51-652: The Liber maiolichinus de gestis pisanorum illustribus ("Majorcan Book of the Deeds of the Illustrious Pisans") is a Medieval Latin epic chronicle in 3,500 hexameters , written between 1117 and 1125, detailing the Pisan -led joint military expedition of Italians , Catalans , and Occitans against the taifa of the Balearic Islands , in particular Majorca and Ibiza , in 1113–5. It
102-638: A branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe , North America , Oceania , and Southern Africa . The most widely spoken Germanic language, English , is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic , spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia , Iron Age Northern Germany and along
153-544: A hypothetical Proto-Germanic , united by subjection to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law . These probably took place during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe from c. 500 BC . Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. 500 BC , and Proto-Norse from the 2nd century AD and later is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo-European suggest
204-517: A knowledge of Classical or Old Latin by the use of rare or archaic forms and sequences. Though they had not existed together historically, it is common that an author would use grammatical ideas of the two periods Republican and archaic, placing them equally in the same sentence. Also, many undistinguished scholars had limited education in "proper" Latin, or had been influenced in their writings by Vulgar Latin. Many striking differences between classical and Medieval Latin are found in orthography . Perhaps
255-497: A living language and was instead a scholarly language of the minority of educated men (and a tiny number of women) in medieval Europe, used in official documents more than for everyday communication. This resulted in two major features of Medieval Latin compared with Classical Latin, though when it is compared to the other vernacular languages, Medieval Latin developed very few changes. There are many prose constructions written by authors of this period that can be considered "showing off"
306-608: A minority language by immigrant communities in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico and Australia. A German dialect, Pennsylvania Dutch , is still used among various populations in the American state of Pennsylvania in daily life. A group of Alemannic German dialects commonly referred to as Alsatian is spoken in Alsace , part of modern France. Dutch is an official language of Aruba , Belgium, Curaçao ,
357-626: A native language of some 11 to 13 million people, remains in use by some 1.5 million speakers in Jewish communities around the world, mainly in North America, Europe, Israel, and other regions with Jewish populations . Limburgish varieties are spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border. In addition to being the official language in Sweden, Swedish
408-553: A rebirth of Latin literature and learning after the depressed period following the final disintegration of the authority of the Western Roman Empire. Although it was simultaneously developing into the Romance languages, Latin itself remained very conservative, as it was no longer a native language and there were many ancient and medieval grammar books to give one standard form. On the other hand, strictly speaking there
459-607: A separate collection of unstandardized dialects, with roughly 4.35–7.15 million native speakers and probably 6.7–10 million people who can understand it (at least 2.2 million in Germany (2016) and 2.15 million in the Netherlands (2003)); Yiddish , once used by approximately 13 million Jews in pre- World War II Europe, now with approximately 1.5 million native speakers; Scots , with 1.5 million native speakers; Limburgish varieties with roughly 1.3 million speakers along
510-550: Is Venantius Fortunatus ( c. 530 – c. 600 ). This was also a period of transmission: the Roman patrician Boethius ( c. 480 –524) translated part of Aristotle 's logical corpus, thus preserving it for the Latin West , and wrote the influential literary and philosophical treatise De consolatione Philosophiae ; Cassiodorus ( c. 485 – c. 585 ) founded an important library at
561-594: Is also spoken natively by the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, which is a large part of the population along the coast of western and southern Finland. Swedish is also one of the two official languages in Finland, along with Finnish , and the only official language in Åland . Swedish is also spoken by some people in Estonia. Danish is an official language of Denmark and in its overseas territory of
SECTION 10
#1732765678158612-595: Is also the official language in the overseas territories of Norway such as Svalbard , Jan Mayen , Bouvet island , Queen Maud Land , and Peter I island . Icelandic is the official language of Iceland . Faroese is the official language of the Faroe Islands, and is also spoken by some people in Denmark. Germanic languages by share (West Germanic in yellow-red shades and North Germanic in blue shades): All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from
663-541: Is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is a lingua franca of Namibia. It is used in other Southern African nations, as well. Low German is a collection of very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany. Some dialects like East Pomeranian have been imported to South America. Scots is spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster (where
