Risposte tipo essay a domande esame Plescia

The Inkhorn Controversy

The above-mentioned "inkhorn controversy" was an intellectual battle between two different ideologies which were in favour or not of borrowing terms from other languages, in particular those with Latin roots, called "inkhorn terms" because of their length, especially if compared to Germanic ones. In the absence of a specific, strong institution proposing norms, like a language academy, as it was the case in England in this period, linguistic controversies arise, like the one in question, which took place during the transition from Middle English (from 1066 to 1476) to Modern English (from 1476 to nowadays). After displacing French in Parliament for the first time in 1362, English competed with Latin as the main language of science and learning in England; although it replaced Latin as the main language in schools in 1385, universities of Oxford and Cambridge still had Latin as the main language. On the one hand, some intellectuals thought "inkhorn words", usually

long and polysyllabic (e.g. “orgoulous” instead of “proud” in Middle English), highly borrowed by Early Modern English with a change of ending, were not worth the effort, and were in favour of the idea of “purity” and “simplicity” of the Anglo-Saxon language (although it already contained other languages). The other faction firmly believed English needed more sophisticated words to improve, so it was important to take these words and use them in English either by taking them in their original form or by modifying them. It is true that in the age of the Tudors, especially Elizabeth I, who had a long, stable reign and a prestigious, distinguishing position in Europe, the boundaries and the purity of Englishness were preserved. Nevertheless, that very same queen was entirely at ease with the prestigious languages of her time. Also Shakespeare, quintessential English poet, was at ease with the prestige languages of his period. Against the supposed

purity of the language, translators won, language cannot be pure; in order to keep a language "pure", one should stop all communication with any other people in the world.

To conclude, although all cultures have (or had) the idea that there was a moment when their language rose, if one starts thinking of their language as containing various other languages, the idea of purism crumbles. The only way of keeping a language "pure" would be stopping all communication with other people in the world, which is impossible, especially in the age of globalisation. Moreover, people tend to think about English as a language that exports words, but it actually imported and still imports a lot of words from other languages.

Myths about Shakespeare

It cannot be denied that Shakespeare is a quintessential English writer, perhaps the most famous one, thanks to his works, dealing with passions of humanity (in more or less localised situations). His greatness is worldwide recognised. Yet,

There are some myths to be debunked: the impossibility to understand him without translation, the size of his vocabulary and his invention of words. Does this debunking make him any less great? Considering the debunking in question valid, Shakespeare’s greatness must lie somewhere else.

First and foremost, it is a widespread idea that it is impossible to understand Shakespeare’s works without translating or paraphrasing them. In this regard, a distinction between difficulty of language and difficulty of thought should be made. It is a known fact that Early Modern English is mainly similar to current English. Therefore, since no major structural shift has happened since then, it is perfectly understandable. Only 5-10% of Shakespeare’s grammar actually causes problems. Then, as David Crystal writes in his book “Think on my words, Exploring Shakespeare’s Language” (2008), people should just be more fluent in Shakespearean (like it was a foreign language, yet, this

non escludere la traduzione, che è estremamente importante quando si impara una lingua straniera) al fine di comprendere semplicemente Shakespeare leggendolo. Nella maggior parte dei casi, scrive Crystal, si tratta di una "semplificazione" piuttosto che di una traduzione. In secondo luogo, il vocabolario di Shakespeare è spesso considerato "il più ampio vocabolario di qualsiasi scrittore inglese", come scrive David Crystal nel libro sopra citato. Tuttavia, qualsiasi scrittore moderno ha un vocabolario più ampio di Shakespeare a causa dell'invenzione di molte nuove parole (come parole informatiche, ecc.), che semplicemente non poteva conoscere. Sebbene i commentatori dovrebbero concentrarsi sulla creatività di Shakespeare, sembrano ossessionati dalla quantità di parole che conosceva e usava. Lo scrittore aveva effettivamente un ampio vocabolario per il suo periodo (circa 20.000 parole senza contare le forme varianti separatamente) a causa della varietà di opere che ha scritto, come drammi storici, storie d'amore, ecc. Tuttavia, non è paragonabile al vocabolario di uno scrittore contemporaneo. In terzo luogo,Shakespeare is seen as a creator of words, a considerable amount of the English language. However, it is difficult to state clearly who invented a word even nowadays, so it was in Shakespearean time. The writer lived in a multilingual environment, he did what translators were doing, for example adding suffixes to Latin or Greek words in order to bring them into English (e.g. civilitas → civility; antiquitas → antiquity). It is important to bear in mind that the age in which he wrote was one of the most lexically inventive periods in the history of the language. It is precisely in this period that the inkhorn controversy takes place. It was an intellectual battle between two different ideologies which were in favour or not of borrowing terms from other languages, in particular those with Latin roots, called "inkhorn terms" because of their length. Considering this, the reason why Shakespeare invented a specific word rather than another is a more interesting point of.

reflection than simply wondering why he invented words.