The Printing Revolution and some Intellectual Movements

In relation to the Scientific Revolution, the increased availability provided by cheaper, more abundant books, effectively increased the scientist’s lifetime by reducing or even eliminating the need to travel across Europe to find rare copies of traditional reference sources. In addition to that, science progressed by new data and theories overcoming the effects of ancient texts.

In relation to the Reformation, the rapid distribution of Martin Luther’s 95 theses across Europe was only possible through the printing press. Both Catholic and Protestants made extensive use from the beginning of mass-produced pamphlets for propaganda purposes. The use of propaganda as a tool for persuasion can be noticed all through history. 

During the II World War, Joseph Goebbels,  a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, said that "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it". The power of propaganda back then and nowadays can't be denied.

In relation to the Renaissance, the printing press transformed its development already in progress by making available copies of ancient sources. Each advancement could be fixed through abundant copies that could be distributed and used as a base for further growth. In other words, the printing press permitted a more efficient classical revival through its power of “typographical fixity”.

The relation between language and nationalism

• Language and Early Nationalism…

The American and French Revolutions are often identified as starting points for early nationalism (1776 and 1789 respectively). The American Revolution can be visualised as anantimetropolitan war between speakers of the same language (English), American states resisting English domination. As a result, vernaculars did not divide the two sides in the conflict but, as Anderson (1991) maintains, it did serve to unify the American community through the circulation of news and newspapers over a wide geographical area. Similarly the French Revolution did not focus on language divisions until after its success was assured.

Then, however, a vast process of language standardization took place in an attempt to unify the nation against outside threats, both perceived and real, culminating in the Académie Française, still the current guardian of a standardized French language.

• …and to the Present Day

Issues of power surrounding language standardization and standard languages continue to affect the modern world. Firstly, the after effects of the age of imperialism continue to be felt. Ethnic groups originating in former imperial powers colonized and settled in the dominions, while continuing to use the prestigious imperial language. Following independence, many have found themselves members of a nationstate that is not truly theirs, and unable to speak the newly chosen/reemerged national language (e.g. the Russian populations of the Baltic states).

Alternatively, in newly independent states, there is the crucial issue of what administrative language to adopt, and whether or not to use this as a national symbol. Often, in multiethnic, postcolonial states the language of the original imperial power is maintained as the language of administration. This both provides an arguably “neutral” standard which does not belong to any one ethnic group within the state, and is already known by the bureaucratic elites who administer the state. That is not to suggest that this is an easy process, given the historical connotations that these languages carry, but nationalism seems not to focus on language as a key issue.

A further legacy of imperialism is the process of immigration from former colonies into the excolonizer. This leads to an influx of nonnativelanguages and speakers, who, in terms of my examination of prestige carry low status. This situation may restrict the access of those whose language is not standardized to state facilities.

The continuing role of language, nationalism, and state formation can also be seen in nonimperial situations. Thus there are increasing differences between what are now known as the standard Czech and Slovakian languages following the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993.

Finally, the insistence on “one nation, one language” continues in many places. Thus the suppression of dissident ethnic groups occurs in conjunction with the suppression of their language, either overtly through coercion or more covertly through education policies

Nationalism and language standardisation

Processes of standardization seem to have benefited the powerful in society, but were not developed with a linguistic, ideological, or state target in mind. Communities were unified by language, also creating an awareness of “others”, but this was not ideologically manipulated. The advent of nationalism changed this.

Nationalism has clear roots in the development of printcapitalism, but takes them one step further. Emerging in the 17 th century and lasting through to the present day, the idea of nations and nationhood highlights difference, using it to create what Anderson calls “imagined communities”.

Ethnic groups (nations) become the focus of legitimacy, controlling their own destiny by governing themselves in their own unique territory. Nations thus become the most effective unit of international politics, and can act at their most efficient if they have internal cohesion. Clearly many factors contribute to this sense of nation the development of a national character, a national culture, a history, and often a national language. national languages are often used consciously as tools, facilitators, and weapons in creating internal unity and external differentiation.

Standard Language is primarily a national symbol, one that can be linked to a permanent past much more easily than often changing geographical boundaries, especially for newer nations. It can also be used as a symbol of formality and solemnity. It replaces the older administrative dialects to provide a more general lingua franca function, helping the internal cohesion of the state, and performs various nationforming functions such as in literature, broadcasting, education, etc. 

Anderson, B. (1991): Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso, London. (Revised and extended edition)

Haugen, E. (1966/1972): “Dialect,Language, Nation” reprinted in Pride and Holmes, J.(eds.) Sociolinguistics. Penguin, London.

Joseph, J.E.(1987): Eloquence and Power: the rise of language standards and standard languages. Frances Pinter, London.

Milroy, J. and Milroy, L.(1991): Authority in Language: investigating language standardization and prescription. Routledge, London.

Nairn, T. (1977): The BreakUp of Britain. NLB, London.

The Divine Comedy

This is how it looked after the printing press:







This is how the Divine Comedy looked like in medieval times:

Medieval Control Over Information

The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge. Within fifty or sixty years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). Now that more people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Furthermore, now that book production was a more commercial enterprise, the first copyright laws were passed to protect what we now would call intellectual property rights.

Books' changes through time

This is how the Medieval Bible looked like:




This is how it looked after the printing revolution:



And that is one of the many ways the bible and various other books can be read nowadays:

The Greatest Invention Ever

Did you know that printing with 

wooden made types were used 

in the East since the 8th century?

The Origins of Printing Press

The Revolution Beggins

It was the beginning of the 19th century. 

Manuscripts and hand copied books started to be replaced by printed ones. 

A revolution was ongoing. 

The era of the hand press came to a 

close after the invention of the printing machine. 

Before the invention of the printing press and the consequent printing revolution, books were really rare and expensive.

Over medieval times, every word of every page of every text or book, was copied individually by the scribes, often monks. These men labored for up to a year in the copy of a single book, usually written in Latin:

At that time, few people were able to read. Not only because of the lack of education, but thanks to the lack of texts and books as well. Only priests, monks and part of the elite had access to books and to its messages.

In order to print the first printed books, there had to be faced not only technical dificulties, but prejudice as well.Printed Books were not as "special" or "unique" as hand copied ones. That's the reason why the first printing machines of Europe tey to imitate the apearence of hand written books. 

These machines had small blocks called types. The printer arranges the types according to the text to be printed within a frame on a press and then prints a page of writing. 

Around the 1440, Gutenberg devised a printing press that could print many copies in just a small fraction of time. His machine was an adaptation of a coin-maker’s punch to make a mold for casting types.

Types were now made of metal instead od wood and could be use in the printing process over and over again.

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein calls the "communication shift" this transition in Western Europe from a scribal culture to one of print. For the time that a monastic scribe would have taken to produce a manuscript, a post-Gutenberg printer could produce too many copies of the same. This fact contributed to increase the dissemination of texts, the number of "literati" members, as well as possibilities for cross-cultural interchanges in printing shops.