Outlining the Ancestry of a Autonomous Means of Communication
When one decides to embark on a study of French literature in its modern sense, the 11th century is the earliest back he/she will be able to reach. The actual manuscripts which we possess are seldom of older date than the century subsequent to this. The French language of the time was anything but a pure form of the modern French – indicates French Translation of those texts. But there is no doubt that by the end at least of the 11th century the French language as a completely organized medium of literary expression was in full, varied and constant use. For ages prior to this, various literary forms had been written in France, or by citizens of that land, using the name France in its modern sense; nevertheless, as far as we are informed, until the end of the 8th century, or later, France’s written language was Latin. Therefore, it does not seem to make any sense, save for few literary historians to argue that Latin writings occupy a significant place in French literature. What makes such an interpretation so attractive is the time when contemporary French bore the name Lingua Romana Rustica but in the subsequent years it shaped up so that it could become an independent language. As early as the 7th century, the Lingua Romana, as distinguished from Latin and from Teutonic dialects, is mentioned and this Lingua Romana would be of necessity used for legal proceedings. A translation of these documents from Latin into French by a Legal Document Translation service became available recently. The first written scripts in the French language, as most literary critics would claim, date back to the 9th to the 11 century and range tremendously in character and content. One of them confirms how Louis the German allied himself with Charles the Bald exchanging the Oaths of Strassburg.
Speaking about the Germans, they unfortunately failed to become accustomed – in comparison to their Scandinavian neighbors and their English cousins who were heavily influenced by Latin – to the new literary order imposed by France and Italy on Europe. The aspiration to stay clean from alien influences wrongly accused of being harmful underlies the German literary tradition. Despite this, 18th century English literature and early 20th century Scandinavian literature which were also thought to have a negative effect on the German tradition were greeted as entirely positive. One of the most fruitful periods in the history of German literature is probably the Reformation. Germany’s most famous man of letters in his time was Martin Luther. His work necessitates more research than anyone else’s activity not only in terms of literary achievement, but also for his religious enlightenment because the intellectual capacity of the time was unthinkable without him. The Bible Luther produced was unique because it brought intellectual and religious wellbeing not only to the German people but also to their literature. Luther thoroughly realized that a German to English Translation of the Bible would earn him immortality so he made all possible effort so that he could produce an entirely German work. It was important that the dialect into which the Bible was translated should be comprehensible over as wide an area as possible of the German-speaking world. The language of the Saxon chancery thus became, thanks to Luther’s initiative, the basis of the modern High German literary language.