714-750: Is unknown as some of them, especially the East Germanic languages, disappeared during or after the Migration Period . Some of the West Germanic languages also did not survive past the Migration Period, including Lombardic . As a result of World War II and subsequent mass expulsion of Germans , the German language suffered a significant loss of Sprachraum , as well as moribundity and extinction of several of its dialects. In
765-563: The Dutch – Belgian – German border; and the Frisian languages with over 500,000 native speakers in the Netherlands and Germany. The largest North Germanic languages are Swedish , Danish , and Norwegian , which are in part mutually intelligible and have a combined total of about 20 million native speakers in the Nordic countries and an additional five million second language speakers; since
816-522: The Faroe Islands , and it is a lingua franca and language of education in its other overseas territory of Greenland , where it was one of the official languages until 2009. Danish, a locally recognized minority language, is also natively spoken by the Danish minority in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein . Norwegian is the official language of Norway (both Bokmål and Nynorsk ). Norwegian
867-581: The North Sea and Baltic coasts. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English with around 360–400 million native speakers; German , with over 100 million native speakers; and Dutch , with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include Afrikaans , an offshoot of Dutch originating from the Afrikaners of South Africa , with over 7.1 million native speakers; Low German , considered
918-593: The consonant change known as " Grimm's law ." Early varieties of Germanic entered history when the Germanic tribes moved south from Scandinavia in the 2nd century BC to settle in the area of today's northern Germany and southern Denmark. English is an official language of Belize , Canada, Nigeria, Falkland Islands , Saint Helena , Malta , New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, Jamaica, Dominica , Guyana , Trinidad and Tobago , American Samoa , Palau , St. Lucia , Grenada , Barbados , St. Vincent and
969-593: The syntax of some Medieval Latin writers, although Classical Latin continued to be held in high esteem and studied as models for literary compositions. The high point of the development of Medieval Latin as a literary language came with the Carolingian Renaissance , a rebirth of learning kindled under the patronage of Charlemagne , king of the Franks . Alcuin was Charlemagne's Latin secretary and an important writer in his own right; his influence led to
1020-409: The 21st century, German dialects are dying out as Standard German gains primacy. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic, also known as Common Germanic, which was spoken in about the middle of the 1st millennium BC in Iron Age Scandinavia . Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, notably has a number of unique linguistic features, most famously
1071-558: The 5th century saw the literary activities of the great Christian authors Jerome ( c. 347 –420) and Augustine of Hippo (354–430), whose texts had an enormous influence on theological thought of the Middle Ages, and of the latter's disciple Prosper of Aquitaine ( c. 390 – c. 455 ). Of the later 5th century and early 6th century, Sidonius Apollinaris ( c. 430 – after 489) and Ennodius (474–521), both from Gaul, are well known for their poems, as
SECTION 20
#17327656781581122-730: The Balearic islands and a hotbed of piracy. Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages . In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned as the main medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical language of the Church , and as
1173-485: The English People . Many Medieval Latin works have been published in the series Patrologia Latina , Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum and Corpus Christianorum . Medieval Latin was separated from Classical Latin around 800 and at this time was no longer considered part of the everyday language. The speaking of Latin became a practice used mostly by the educated high class population. Even then it
1224-521: The Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were also major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, and words from their languages were freely imported into the vocabulary of law. Other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse. Latin
1275-975: The Grenadines , Puerto Rico, Guam , Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, India, Papua New Guinea , Namibia , Vanuatu , the Solomon Islands and former British colonies in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Furthermore, it is the de facto language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, as well as a recognized language in Nicaragua and Malaysia. German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein , Luxembourg and Switzerland; it also has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also continues to be spoken as
1326-590: The Latin vocabulary that developed for them became the source of a great many technical words in modern languages. English words like abstract , subject , communicate , matter , probable and their cognates in other European languages generally have the meanings given to them in Medieval Latin, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English. The influence of Vulgar Latin was also apparent in
1377-612: The Middle Ages, however, these languages have been strongly influenced by Middle Low German , a West Germanic language, and Low German words account for about 30–60% of their vocabularies according to various estimates. Other extant North Germanic languages are Faroese , Icelandic , and Elfdalian , which are more conservative languages with no significant Low German influence, more complex grammar and limited mutual intelligibility with other North Germanic languages today. The East Germanic branch included Gothic , Burgundian , and Vandalic , all of which are now extinct. The last to die off
