OK, glad to know that I misunderstood.
At 08:24 AM 5/24/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>Mark, no, I never said such a think, and of course I could envere have
>stated such a thing about "superiority" of one language over the other.
>This is not what I said. You also din not previously wrote what you are
>writing now about Manzoni...
>First of all, I am not Florentien, I am from Napoli (a region which like
>all the other Italian regions, in spite of the Unification, still keep
>afresh and alive its dialect which has its own vocabulary and grammar, as
>all the other italic dialects, like the SICILIAN: a phenoemnon that makes
>all Italian bilingual). Naples and Sicily have had intellectuals and
>writers of great stature, but beyond popular folk songs and theatre plays,
>no work of Philosophy, Rethoric, Politics, Criticisms has have been written
>in Neapolitan after the coming in disuse of Latinate forms. And this has
>nothing to do with the Unification or the fact that educations had to rely
>of a national syllabus. Century before Mazzini, Cavour and garibaldi came
>to decide that enough was enough of the Borbons around in the Reign of the
>Two Sicily, and went to liberate the oppressed Southern Regions, to make
>one country, the neutral official language of all these regions had already
>settled itself on the model of the Florentine. And this is not because
>Florentien was superior, far from it...all languages are equally
>noble...and potentially strilking...depends whod eals with it and what
>achievements are made and what texts remain and are spread.
>So, the sentence trhat follows is not to be attroibuted to me. Also, it was
>not emrely fprtunate that Florentien became popular as to impose itself as
>such: not merely fortunate.....(Florence had great men who had already been
>as successful as late Garibaldi and his army to unify the country's
>literary production under a linguistic point of view ).
>
>
>>But there's something truly disturbing here. Florentine dialect in Dante's,
>>or Manzoni's, or our own time was not inherently superior to all of Italy's
>>other dialects, as you seem to feel, nor was it uniquely useful for
>>expression, it was merely more fortunate. I can certainly understand loving
>>one's own dialect. That doesn't make it better.
>>
>>I remember that Dante toyed with writing the Commedia in Provencal. Had he
>>done so Florentine might have become the normative dialect of Italian or
>>not. Some dialect or other would have, but not until the movement for
>>unification required that there be one.
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>At 12:38 AM 5/24/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>>>I was taught your version of the history of the language (with the
>>>>difference that at the University of Toronto they told me that the
>>>>acceptance of the Florentine dialect as normative for Italian was due to
>>>>the influence of I Promessi Sposi), but I'm curious what evidence there
>is
>>>>for the stability of the pronunciation of vowels, given that we have no
>>>>voice recordings from Dante's time.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>....Toronto is a wonderful university but literary informations and/or
>>>notions sometimes travel in an odd way:
>>>the authentic story is this: When Alessandro Manzoni wrote his I Promessi
>>>Sposi, being "Lombardo" (from the region Lombardia where Milan is), and
>>>therefore talking a language affected by Austro-Hungaric influences,
>before
>>>publication, he more or less stated (exactly) this: "I shall go to clean
>my
>>>work in the waters of the Arno river...” , a quite striking statement
>that
>>>became legendary because Manzoni was such an intellectual and a master of
>>>style that this modest submissive attitude towards the classics has always
>>>been used by teachers in school to stimulate the students to do the
>same….
>>>
>>>Manzoni meant to say that he felt the need to refine his style on the
>model
>>>of the classics provided by the Florentine writers....
>>>
>>>Therefore, it is not I Promessi Sposi a model for Italian, but vice-versa
>>>it was the Florentine and Florentine writers the model for Manzoni's I
>>>Promessi Sposi.
>>>
>>>Now, I wonder who taught you this twisted information....
>>>
>>>: )
>>>
>>>
>>> (Ah, I have such a sore-throat tonight...I went for the third time to
>>>watch "Capitan Corelli's Mandolin " here in Oxford and I really fell in
>>>love with Nicolas Cage, cried and wanted to heal his wounds...)
>>>
>
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