, we also welcome abstracts on any topic in historical linguistics, including all language specialisms and sub-disciplines.

Invited speakers

Call for papers

The deadline was 31 July – the call is now closed.

Registration

Registration is NOW OPEN. Details of rates for the conference and dinner can be found here, as well as the link to our pay portal.

Programme

The programme for the three days includes daily plenaries (x2), poster sessions (x1) and talks. The current schedule can be found HERE. More details on the format of talks and posters can be found here.

Organisers

  • Nikolas Gisborne
  • Lisa Gotthard
  • Patrick Honeybone
  • Pavel Iosad
  • Bettelou Los
  • Warren Maguire
  • Benjamin Molineaux
  • Graeme Trousdale

Contact

If you need to get in touch, please email us at amc-sympo@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk

Introducing: The Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics

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