This collection of essays by Matthias Kappler, an expert in languages and literature in the Ottoman Empire, considers multilingualism and linguistic interaction in Istanbul and the Balkans. Kappler shows how Ottoman society was one in which more than just Ottoman Turkish was interwoven with a plurality of others. The first section of Kappler’s work considers the case of Istanbul, where mixed-language songs and poetry provide insight into social and cultural aspects of the city’s life. A similar situation was observable in the south-eastern Europe, and thus the second and third sections are devoted to language contacts in the region and the influence that Turkish has left on the modern languages of the Balkans. The book will interest historians of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans as well as socio-linguists for its consideration of multilingual spaces. Keppler’s essays are themselves written in Italian, German, French and English.