THE USE OF VERNACULAR LANGUAGES

The Use of Vernacular Languages

The Use of Vernacular Languages

The use of vernacular languages for the written word had something of a fluctuating history, with a general tendency to increase towards the later part of the middle ages. Languages are the most powerful symbol of ethnic identity. The encouragement or repression of vernacular literacy has tended to coincide with the expression or suppression of national or ethnic boundaries. The use of vernacular languages in written works of any type cannot be divorced from events and politics. The adoption of forms of Roman civilisation by the Ostrogoth conquerors of Rome resulted in the production of Bibles and other Christian texts using the Gothic language. These are now mainly known only from palimpsests. Literacy was re-established in Anglo-Saxon society through the church and was therefore grounded in Latin. (Diez, 1863)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a historical text in Old English chronicling events in England up to and shortly after the Norman Conquest. There are several copies in slightly variant versions, varying mainly in the additions at the end of the time period. This can be seen as an attempt to transform an oral tradition into a literary format; the new beginnings of literary history. (Dons, 2004)

The use of Old English in literary or religious works largely ceased after the Norman Conquest. The later Anglo-Saxon kings had issued writs in the vernacular. After the Conquest, royal charters were occasionally issued in bilingual form, duplicated in Latin and Old English. Each language was written in its own particular script. Less solemn legal transactions may sometimes be found in the vernacular. Vernacular terms were also included in Latin charters to describes rights or privileges known in Anglo-Saxon law.

In a Latin charter of Henry I to Westminster Abbey (Westminster Abbey Muniments No.XXXI). The rights and privileges which were confirmed in the example above included infangenetheof and flemenefyrmthe among other Old English mysteries. England was, of course, linguistically divided at this time. English was the language of the lower classes and of the conquered, while Anglo-Norman or Norman French was the language of the conquerors and those who wished to be counted as the aristocracy. Anglo-Norman is rarely encountered in formal documents, although it can be found in Parliament Rolls, Privy Seal documents and private correspondence predating the 15th century, as well as in some historical works. (An Anglo-Norman manuscript of The Life of Edward ...