How Did Italians Communicate When There Was No Italian? Italo-Romance Intercomprehension in the Late Middle Ages. (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Carlucci, Alessandro
• Is Part Of: Italianist. Volume 40:Number 1(2020)
• Page Start: 19
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: multilingualism -- intelligibility -- language contact -- history of the Italian language -- orality and writing -- Jacopone da Todi; multilinguismo -- intelligibilità -- contatto linguistico -- storia della lingua italiana -- oralità e scrittura -- Jacopone da Todi; Italian language -- Periodicals; Italian literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Italy -- Periodicals; 945.005
• DOI: 10.1080/02614340.2020.1748328
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0261-4340

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Historians (including historians of oral and written culture, and to some extent also literary historians) have long been aware of the role of Latin as a potential barrier to intelligibility, but they have very rarely considered the possibility that Italy's vernacular varieties could equally impede communication. Linguists, on the other hand, are for the most part convinced that medieval speakers were trapped in a myriad of mutually unintelligible vernaculars. In this article, these conflicting views are tested on a range of late medieval sources, which reveal how speakers perceived the lexicon as the structural level creating the main problems of intelligibility. In some cases, phonological and morphological differences were also perceived as sources of misunderstanding and as potential barriers to communication. On the whole, however, these barriers do not seem to have been as insurmountable as the traditional views of most linguists would lead us to expect.