Purismus – Diskurse und Praktiken der Sprachreinheit

Abstract

Linguistic purism is one of the most important aspects of the European language debate between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The quest for a ‘pure’ language, which could be considered prestigious and exemplary, became a guiding concern for European vernaculars. This contribution explores this debate within the closely related linguistic cultures and literatures of Italy, France, and Germany. Its fundamental thesis is that only in the early modern period did ‘purity of language’ become a ‘figure of aesthetic reflection’, according to the terminology of the CRC 1391. It was during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that the rhetorical and stylistic questions of puritas sermonis were linked back, through standardisation attempts in the vernaculars, to socio-political discourses and institutions. In this way, the demand for and promotion of ‘linguistic purity’ gave rise to various aesthetics, as well as social attitudes, programs, and practices aimed towards ‘linguistic purification’. These were initially carried out systematically by institutions, in particular by language academies and language societies. This contribution describes standardisation strategies in the three respective languages and literatures, in order to illustrate the central role and concrete practices and goals of the Accademia della Crusca, the Académie française, and the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. The conclusion examines three documents within the context of the linguistic politics and agendas of the respective academies: the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, Vaugelas’ Remarques sur la langue françoise and Harsdörffer’s Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele.