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82-492: An incunable or incunabulum ( pl. : incunables or incunabula , respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were produced before the printing press became widespread on the continent and are distinct from manuscripts , which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from

164-614: A lingua franca , used to facilitate communication across a large area. However, vernaculars usually carry covert prestige among their native speakers, in showcasing group identity or sub-culture affiliation. As a border case, a nonstandard dialect may even have its own written form, though it could then be assumed that the orthography is unstable, inconsistent, or unsanctioned by powerful institutions, like that of government or education. The most salient instance of nonstandard dialects in writing would likely be nonstandard phonemic spelling of reported speech in literature or poetry (e.g.,

246-575: A lingua franca until the 17th century, when grammarians began to debate the creation of an ideal language. Before 1550 as a conventional date, "supraregional compromises" were used in printed works, such as the one published by Valentin Ickelsamer ( Ein Teutsche Grammatica ) 1534. Books published in one of these artificial variants began to increase in frequency, replacing the Latin then in use. After 1550

328-948: A liturgical language , a specialized use of a former lingua franca . For example, until the 1960s, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church was generally celebrated in Latin rather than in vernaculars. The Coptic Church still holds liturgies in Coptic , not Arabic. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church holds liturgies in Ge'ez , but parts of the Mass are read in Amharic . Similarly, in Hindu culture, traditionally religious or scholarly works were written in Sanskrit (long after its use as

410-485: A Romance language was a book written in manuscript form by Leon Battista Alberti between 1437 and 1441 and entitled Grammatica della lingua toscana , "Grammar of the Tuscan Language". In it Alberti sought to demonstrate that the vernacular – here Tuscan, known today as modern Italian – was every bit as structured as Latin. He did so by mapping vernacular structures onto Latin. The book was never printed until 1908. It

492-410: A conversational form; Ferguson had in mind a literary language. For example, a lecture is delivered in a different variety than ordinary conversation. Ferguson's own example was classical and spoken Arabic, but the analogy between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin is of the same type. Excluding the upper-class and lower-class register aspects of the two variants, Classical Latin was a literary language;

574-535: A few different languages; some examples of languages and regional accents (and/or dialects) within Great Britain include Scotland ( Scottish Gaelic ), Northumbria , Yorkshire , Wales ( Welsh ), the Isle of Man ( Manx ), Devon , and Cornwall ( Cornish ). Being the language of a maritime power, English was (of necessity) formed from elements of many different languages. Standardisation has been an ongoing issue. Even in

656-422: A form of street literature , were ephemera , i.e., temporary documents created for a specific purpose and intended to be thrown away. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were often advertisements , but could also be used for news information or proclamations . Broadsides were a very popular medium for printing topical ballads starting in

738-685: A general plea for mother-tongue education in England: The first part of the elementary , published in 1582, by Richard Mulcaster . In 1586, William Bullokar wrote the first English grammar to be written in English, the Pamphlet for Grammar . This was followed by Bref Grammar , in that same year. Previously he had written the Booke at Large for the Amendment of Orthography for English Speech (1580), but his orthography

820-436: A joint publication, in 1584 by De Eglantier and the rhetoric society of Amsterdam; this was to be the first comprehensive Dutch grammar, Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst/ ófte Vant spellen ende eyghenscap des Nederduitschen taals . Hendrick Laurenszoon Spieghel was a major contributor, with others contributing as well. Modern English is considered to have begun at a conventional date of about 1550, most notably at

902-515: A language as coherent, complex, and complete systems—even nonstandard varieties. A dialect or language variety that is a vernacular may not have historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has. According to another definition, a vernacular is a language that has not developed a standard variety , undergone codification , or established a literary tradition. Vernacular may vary from overtly prestigious speech varieties in different ways, in that

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984-594: A linguistic phenomenon termed diglossia ("split tongue", on the model of the genetic anomaly ). In it, the language is bifurcated: the speaker learns two forms of the language and ordinarily uses one but under special circumstances uses the other. The one most frequently used is the low (L) variant, equivalent to the vernacular, while the special variant is the high (H). The concept was introduced to linguistics by Charles A. Ferguson (1959), but Ferguson explicitly excluded variants as divergent as dialects or different languages or as similar as styles or registers. It must not be

