Re: USAGE: Vulgate (was: Slezan)

On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 02:21:23PM -0500, jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM wrote:
> The Vulgate is written in Classical Latin, or at least Jerome's best rendering
> of it.  It is not written in common people's Latin, but rather is the Bible
> for common people, those who had no Hebrew or Greek.
Oh!  Well, that makes sense, of course!  In the 300s, nobody wrote the
language they spoke; writing was a completely separate activity, limited
to the extremely educated, and learning to write was learning another
language.  Something which didn't really change until Dante had the
audacity to write in Italian instead of Latin.

Nevertheless, despite knowing this, I had been led astray by the
name "Vulgate" and have long believed it to have been written in
the vulgar Latin.  Thanks for setting me straight.

-Mark
>
> --
> John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
> "If he has seen farther than others,
>         it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves."
>                 --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)

Reply