terça-feira, 2 de novembro de 2010

Printing Revolution x Vernacular

More and more books began to be published in local languages, rather than Latin. Before the year 1500, three quarters of all books were written in Latin. This figure would quickly be reversed. English editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Italian editions of Dante's Divine Comedy were some of the early successes. Printing in the local language made reading available to people who did not know Latin, including many women. Moreover, spelling started to become standardized. Local languages were strengthened, and translations became common, leading to a decline in the use of Latin, apart from in the Church and universities.



(http://tinyurl.com/29n7qvb)





Printing "preserved and codified, sometimes even created" certain
vernaculars. Its absence during the sixteenth century among small
linguistic groups "demonstrably led" to the disappearance or exclusion
of their vernaculars from the realm of literature.

Having fortified language walls between one group and another, printers homogenized what was within them, breaking down minor differences, standardizing idioms for millions of writers and readers, assigning a new peripheral role to provincial dialects.

A "mother's tongue" learned "naturally" at home would be reinforced
by inculcation of a homogenized print-made language mastered while still young, when learning to read.

(http://tinyurl.com/2c9pqzh)

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