1066-400: A passage in his work Batavia (written in 1569; published posthumously in 1588). He referred to a period " inter prima artis [typographicae] incunabula " ("in the first infancy of the typographic art"). The term has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591–1664), in his Latin pamphlet De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae ("On the rise and progress of

1148-505: A phonetical and morphological overview of Spanish for nonnative speakers. The Grammar Books of the Master-poets ( Welsh : Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid ) are considered to have been composed in the early fourteenth century, and are present in manuscripts from soon after. These tractates draw on the traditions of the Latin grammars of Donatus and Priscianus and also on the teaching of the professional Welsh poets. The tradition of grammars of

1230-677: A single volume of a multi-volume work as a separate item, as well as fragments or copies lacking more than half the total leaves. A complete incunable may consist of a slip, or up to ten volumes. In terms of format , the 30,000-odd editions comprise: 2,000 broadsides , 9,000 folios , 15,000 quartos , 3,000 octavos , 18 12mos, 230 16mos, 20 32mos, and 3 64mos. ISTC at present cites 528 extant copies of books printed by Caxton , which together with 128 fragments makes 656 in total, though many are broadsides or very imperfect (incomplete). Apart from migration to mainly North American and Japanese universities, there has been little movement of incunabula in

1312-409: A slave born in the house rather than abroad. The figurative meaning was broadened from the diminutive extended words vernaculus, vernacula . Varro , the classical Latin grammarian, used the term vocabula vernacula , "termes de la langue nationale" or "vocabulary of the national language" as opposed to foreign words. In general linguistics , a vernacular is contrasted with a lingua franca ,

1394-576: A spoken language) or in Tamil in Tamil country. Sanskrit was a lingua franca among the non-Indo-European languages of the Indian subcontinent and became more of one as the spoken languages, or prakrits , began to diverge from it in different regions. With the rise of the bhakti movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works were created in other languages: Hindi , Kannada , Telugu and many others. For example,

1476-724: A third-party language in which persons speaking different vernaculars not understood by each other may communicate. For instance, in Western Europe until the 17th century, most scholarly works had been written in Latin , which was serving as a lingua franca. Works written in Romance languages are said to be in the vernacular. The Divina Commedia , the Cantar de Mio Cid , and The Song of Roland are examples of early vernacular literature in Italian, Spanish, and French, respectively. In Europe, Latin

1558-638: A vernacular has an internally coherent system of grammar . It may be associated with a particular set of vocabulary , and spoken using a variety of accents , styles , and registers . As American linguist John McWhorter describes about a number of dialects spoken in the American South in earlier U.S. history, including older African-American Vernacular English , "the often nonstandard speech of Southern white planters , nonstandard British dialects of indentured servants, and West Indian patois , [...] were non standard but not sub standard." In other words,

1640-408: A written account of the crime and of the trial and often the criminal's confession of guilt. A doggerel verse warning against following the criminal's example, to avoid his fate, was another common feature. By the mid-19th century, the advent of newspapers and inexpensive novels resulted in the demise of the street literature broadside. One classic example of a broadside used for proclamations

1722-480: Is Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle ("Liber Chronicarum") of 1493, with about 1,250 surviving copies (which is also the most heavily illustrated). Many incunabula are unique, but on average about 18 copies survive of each. This makes the Gutenberg Bible , at 48 or 49 known copies, a relatively common (though extremely valuable) edition. Counting extant incunabula is complicated by the fact that most libraries consider

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1804-455: Is a general but far from uniform consensus among the leading scholars about what should or should not be said in standard English; but for every rule, examples from famous English writers can be found that break it. Uniformity of spoken English never existed and does not exist now, but usages do exist, which must be learnt by the speakers, and do not conform to prescriptive rules. Usages have been documented not by prescriptive grammars, which on

1886-482: Is a grammar of the Irish language which is thought to date back as far as the 7th century: the earliest surviving manuscripts are 12th-century. Italian appears before standardization as the lingua Italica of Isidore and the lingua vulgaris of subsequent medieval writers. Documents of mixed Latin and Italian are known from the 12th century, which appears to be the start of writing in Italian. The first known grammar of

