Conclusion

Summary

In De Finibus bonorum et malorum (45 BC), Marcus Tullius Cicero begins by stating “In this work I am putting into Latin themes which philosophers of the highest talent and most refined learning have dealt with in Greek,” an action he readily admits will attract the criticism of those who attach greater prestige to the ancient philosophical language. He laments that many of his readers claim to despise their own Latin vernacular: “their native tongue gives them no pleasure when it deals with matters of the highest import.” Cicero could scarcely have imagined that centuries later his vernacular would become the official language of education, law, government, and diplomacy throughout the West. Moreover, just as Cicero had once done, medieval authors would also need to justify the value and appropriateness of their vernaculars when treating weighty subject matter. Around 1300, in his De Vulgari eloquentia, Dante Alighieri famously advocated the elevation of Italian. Describing the sound of the vernacular languages as a din that recalled Babel, Dante decreed that of the languages of oc, oïl, and si (Occitan, Old French, and Italian), Italian held the greatest prestige because its si most closely resembled the sound of the Latin sic. In a gesture of simultaneous deference to and displacement of the prestige of Latin, Dante recast Italian as a unifying language that could return the vernaculars to the harmony that preceded Babel.