Writing the history of a language and historical linguistics.

In this article, we address the initial volumes of the two series Dansk sproghistorie (DSH) and Norsk språkhistorie (NSH), DSH1 and NSH1, respectively. We briefly present the contents of each volume as well as the overall outline of the entire series. DSH1 and NSH1 are quite different, which makes detailed comparison difficult. However, precisely by being different, they together raise important questions about the tradition of historical linguistics in general and Scandinavian historical linguistics in particular. The bulk of the article is devoted to some of these questions, including how to define the object of study, how to describe and explain grammatical change and what theoretical status to assign to reconstructed forms. We believe that recurrent discussion of fundamental issues of this sort is vital to our field, not least in relation to the new bearers of tradition that DSH and NSH will undoubtedly be.