1968-719: Is being superseded by the authoritative modern listing, a German catalogue, the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke , which has been under way since 1925 and is still being compiled at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin . North American holdings were listed by Frederick R. Goff and a worldwide union catalogue is provided by the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue . Notable collections with more than 1,000 incunabula include: Broadside (printing) The historical type of broadsides, designed to be plastered onto walls as

2050-478: Is crucial to determining its intended sense. In variation theory, pioneered by William Labov , language is a large set of styles or registers from which the speaker selects according to the social setting of the moment. The vernacular is "the least self-conscious style of people in a relaxed conversation", or "the most basic style"; that is, casual varieties used spontaneously rather than self-consciously, informal talk used in intimate situations. In other contexts

2132-571: Is more codified , institutionally promoted, literary , or formal. More narrowly, a particular language variety that does not hold a widespread high-status perception, and sometimes even carries social stigma , is also called a vernacular , vernacular dialect , nonstandard dialect , etc. and is typically its speakers' native variety . Regardless of any such stigma, all nonstandard dialects are full-fledged varieties of language with their own consistent grammatical structure, sound system , body of vocabulary, etc. Like any native language variety,

2214-594: Is the Dunlap broadside , which was the first publication of the United States Declaration of Independence , printed on the night of July 4, 1776 by John Dunlap of Philadelphia in an estimated 200 copies. Another was the first published account of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River , printed on December 30, 1776, by an unknown printer. In nineteenth-century Pennsylvania, broadsides were used by

2296-524: Is the anglicised form of incunabulum , reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula , which meant " swaddling clothes", or " cradle ", which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development". A former term for incunable is fifteener , meaning "fifteenth-century edition". The term incunabula was first used in the context of printing by the Dutch physician and humanist Hadrianus Junius (Adriaen de Jonghe, 1511–1575), in

2378-494: The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist. Other printers of incunabula were Günther Zainer of Augsburg , Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein of Strasbourg , Heinrich Gran of Haguenau , Johann Amerbach of Basel , William Caxton of Bruges and London, and Nicolas Jenson of Venice . The first incunable to have woodcut illustrations

2460-721: The Hetruscane and Mesapian , whereof though there be some Records yet extant; yet there are none alive that can understand them: The Oscan , the Sabin and Tusculan, are thought to be but Dialects to these. Here, vernacular, mother language and dialect are in use in a modern sense. According to Merriam-Webster , "vernacular" was brought into the English language as early as 1601 from the Latin vernaculus ("native") which had been in figurative use in Classical Latin as "national" and "domestic", having originally been derived from verna ,

2542-664: The Ramayana , one of Hinduism's sacred epics in Sanskrit, had vernacular versions such as Ranganadha Ramayanam composed in Telugu by Gona Buddha Reddy in the 15th century; and Ramacharitamanasa , a Awadhi version of the Ramayana by the 16th-century poet Tulsidas . These circumstances are a contrast between a vernacular and language variant used by the same speakers. According to one school of linguistic thought, all such variants are examples of

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2624-670: The Southern Netherlands came under the dominion of Spain, then of Austria (1713) and of France (1794). The Congress of Vienna created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 from which southern Netherlands (being Catholic) seceded in 1830 to form the Kingdom of Belgium , which was confirmed in 1839 by the Treaty of London . As a result of this political instability no standard Dutch

2706-602: The UK , the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe , 1501–1540. The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC). The number of printing towns and cities stands at 282. These are situated in some 18 countries in terms of present-day boundaries. In descending order of the number of editions printed in each, these are: Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Austria,

2788-728: The Welsh Language developed from these through the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance. A dictionary is to be distinguished from a glossary . Although numerous glossaries publishing vernacular words had long been in existence, such as the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville , which listed many Spanish words, the first vernacular dictionaries emerged together with vernacular grammars. Glossaries in Dutch began about 1470 AD leading eventually to two Dutch dictionaries : Shortly after (1579)

2870-498: The block book , printed from a single carved or sculpted wooden block for each page (the same process as the woodcut in art, called xylographic ); and the typographic book , made by individual cast-metal movable type pieces on a printing press . Many authors reserve the term "incunabula" for the latter. The spread of printing to cities both in the North and in Italy ensured that there