1428-428: The Netherlands, Sint Maarten , and Suriname . The Netherlands also colonized Indonesia , but Dutch was scrapped as an official language after Indonesian independence . Today, it is only used by older or traditionally educated people. Dutch was until 1983 an official language in South Africa but evolved into and was replaced by Afrikaans , a partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans
1479-411: The characteristics described above, showing its period in vocabulary and spelling alone; the features listed are much more prominent in the language of lawyers (e.g. the 11th-century English Domesday Book ), physicians, technical writers and secular chroniclers. However the use of quod to introduce subordinate clauses was especially pervasive and is found at all levels. Medieval Latin had ceased to be
1530-584: The classical Latin practice of generally placing the verb at the end, medieval writers would often follow the conventions of their own native language instead. Whereas Latin had no definite or indefinite articles, medieval writers sometimes used forms of unus as an indefinite article, and forms of ille (reflecting usage in the Romance languages) as a definite article or even quidam (meaning "a certain one/thing" in Classical Latin) as something like an article. Unlike classical Latin, where esse ("to be")
1581-648: The classical forms, testifies to the declining significance of classical education in Gaul. At the same time, good knowledge of Latin and even of Greek was being preserved in monastic culture in Ireland and was brought to England and the European mainland by missionaries in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries, such as Columbanus (543–615), who founded the monastery of Bobbio in Northern Italy. Ireland
Liber maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus - Misplaced Pages Continue
1632-494: The exact boundary where Late Latin ends and Medieval Latin begins. Some scholarly surveys begin with the rise of early Ecclesiastical Latin in the middle of the 4th century, others around 500, and still others with the replacement of written Late Latin by written Romance languages starting around the year 900. The terms Medieval Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin are sometimes used synonymously, though some scholars draw distinctions. Ecclesiastical Latin refers specifically to
1683-555: The expedition as motivated by a desire to free Christian captives held as slaves by the Muslims and to curtail Muslim piracy "from Spain to Greece". Christian zeal is stressed no less than civic pride and the account of the 1113 expedition is prefaced by a history of Pisan–Muslim conflicts in the eleventh century. The Liber is also the earliest source for the raid of the Norwegian king Sigurd Jorsalfar on Formentera , one of
1734-686: The form that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church (even before the Middle Ages in Antiquity), whereas Medieval Latin refers to all of the (written) forms of Latin used in the Middle Ages. The Romance languages spoken in the Middle Ages were often referred to as Latin , since the Romance languages were all descended from Vulgar Latin itself. Medieval Latin would be replaced by educated humanist Renaissance Latin , otherwise known as Neo-Latin . Medieval Latin had an enlarged vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. It
1785-515: The local dialect is known as Ulster Scots ). Frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. Luxembourgish is a Moselle Franconian dialect that is spoken mainly in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , where it is considered to be an official language. Similar varieties of Moselle Franconian are spoken in small parts of Belgium, France, and Germany. Yiddish, once
1836-588: The monastery of Vivarium near Squillace where many texts from Antiquity were to be preserved. Isidore of Seville ( c. 560 –636) collected all scientific knowledge still available in his time into what might be called the first encyclopedia , the Etymologiae . Gregory of Tours ( c. 538 –594) wrote a lengthy history of the Frankish kings. Gregory came from a Gallo-Roman aristocratic family, and his Latin, which shows many aberrations from
1887-410: The most striking difference is that medieval manuscripts used a wide range of abbreviations by means of superscripts, special characters etc.: for instance the letters "n" and "s" were often omitted and replaced by a diacritical mark above the preceding or following letter. Apart from this, some of the most frequently occurring differences are as follows. Clearly many of these would have been influenced by
1938-968: The need for long distance correspondence arose. Long distance communication in the vernacular was rare, but Hebrew, Arabic and Greek served a similar purpose among Jews, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox respectively. until 75 BC Old Latin 75 BC – 200 AD Classical Latin 200–700 Late Latin 700–1500 Medieval Latin 1300–1500 Renaissance Latin 1300– present Neo-Latin 1900– present Contemporary Latin Germanic languages Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Germanic languages are
1989-414: The notice of contemporaries. Petrarch , writing in the 14th century, complained about this linguistic "decline", which helped fuel his general dissatisfaction with his own era. The corpus of Medieval Latin literature encompasses a wide range of texts, including such diverse works as sermons , hymns , hagiographical texts, travel literature , histories , epics , and lyric poetry . The first half of
