“Wel iet wat verschelende, maar zó niet óf elck verstaat ander zeer
wel”
On language making in early modern mono- and multilingual grammars and
textbooks in the Low Countries
This paper delves into language differentiation in the 16th and
17th-century Low Countries, focusing on how vernacular languages were labeled
and framed in grammatical descriptions. We examine both monolingual grammars as
well as grammatical descriptions in multilingual textbooks for foreign language
learners. By comparing these two corpora, we gain insights into the differences
between monolingual and multilingual approaches to language differentiation and
uncover language ideologies that shaped the Language-Making process during this
early stage of standard languages. An example of language differentiation is the
evolving relation between ‘Dutch’ and ‘German’. In the monolingual grammars,
Dutch is explicitly positioned along the lines of an ‘ours’ versus a ‘theirs’,
but what is considered ‘ours’ differs between the grammars and changes over
time. In the multilingual textbooks, the direct juxtaposition between Dutch and
German on the title page leads to distinct labels (‘Nederduits’ vs. ‘Hoogduits’)
whereas there is no consistent distinction in the body of these textbooks until
the late 17th century. Overall, we conclude that a ‘Dutch language’ was
certainly being ‘made’ during this period, in name and in reference to other
vernacular languages. However, its boundaries were still fuzzy, reflecting the
multilingual reality of the early modern Low Countries.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Language differentiation and language making
- 3.Corpus and methods
- 3.1Monolingual grammars
- 3.2Multilingual textbooks
- 4.Results
- 4.1Naming, contrasting and differentiating vernacular languages in monolingual
grammars (1568–1653)
- 4.1.1Contrast: Languages mentioned and labels used
- 4.1.2Contrast: Differentiation, purism, analogy
- 4.1.3Consistency: Labels for Dutch and German
- 4.1.4Change: Reparcelling the ‘Duits’ continuum
- 4.2Naming, contrasting and differentiating vernacular languages in multilingual
textbooks (1527–1691)
- 4.2.1Contrast: Languages mentioned and labels used
- 4.2.2Contrast: Differentiation and analogy
- 4.2.3Variation and change: Labels for vernacular languages within and across
textbooks
- 5.Discussion
- Notes
-
References