2952-512: The " rederijkerskamers " (learned, literary societies founded throughout Flanders and Holland from the 1420s onward) attempted to impose a Latin structure on Dutch, on the presumption that Latin grammar had a "universal character". However, in 1559, John III van de Werve, Lord of Hovorst published his grammar Den schat der Duytsscher Talen in Dutch; Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert ( Eenen nieuwen ABC of Materi-boeck ) followed five years after, in 1564. The Latinizing tendency changed course, with

3034-549: The 1516 Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua of Giovanni Francesco Fortunio and the 1525 Prose della vulgar lingua of Pietro Bembo . In those works the authors strove to establish a dialect that would qualify for becoming the Italian national language. The first grammar in a vernacular language in western Europe was published in Toulouse in 1327. Known as the Leys d'amor and written by Guilhèm Molinièr, an advocate of Toulouse, it

3116-487: The 15th century, concurrent with the rise of Castile as an international power. The first Spanish grammar by Antonio de Nebrija ( Tratado de gramática sobre la lengua Castellana , 1492) was divided into parts for native and nonnative speakers, pursuing a different purpose in each. Books 1–4 describe the Spanish language grammatically, in order to facilitate the study of Latin for its Spanish-speaking readers. Book 5 contains

3198-700: The 16th century. Broadside ballads were usually printed on the cheapest type of paper available. Initially, this was cloth paper, but later it became common to use sheets of thinner, cheaper paper (pulp). In Victorian era London they were sold for a penny or half-penny. The sheets on which broadsides were printed could also be folded, twice or more, to make small pamphlets or chapbooks . Collections of songs in chapbooks were known as garlands. Broadside ballads lasted longer in Ireland, and although never produced in such huge numbers in North America, they were significant in

3280-467: The 1710s, due to the military power of Louis XIV of France . Certain languages have both a classical form and various vernacular forms, with two widely used examples being Arabic and Chinese: see Varieties of Arabic and Chinese language . In the 1920s, due to the May Fourth Movement , Classical Chinese was replaced by written vernacular Chinese . The vernacular is also often contrasted with

3362-506: The 17th century. Michel Maittaire (1667–1747) and Georg Wolfgang Panzer (1729–1805) arranged printed material chronologically in annals format, and in the first half of the 19th century, Ludwig Hain published the Repertorium bibliographicum —a checklist of incunabula arranged alphabetically by author: "Hain numbers" are still a reference point. Hain was expanded in subsequent editions, by Walter A. Copinger and Dietrich Reichling , but it

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3444-472: The Anglo-Norman domains in both northwestern France and Britain, English scholars retained an interest in the fate of French as well as of English. Some of the numerous 16th-century surviving grammars are: The development of a standard German was impeded by political disunity and strong local traditions until the invention of printing made possible a " High German -based book language". This literary language

3526-880: The Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Hungary (see diagram). The following table shows the 20 main 15th century printing locations; as with all data in this section, exact figures are given, but should be treated as close estimates (the total editions recorded in ISTC at August 2016 is 30,518): The 18 languages that incunabula are printed in, in descending order, are: Latin, German , Italian , French , Dutch , Spanish , English, Hebrew , Catalan , Czech , Greek , Church Slavonic , Portuguese , Swedish , Breton , Danish , Frisian and Sardinian (see diagram). Only about one edition in ten (i.e. just over 3,000) has any illustrations, woodcuts or metalcuts . The "commonest" incunable

3608-505: The Latin did spread all over that Country; the Calabrian , and Apulian spoke Greek, whereof some Relics are to be found to this day ; but it was an adventitious, no Mother-Language to them: 'tis confess'd that Latium it self, and all the Territories about Rome, had the Latin for its maternal and common first vernacular Tongue; but Tuscany and Liguria had others quite discrepant, viz.

