On Wed,
>
>"La «questione della lingua»
>The "question of the language", an attempt to establish linguistic norms
and
>codify the language, engrossed writers of all persuasions. Grammarians
>during the 15th and the 16th centuries attempted to confer upon the
>pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary of 14th-century Tuscan the status of
a
>central and classical Italian speech. Eventually this classicism, which
>might have made Italian another dead language, was widened to include the
>organic changes inevitable in a living tongue.
>
>In the dictionaries and publications of the Accademia della Crusca, founded
>in 1583, which was accepted by Italians as authoritative in Italian
>linguistic matters, compromises between classical purism and living Tuscan
>usage were successfully effected. The most important literary event of the
>16th century did not actually take place in Florence. In 1525 the Venetian
>Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) set out his proposals (Prose della volgar lingua -
>1525) for a standardized language and style: Petrarca and Boccaccio were
his
>models and thus became the modern classics. Therefore, the language of
>Italian literature is modeled on that spoken in Florence in the 15th
>century."….
>
>Which seems to suggest the standardized literary form of Italian is based
on
>a model which postdates Dante by at least a century, and recall that
>modelling does not mean absolute identity, amd most certainly implies that
>modern literary Italian, let alone its spoken multiplicities, would not be
>identical to the language Dante spoke.
>
>david bircumshaw
>
>
>
I have a problem with this post - David....BOCCACCIO was actually born in
1313, and was only a child aged 8 when DANTE died at the age of 56. Do you
think that in the same identical town of Florence, the current language
spoken by people could so dramatically change - so as to stand as a totally
different model to dear Cesare Bembo, as you seem to suggest?
And PETRARCA himself who was born in 1304 was himself already 17 when Dante
died as a still rather young man, being as Boccaccio, Dante's contemporary
fellow. Would you think that the language your children or student use can
be ever regarded as considerably different from yours David, as to stand as
a different model for a national language? Boccaccio and Petrarca ,
moreover , admired Dante and were their followers (Petrarca in particular
in his use of the sonetto form). Trust me...it is the Divine Comedy the
first model for the present Italian idiom.
Therefore, let's correct the wrong information suggested. There is not a
century between Dante's language and that of Petrarca and Boccaccio's.
Being an Italian speaker and a reader of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Dante, I can
assure you that even if there was a century of distance, there would have
been NO difference
whatsoever.
Let me quote from a friend of Dante, Cavalcanti who I consider the
greatest model of all:
Io vo' come colui ch' e' for di vita
che pare a chi lo sguarda como sia
fatto di rame o di pietra o di legno
e si conduca sol per maestria
e porti ne lo core una ferita]
che sia com'egli e' morto
aperto segno.
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