La langue des esclaves peut-elle parler de Dieu ? La langue occitane à la conquête de son acrolecte religieux

Abstract

Can the language of slaves speak of God ? The Occitan language dominating its religious acrolect. From the 10th century onwards, in Occitan speaking areas, a process of language construction developed rapidly. This led to the promotion of everyday language, which derived from spoken Latin, firstly to the level of the judicial acrolect (feudal oaths), then to that of the literary acrolect (the trobar) and finally to the level of the religious acrolect (preaching and theo-logising by dissident Christians, the boni homines). This final gain, centred on mastery of a new holy language, unleashed the devastating reaction of the custodians of the official holy language. It accelerated the pushing of « common speech » and the « vernacular », towards the margins and therefore to heresy and ignorance. This ascendancy was outside the law but creative. This communication is an opportunity to remind us that we have an obligation of neutrality by choosing a metalanguage which fails to pass on the vocabulary inherited from medieval clerks.