HUMANITIES215 Discovering Humanities Sayre Pearson 2 9781256735007

HUMANITIES215 Discovering Humanities Sayre Pearson 2 9781256735007 1304A HUMA215-07 Please reference include sayre. DISCUSSION BOARD -2 in 12th century, literacy women increased. Though literacy Latin limited specific social classes, literacy local vernacular languages increasingly commo

Initial Post: Write 100 words within the Discussion Board responding to the following questions. Create a substantive and clear post expressing your research, thoughts, and ideas:

• Discuss common characteristics of romantic or courtly love poems.

• What are your reactions to these expressions of romantic love?

• Does the content of the poetry surprise you in any way?

Romantic or courtly love poems expressed the devotion of a knight for his lord's lady. The love of the knight in the courtly love scenario was thus never likely to be consummated. It was supposed to be chaste and pure, much like the love a worshipper might feel for the Virgin Mary. The main audience of courtly love poetry was female and in the relationship women actually had the upper hand: the man was entirely submissive and showed his devotion by doing great deeds to win the lady's favor (Schwartz 2002). Courtly love was supposed to ennoble the knight and actually strengthen the bonds of the knight's obligations to his lord (Schwartz 2002). Thus, the conventions of medieval romance were substantially different than what would be acceptable in a modern romantic tale and were very much products of their times.

Reference

Schwartz, D. (2002). Courtly love. English 203. Retrieved from:

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl513/courtly/courtly.htm

• Choose one native language spoken in Europe, discuss the origins of the vernacular language and describe how the language spread.

• As a whole, in what ways has Latin influenced Western language development?

French, like all Romantic languages, derives from Latin. French evolved from the blend of the languages particular to Gaul after the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the Germanic invasions. "The Gallo-Roman population spoke what was known then as local common Romanic, which varied in form from region to region. A multitude of regional languages developed throughout Gaul that were subdivided into dialects…the Franks introduced the Romanic dialects to new linguistic trends such as their Nordic accent and phonetic system, which led to a much sharper pronunciation of Romanic vowels" (History of the French language, 2013, Site for language management in Canada).

Overall, throughout the former areas of the Roman Empire in Europe, there were two distinct dialect patterns: the langue d'oc in the South which "remained more closely linked to Latin, whereas the Northern langue d'oil was more strongly influenced by other languages" such as Germanic languages (Latin and the development of the vernacular language, 1996, First Europe Tutorial). These names were given based upon the pronunciation of the word 'yes' in their respective dialects (Latin and the development of the vernacular language, 1996, First Europe Tutorial). Although Gallo-Roman France was divided into a multitude of dialects, the dialect of Paris "gradually became the national language, however, because of the political prestige of the capital and today is accepted as the model for the French language" (History of the French language, 2013, Discover France)

Well into the 10th century, the kings of what would become modern France spoke Frankish, the language of the Germanic Franks. It was not until 987, when Hugues Capet was crowned King of France did a king speak 'French' as his native language. "What is called francien, francais or francois -- the language of Ile-de-France -- was not yet very widespread...It was a common form of Old French that was distinct from the Latin that clerks used and the dialects of French speakers at that time. The aristocracy, clerks, jurists, and the middle class began to use this form of French. When Louis IX (now called Saint Louis) ascended the throne (1226 -- 1270), linguistic unification was in part achieved and the dominance of French was assured" (History of the French language, 2013, Site for language management in Canada).

French exhibited some notable differences than Latin, following the trend of the other Romance languages by eliminating declensions of nouns. "The Latin word porta, 'door,' for instance, had three singular forms: nominative, vocative, and ablative porta; accusative portam; and genitive and dative portae" (History of the French language, 2013, Discover France). Yet despite these distinctions, the pervading influence of Latin in the development of Western languages cannot be over-emphasized. Latin was still preserved as the language of the church liturgy, government administration and used in institutions of higher learning. All educated persons spoke and wrote Latin.