ABSTRACT

Before the late eighth century, with a few exceptions (epigraphy, the languages of the Caucasus and the North-Western Isles), little had been written in Europe in languages other than Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The long ninth century saw this monopoly of the ‘three sacred languages’ shaken and challenged: several vernacular languages (Celtic, Germanic and Slavonic, but also, if to a lesser extent, Romance) appeared in writing for the first time and others developed in significant ways. This paper, introducing this special issue on Vernacular Languages in the Long Ninth Century, starts with an assessment of the linguistic situation of Europe before the changes began; it goes on with a summary of the main developments known to have taken place in the long ninth century; it then addresses their possible connections and observable entanglements and identifies the conditions that allowed the emergence and the sustained flourishing of written vernaculars.

摘要

在 8 世纪后期之前，除了少数例外（碑文、高加索和西北群岛的语言），欧洲几乎没有用拉丁语、希腊语和希伯来语以外的语言书写。漫长的 9 世纪见证了“三种神圣语言”的这种垄断地位受到动摇和挑战：几种方言语言（凯尔特语、日耳曼语和斯拉夫语，但也有，如果在较小程度上，罗曼语）首次以书面形式出现，其他语言则在重要的方式。这篇论文，介绍了这个关于九世纪白话文的特刊, 从变化开始前对欧洲语言状况的评估开始；它继续总结了在漫长的 9 世纪发生的主要发展；然后讨论它们可能的联系和可观察到的纠缠，并确定允许书面方言出现和持续繁荣的条件。