3690-585: The Pennsylvania Dutch to advertise the "vendu", or county sale, for religious instruction, and to publish Trauerlieder or "sorrow songs" for sale. Today, broadside printing is done by many smaller printers and publishers as a fine art variant, with poems often being available as broadsides, intended to be framed and hung on the wall. Broadsides pasted on walls are still used as a form of mass communication in Haredi Jewish communities, where they are known by

3772-450: The Yiddish term " pashkevil " ( pasquil ). Originally, they were used to ridicule public authority figures, to publicly criticize the powerful, and to publish concealed information. Vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken form of language, particularly when perceived as having lower social status or less prestige than standard language , which

3854-447: The adjective "nonstandard" should not be taken to mean that these various dialects were intrinsically incorrect, less logical, or otherwise inferior, only that they were not the socially perceived norm or mainstream considered prestigious or appropriate for public speech; however, nonstandard dialects are indeed often stigmatized as such, due to socially-induced post-hoc rationalization. Again, however, linguistics regards all varieties of

3936-468: The age of modern communications and mass media, according to one study, "… although the Received Pronunciation of Standard English has been heard constantly on radio and then television for over 60 years, only 3 to 5% of the population of Britain actually speaks RP … new brands of English have been springing up even in recent times ...." What the vernacular would be in this case is a moot point: "…

4018-468: The case of the English language , while it has become common thought to assume that nonstandard varieties should not be taught, there has been evidence to prove that teaching nonstandard dialects in the classroom can encourage some children to learn English. The first known usage of the word "vernacular" in English is not recent. In 1688, James Howell wrote: Concerning Italy, doubtless there were divers before

4100-427: The concept still further by proposing that multiple H exist in society from which the users can select for various purposes. The definition of an H is intermediate between Ferguson's and Fishman's. Realizing the inappropriateness of the term diglossia (only two) to his concept, he proposes the term broad diglossia. Within sociolinguistics , the term "vernacular" has been applied to several concepts. Context, therefore,

4182-524: The eighteenth century and provided an important medium of propaganda, on both sides, in the American War of Independence . Broadsides were commonly sold at public executions in the United Kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries, often produced by specialised printers. They could be illustrated by a crude picture of the crime, a portrait of the criminal, or a generic woodcut of a hanging. There would be

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4264-663: The end of the Great Vowel Shift . It was created by the infusion of Old French into Old English , after the Norman conquest of 1066 AD, and of Latin at the instigation of the clerical administration. While present-day English speakers may be able to read Middle English authors (such as Geoffrey Chaucer ), Old English is much more difficult. Middle English is known for its alternative spellings and pronunciations. The British Isles, although geographically limited, have always supported populations of widely-varied dialects, as well as

4346-516: The last five centuries. None were printed in the Southern Hemisphere , and the latter appears to possess less than 2,000 copies, about 97.75% remain north of the equator. However, many incunabula are sold at auction or through the rare book trade every year. The British Library 's Incunabula Short Title Catalogue now records over 29,000 titles, of which around 27,400 are incunabula editions (not all unique works). Studies of incunabula began in

4428-403: The massive dictionary of Samuel Johnson . French (as Old French ) emerged as a Gallo-Romance language from Colloquial Latin during late antiquity . The written language is known from at least as early as the 9th century. That language contained many forms still identifiable as Latin. Interest in standardizing French began in the 16th century. Because of the Norman conquest of England and

4510-575: The medieval tradition formed the bulk of the earliest printed works, but as books became cheaper, vernacular works (or translations into vernaculars of standard works) began to appear. Famous incunabula include two from Mainz , the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam of 1486, printed and illustrated by Erhard Reuwich ; the Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in 1493; and

4592-568: The midlands. Chaucer wrote in an early East Midland style; John Wycliffe translated the New Testament into it, and William Caxton , the first English printer, wrote in it. Caxton is considered the first modern English author. The first printed book in England was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , published by Caxton in 1476. The first English grammars were written in Latin , with some in French , after

4674-440: The people spoke Vulgar Latin as a vernacular. Joshua Fishman redefined the concept in 1964 to include everything Ferguson had excluded. Fishman allowed both different languages and dialects and also different styles and registers as the H variants. The essential contrast between them was that they be "functionally differentiated"; that is, H must be used for special purposes, such as a liturgical or sacred language. Fasold expanded

4756-437: The printed book evolved fully as a mature artefact with a standard format. After about 1540 books tended to conform to a template that included the author, title-page, date, seller, and place of printing. This makes it much easier to identify any particular edition. As noted above, the end date for identifying a printed book as an incunable is convenient but was chosen arbitrarily; it does not reflect any notable developments in

4838-400: The printing process around the year 1500. Books printed for a number of years after 1500 continued to look much like incunables, with the notable exception of the small format books printed in italic type introduced by Aldus Manutius in 1501. The term post-incunable is sometimes used to refer to books printed "after 1500—how long after, the experts have not yet agreed." For books printed in