2040-583: The pleadings given in court. Even then, those of the church still used Latin more than the rest of the population. At this time, Latin served little purpose to the regular population but was still used regularly in ecclesiastical culture. Latin also served as a lingua franca among the educated elites of Christendom — long distance written communication, while rarer than in Antiquity, took place mostly in Latin. Most literate people wrote Latin and most rich people had access to scribes who knew Latin for use when
2091-468: The spelling, and indeed pronunciation, of the vernacular language, and thus varied between different European countries. These orthographical differences were often due to changes in pronunciation or, as in the previous example, morphology, which authors reflected in their writing. By the 16th century, Erasmus complained that speakers from different countries were unable to understand each other's form of Latin. The gradual changes in Latin did not escape
Liber maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus - Misplaced Pages Continue
2142-552: The use of medieval Latin among the learned elites of Christendom may have played a role in the spread of those features. In every age from the late 8th century onwards, there were learned writers (especially within the Church) who were familiar enough with classical syntax to be aware that these forms and usages were "wrong" and resisted their use. Thus the Latin of a theologian like St Thomas Aquinas or of an erudite clerical historian such as William of Tyre tends to avoid most of
2193-403: The working language of science, literature, law, and administration. Medieval Latin represented a continuation of Classical Latin and Late Latin , with enhancements for new concepts as well as for the increasing integration of Christianity. Despite some meaningful differences from Classical Latin, its writers did not regard it as a fundamentally different language. There is no real consensus on
2244-543: Was Crimean Gothic , spoken until the late 18th century in some isolated areas of Crimea . The SIL Ethnologue lists 48 different living Germanic languages, 41 of which belong to the Western branch and six to the Northern branch; it places Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German in neither of the categories, but it is often considered a German dialect by linguists. The total number of Germanic languages throughout history
2295-419: Was also spread to areas such as Ireland and Germany , where Romance languages were not spoken, and which had never known Roman rule. Works written in those lands where Latin was a learned language, having no relation to the local vernacular, also influenced the vocabulary and syntax of Medieval Latin. Since subjects like science and philosophy, including Rhetoric and Ethics , were communicated in Latin,
2346-489: Was also the birthplace of a strange poetic style known as Hisperic Latin . Other important Insular authors include the historian Gildas ( c. 500 – c. 570 ) and the poet Aldhelm ( c. 640 –709). Benedict Biscop ( c. 628 –690) founded the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow and furnished it with books which he had taken home from a journey to Rome and which were later used by Bede ( c. 672 –735) to write his Ecclesiastical History of
2397-471: Was commissioned by the commune of Pisa, and its anonymous author was probably a cleric . It survives in three manuscripts. The Liber is notable for containing the earliest known reference to "Catalans" ( Catalanenses ), treated as an ethnicity , and to "Catalonia" ( Catalania ), as their homeland. The Liber , which is the most important primary source for the brief conquest of the Balearics, portrays
2448-465: Was heavily influenced by the language of the Vulgate , which contained many peculiarities alien to Classical Latin that resulted from a more or less direct translation from Greek and Hebrew ; the peculiarities mirrored the original not only in its vocabulary but also in its grammar and syntax. Greek provided much of the technical vocabulary of Christianity . The various Germanic languages spoken by
2499-593: Was no single form of "Medieval Latin". Every Latin author in the medieval period spoke Latin as a second language, with varying degrees of fluency and syntax. Grammar and vocabulary, however, were often influenced by an author's native language. This was especially true beginning around the 12th century, after which the language became increasingly adulterated: late Medieval Latin documents written by French speakers tend to show similarities to medieval French grammar and vocabulary; those written by Germans tend to show similarities to German, etc. For instance, rather than following
2550-472: Was not frequently used in casual conversation. An example of these men includes the churchmen who could read Latin, but could not effectively speak it. Latin's use in universities was structured in lectures and debates, however, it was highly recommended that students use it in conversation. This practice was kept up only due to rules. One of Latin's purposes, writing, was still in practice; the main uses being charters for property transactions and to keep track of
2601-520: Was the only auxiliary verb, Medieval Latin writers might use habere ("to have") as an auxiliary, similar to constructions in Germanic and Romance languages. The accusative and infinitive construction in classical Latin was often replaced by a subordinate clause introduced by quod or quia . This is almost identical, for example, to the use of que in similar constructions in French. Many of these developments are similar to Standard Average European and
SECTION 50
#1732765678158#157842