Vernacular literature - Wikipedia Vernacular literature From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Vernacular literature" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people". In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin. In this context, vernacular literature appeared during the Middle Ages at different periods in the various countries; the earliest European vernacular literatures are Irish literature, Welsh literature, Anglo-Saxon literature and Gothic literature[citation needed]. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri, in his De vulgari eloquentia, was possibly the first European writer to argue cogently for the promotion of literature in the vernacular.[1] Important early vernacular works include Dante's Divine Comedy, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (both in Italian), John Barbour's The Brus (in Scots), Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in Middle English) and Jacob van Maerlant's Spieghel Historiael (in Middle Dutch). Indeed, Dante's work actually contributed towards the creation of the Italian language. Leonardo Da Vinci used vernacular in his work. The term is also applied to works not written in the standard and/or prestige language of their time and place. For example, many authors in Scotland, such as James Kelman and Edwin Morgan have used Scots, even though English is now the prestige language of publishing in Scotland. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o writes in his native Gikuyu language though he previously wrote in English. Some authors have written in invented vernacular; examples of such novels include the futuristic literary novels A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Boxy an Star by Daren King. Contents 1 See also 2 Outside Europe 3 References 4 See also See also[edit] • Creole languages Outside Europe[edit] By extension, the term is also used to describe, for example, Chinese literature not written in classical Chinese and Indian literature after Sanskrit. In the Indian culture, traditionally religious or scholarly works were written in Prakrit, Tamil and Sanskrit.[2] With the rise of the Bhakti movement from the 8th century on-wards, religious works began to be created in Kannada, and Telugu, and from the 12th Century onward in many other Indian languages throughout the different regions of India. For example, the Ramayana, one of Hinduism's sacred epics in Sanskrit, had vernacular versions such as Ramacharitamanasa, a Hindi version of the Ramayana by the 16th century poet Tulsidas. In China, the New Culture Movement of the 1910s–20s promoted vernacular literature. In the Caribbean, poets and novelists often write in the vernacular. Earl Lovelace wrote the novel Salt, using expressions, accents, and grammatical structures known to everyday people in Trinidad and Tobago.[3] Giannina Braschi wrote the Spanglish classic novel Yo-Yo Boing! in dramatic dialogues in the vernacular English and Spanish of contemporary New York City, with long passages arguments in Spanglish about racism, sexism, and discrimination[4] Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott used creole phrases known to St. Lucia, such as "Each phrase go be soaked in salt").[5] In the Philippines, the term means any written literature in a language other than Filipino (or Tagalog) or English. At present, it forms the second largest corpus of literature, following the literature in Tagalog. During the Spanish colonial era, when Filipino was not yet existing as a national lingua franca, literature in this type flourished. Aside from religious literature, such as the Passiong Mahal (the Passion of Our Lord), zarzuelas were also produced using the Philippine vernacular languages.[citation needed] In terms of Arabic, vernacular literature refers to literature written in any of the dialects of Arabic as opposed to Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic. Examples of literary figures who have written in the Egyptian dialect are Ahmed Fouad Negm, Muhammad Husayn Haykal and Salah Jahin, as well as a wave of modern writers.[citation needed] References[edit] ^ http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/dante.html ^ http://www.southasia.sas.upenn.edu/tamil/lit.html ^ Hodge, Merle (1998). "Dialogue and Narrative Voice in Earl Lovelace's "The Schoolmaster"". Journal of West Indian Literature. 8 (1): 56–72. ISSN 0258-8501. ^ González, Christopher (2017). Permissible narratives : the promise of Latino/a literature. Columbus. ISBN 978-0-8142-1350-6. OCLC 975447664. ^ Breiner, Laurence A. (2005). "Creole Language in the Poetry of Derek Walcott". Callaloo. 28 (1): 29–41. ISSN 0161-2492. See also[edit] Medieval literature Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vernacular_literature&oldid=994682540" Categories: Literature by language Diglossia Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from September 2014 All articles needing additional references All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from September 2015 Articles with unsourced statements from May 2016 Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Add links This page was last edited on 17 December 2020, at 00:10 (UTC). 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