4920-481: The printing process, and many books printed for some years after 1500 are visually indistinguishable from incunables. The term " post-incunable " is now used to refer to books printed after 1500 up to 1520 or 1540, without general agreement. From around this period the dating of any edition becomes easier, as the practice of printing the place and year of publication using a colophon or on the title page became more widespread. There are two types of printed incunabula:

5002-563: The publications of Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson ) where it is sometimes described as eye dialect . Nonstandard dialects have been used in classic literature throughout history. One famous example of this is Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . This classic piece of literature, commonly taught in schools in the U.S., includes dialogue from various characters in their own native vernaculars (including representations of Older Southern American English and African-American English ), which are not written in standard English. In

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5084-533: The same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type . As of 2021, there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known. The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at 125,000 in Germany alone. Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000. Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide. Incunable

5166-406: The speaker does conscious work to select the appropriate variations. The one they can use without this effort is the first form of speech acquired. In another theory, the vernacular language is opposed to the standard language . The non-standard varieties thus defined are dialects, which are to be identified as complexes of factors: "social class, region, ethnicity, situation, and so forth". Both

5248-510: The spread of the French national language into German-speaking territories assisted by the efforts of the French Academy. With so many linguists moving in the same direction, a standard German ( hochdeutsche Schriftsprache ) did evolve without the assistance of a language academy. Its precise origin, the major constituents of its features, remains uncertainly known and debatable. Latin prevailed as

5330-453: The standard and non-standard languages have dialects, but in contrast to the standard language, the non-standard language has "socially disfavored" structures. The standard language is primarily written (in traditional print media), whereas the non-standard language is spoken. An example of a vernacular dialect is African American Vernacular English . A vernacular is not a real language but is "an abstract set of norms". Vernaculars acquired

5412-530: The standardisation of English has been in progress for many centuries." Modern English came into being as the standard Middle English (i.e., as the preferred dialect of the monarch, court and administration). That dialect was of the East Midland, which had spread to London , where the king resided and from which he ruled. It contained Danish forms not often used in the north or south, as the Danes had settled heavily in

5494-403: The status of official languages through metalinguistic publications. Between 1437 and 1586, the first reference grammars of Italian , Spanish , French , Dutch , German and English were written, though not always immediately published. It is to be understood that the first precursors of those languages preceded their standardization by up to several hundred years. In the 16th century,

5576-644: The supraregional ideal broadened to a universal intent to create a national language from Early New High German by deliberately ignoring regional forms of speech, which practice was considered to be a form of purification parallel to the ideal of purifying religion in Protestantism . In 1617, the Fruitbearing Society , a language club, was formed in Weimar in imitation of the Accademia della Crusca in Italy. It

5658-444: The typographic art"; 1640), but he was quoting Junius. The term incunabula came to denote printed books themselves in the late 17th century. It is not found in English before the mid-19th century. Junius set an end-date of 1500 to his era of incunabula , which remains the convention in modern bibliographical scholarship. This convenient but arbitrary end-date for identifying a printed book as an incunable does not reflect changes in

5740-424: The vernacular can be a distinct stylistic register , a regional dialect , a sociolect , or an independent language. Vernacular is a term for a type of speech variety , generally used to refer to a local language or dialect, as distinct from what is seen as a standard language. The vernacular is contrasted with higher-prestige forms of language, such as national , literary , liturgical or scientific idiom, or

5822-481: The vernacular was Galileo , writing in Italian c.  1600 , though some of his works remained in Latin. A later example is Isaac Newton , whose 1687 Principia was in Latin, but whose 1704 Opticks was in English. Latin continues to be used in certain fields of science, notably binomial nomenclature in biology, while other fields such as mathematics use vernacular; see scientific nomenclature for details. In diplomacy, French displaced Latin in Europe in

5904-476: Was Ulrich Boner 's Der Edelstein , printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg in 1461. A finding in 2015 brought evidence of quires , as claimed by research, possibly printed in 1444–1446 and possibly assigned to Procopius Waldvogel of Avignon , France. Many incunabula are undated, needing complex bibliographical analysis to place them correctly. The post-incunabula period marks a time of development during which

