Metalinguistic Strategies in Early Modern Language Controversies

Abstract

All over early modern Europe, philologists and grammarians expressed patriotic pride in their native vernaculars and traced impressive derivations from prestigious ancient languages. While Hebrew generally held pride of place, claims of the greatest antiquity and prestige were also made for the Celtic and Germanic languages, and elaborate theories constructed to justify them. In all of this, rhetorical strategies were employed: heavily loaded language was used when writing about languages themselves, to weaponise them as instruments of national prestige and sneer at inferior rivals. After discussing the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century theorists, this article focuses on the claims made for the unique, unchangeable superiority of French, before concluding with an extended consideration of the work of Gilles Ménage, the most distinguished linguistic scholar of the age, who is unique in eschewing such emotive terms.