The Spread of the Vernacular Language

It was the growth of the Roman state that brought a viral spread of the Latin language, which became widely used all over the Mediterranean, and most of the bordering countries. Mostly in the Western half of the Empire Latin became the dominant language.

Originally Latin was said to be just one of several Italic languages, all of these Italic languages belonged to the Indo-European linguistic family. Much of the development of Latin can be attributed to other tongues to include Greek, Celtic and later Germanic languages. Just like other languages Latin was always under continuous changes and evolutionary development. During different periods of its evolution, there was significant difference between the spoken and written language. Much of this derived from the difference in the educated and less educated populace. Latin appeared to exist and persist right alongside other languages, especially Celtic. (Noordegraaf, 2000)

Sometime between the demise of Rome (470 AD) and about the year 1000 AD (Mesthrie, 1999), it can be said that Latin was the basic language of the region. Latin was the sustainment of language for the scholarly and official use of language, but there was a push for other languages based on the Latin language. Considering vernacular simply means “of the people,” many who left the Roman Empire while it was falling, and those were under the rule of the Romans during their rise to power, began a breaking off and independence movement through developing their own languages. These new tongues are known today as Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian to name a few. (Noordegraaf, 2000)

It is interesting that many high school students in Italy when they study history and their own language will be quick to tell you the very first works of literature which was written in their native tongue of Italian was Assissi’s Canticle of the sun (Gerard, 1996). Of course it’s such a great festival of old literature, no one questions the fact that when this little...