The Rise of the Written Vernacular: Europe and Eurasia
Wayne R. Cohen
When Students of Western European Medieval Literature speak the rise vernacular, they often do not mean what you might think mean—neither continued use Latin as a written vernacular for over five hundred years after fall Roman Empire nor first texts in Celtic, Germanic, and Semitic languages, from fourth to tenth century. They something later geographically narrower—the writing that emerges breakup into distinct regional speech patterns, Romance languages literatures, primarily territories modern France, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Although understanding Romance-language literature misrepresents medieval literature, it has an important rationale. The twelfth-century is now France—Old French romance north, Occitan (formerly Provençal) lyric south—establishes continent-wide norms, thereby giving coherent set forms themes time.
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America