5986-523: Was defined (even though much in demand and recommended as an ideal) until after World War II . Currently the Dutch Language Union , an international treaty organization founded in 1980, supports a standard Dutch in the Netherlands, while Afrikaans is regulated by Die Taalkommissie founded in 1909. Standard English remains a quasi-fictional ideal, despite the numerous private organizations publishing prescriptive rules for it. No language academy

6068-514: Was ever established or espoused by any government past or present in the English-speaking world. In practice the British monarchy and its administrations established an ideal of what good English should be considered to be, and this in turn was based on the teachings of the major universities, such as Cambridge University and Oxford University , which relied on the scholars whom they hired. There

6150-557: Was great variety in the texts and the styles which appeared. Many early typefaces were modelled on local writing or derived from various European Gothic scripts, but there were also some derived from documentary scripts like Caxton 's, and, particularly in Italy, types modelled on handwritten scripts and calligraphy used by humanists . Printers congregated in urban centres where there were scholars , ecclesiastics , lawyers , and nobles and professionals who formed their major customer base. Standard works in Latin inherited from

6232-605: Was not generally accepted and was soon supplanted, thus his grammar shared a similar fate. Other grammars in English followed rapidly; Paul Greaves' Grammatica Anglicana (1594), Alexander Hume 's Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britain Tongue (1617), and many others. Over the succeeding decades, many literary figures turned a hand to grammar in English; Alexander Gill , Ben Jonson , Joshua Poole, John Wallis , Jeremiah Wharton, James Howell , Thomas Lye, Christopher Cooper , William Lily , John Colet and more, all leading to

6314-565: Was not generally known, but it was known, as an inventory of the library of Lorenzo de'Medici lists it under the title Regule lingue florentine ("Rules of the Florentine language"). The only known manuscript copy, however, is included in the codex , Reginense Latino 1370, located at Rome in the Vatican library . It is therefore called the Grammatichetta vaticana. More influential perhaps were

6396-583: Was not identical to any specific variety of German. The first grammar evolved from pedagogical works that also tried to create a uniform standard from the many regional dialects for various reasons. Religious leaders wished to create a sacred language for Protestantism that would be parallel to the use of Latin for the Roman Catholic Church . Various administrations wished to create a civil service, or chancery, language that would be useful in more than one locality. And finally, nationalists wished to counter

6478-459: Was one of many such clubs; however, none became a national academy. In 1618–1619 Johannes Kromayer wrote the first all-German grammar. In 1641 Justin Georg Schottel in teutsche Sprachkunst presented the standard language as an artificial one. By the time of his work of 1663, ausführliche Arbeit von der teutschen Haubt-Sprache , the standard language was well established. Auraicept na n-Éces

6560-566: Was published in order to codify the use of the Occitan language in poetry competitions organized by the company of the Gai Saber in both grammar and rhetorical ways. Chronologically, Spanish (more accurately, lengua castellana ) has a development similar to that of Italian. There was some vocabulary in Isidore of Seville, with traces afterward, writing from about the 12th century; standardisation began in

6642-496: Was used at Tridentine Mass until the Second Vatican Council of 1965. Certain groups, notably Traditionalist Catholics , continue to practice Latin Mass . In Eastern Orthodox Church , four Gospels translated to vernacular Ukrainian language in 1561 are known as Peresopnytsia Gospel . In India, the 12th century Bhakti movement led to the translation of Sanskrit texts to the vernacular. In science, an early user of

6724-1375: Was used widely instead of vernacular languages in varying forms until c.  1701 , in its latter stage as Neo-Latin . In religion, Protestantism was a driving force in the use of the vernacular in Christian Europe, the Bible having been translated from Latin into vernacular languages with such works as the Bible in Dutch: published in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt ; Bible in French: published in 1528 by Jacques Lefevre d'Étaples (or Faber Stapulensis); German Luther Bible in 1534 ( New Testament 1522); Bible in Spanish: published in Basel in 1569 by Casiodoro de Reina (Biblia del Oso); Bible in Czech: Bible of Kralice, printed between 1579 and 1593; Bible in English: King James Bible , published in 1611; Bible in Slovene, published in 1584 by Jurij Dalmatin. In Catholicism , vernacular bibles were later provided, but Latin

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