A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is a second language or foreign language to the population, such as a national language, standard language, or lingua franca.

The oldest known vernacular manuscript in Scanian (Danish, c. 1250.) It deals with Scanian and Scanian Ecclesiastical Law.

An allegory of philosophy and grammar, Trinci Palace, Foligno, Italy, by Gentile da Fabriano, who lived at about the time the Italian language was being standardized.

Etymology[link]

Look up vernacular in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The term is not a recent one. In 1688 James Howell wrote:

Concerning Italy, doubtless there were divers before the Latin did spread all over that Country; the Calabrian, and Apulian spoke Greek, whereof some Relicks are to be found to this day; but it was an adventitious, no Mother-Language to them: 'tis confess'd that Latium it self, and all the Territories about Rome, had the Latin for its maternal and common first vernacular Tongue; but Tuscany and Liguria had others quite discrepant, viz. the Hetruscane and Mesapian, whereof though there be some Records yet extant; yet there are none alive that can understand them: The Oscan, the Sabin and Tusculan, are thought to be but Dialects to these.

Here vernacular, mother language and dialect are already in use in a modern sense.^[1] According to Merriam-Webster's,^[2] "vernacular" was brought into the English language as early as 1601 from Latin vernaculus, "native", which had been in figurative use in Classical Latin as "national" and "domestic", having originally been derived from vernus and verna, a male or female slave respectively born in the house rather than abroad. The figurative meaning was broadened from the diminutive extended words vernaculus, vernacula. Varro, the classical Latin grammarian, used the term vocabula vernacula, "termes de la langue nationale" or "vocabulary of the national language" as opposed to foreign words.^[3]

In some disciplines, such as Linguistic Anthropology, the term "vernacular" is falling out of usage and has come to be identified as an offensive term. "Dialect" or "dialect variation" is more appropriate in context, as the word "vernacular" comes from the Latin "vernaculus" (domestic, native) which in turn comes from the Etruscan "verna" (home-born slave, native).

Concepts of the vernacular[link]

General linguistic[link]

Opposed to lingua franca[link]

Allegory of Dante Alighieri, champion of the use of vernacular Italian for literature rather than the lingua franca, Latin. Fresco by Luca Signorelli in the cappella di San Brizio dome, Orvieto.

Ratio of books printed in the vernacular languages to those in Latin in the 15th century^[4]

In general linguistics, a vernacular is opposed to a lingua franca, a third-party language in which persons speaking different vernaculars not understood by each other may communicate.^[5] For instance, in Western Europe until the 17th century, most scholarly works had been written in Latin, which was serving as a lingua franca. Works written in Romance languages are said to be in the vernacular. The Divina Commedia, the Cantar de mio Cid, and The Song of Roland are examples of early vernacular literature in Italian, Spanish, and French, respectively.

In Europe, Latin was used widely instead of vernacular languages in varying forms until c. 1701, in its latter stage as New Latin.

In religion, Protestantism was a driving force in the use of the vernacular in Christian Europe, the Bible being translated from Latin into vernacular languages with such works as the Bible in Dutch: published in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt; Bible in French: published in 1528 by Jacques Lefevre d’Étaples (or Faber Stapulensis); German Luther Bible in 1534; Bible in Spanish: published in Basel in 1569 by Casiodoro de Reina (Biblia del Oso); Bible in Czech: Bible of Kralice, printed between 1579 and 1593; Bible in English: King James Bible, published in 1611. In Catholicism, vernacular bibles were later provided, but Latin was used at Tridentine Mass until the Second Vatican Council of 1965. Certain groups, notably Traditionalist Catholics, continue to practice Latin Mass.

In India, the 12th century Bhakti movement led to the translation of Sanskrit texts to the vernacular.

In science, an early user of the vernacular was Galileo, writing in Italian c. 1600, though some of his works remained in Latin. A later example is Isaac Newton, whose 1687 Principia was in Latin, but whose 1704 Opticks was in English. Latin continues to be used in certain fields of science, notably binomial nomenclature in biology, while other fields such as mathematics use vernacular; see scientific nomenclature for details.

In diplomacy, French displaced Latin in Europe in the 1710s, due to the military power of Louis XIV of France.

Certain languages have both a classical form and various vernacular forms, with two widely-used examples being Arabic and Chinese: see Varieties of Arabic and Chinese language. In the 1920s, due to the May Fourth Movement, Classical Chinese was replaced by written vernacular Chinese.

A low variant in diglossia[link]

The vernacular is also often contrasted with a liturgical language, a specialized use of a former lingua franca. For example, until the 1960s, Latin Rite Roman Catholics held Masses in Latin rather than in vernaculars; to this day the Coptic Church holds liturgies in Coptic, not Arabic; the Ethiopian Orthodox Church holds liturgies in Ge'ez though parts of Mass are read in Amharic.

Similarly, in Hindu culture, traditionally religious or scholarly works were written in Sanskrit (long after its use as a spoken language) or in Tamil in Tamil country. Sanskrit was a lingua franca among the non-Indo-European languages of the Indian subcontinent and became more of one as the spoken language, or prakrits, began to diverge from it in different regions. With the rise of the bhakti movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works were created in the other languages: Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and many others. For example, the Ramayana, one of Hinduism's sacred epics in Sanskrit, had vernacular versions such as Ranganadha Ramayanam composed in Telugu by Gona Buddha Reddy in the 15th century; and Ramacharitamanasa, a Hindi version of the Ramayana by the 16th century poet Tulsidas.

These circumstances are a contrast between a vernacular and language variant used by the same speakers. According to one school of linguistic thought, all such variants are examples of a linguistic phenomenon termed diglossia ("split tongue", on the model of the genetic anomaly^[6]). In it, the language is bifurcated; i.e., the speaker learns two forms of the language and ordinarily uses one but under special circumstances the other. The one most frequently used is the low (L) variant, equivalent to the vernacular, while the special variant is the high (H). The concept was introduced to linguistics by Charles A. Ferguson (1959), but Ferguson explicitly excluded variants as divergent as dialects or different languages or as similar as styles or registers. H must not be a conversational form; Ferguson had in mind a literary language. For example, a lecture is delivered in a different variety than ordinary conversation. Ferguson's own example was classical and spoken Arabic, but the analogy between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin is of the same type. Excluding the upper-class and lower-class register aspects of the two variants, Classical Latin was a literary language; the people spoke Vulgar Latin as a vernacular.

Joshua Fishman redefined the concept in 1964 to include everything Fergusen had excluded. Fishman allowed both different languages and dialects and also different styles and registers as the H variants. The essential contrast between them was that they be "functionally differentiated"; that is, H must be used for special purposes, such as a liturgical or sacred language. Fasold expanded the concept still further by proposing that multiple H exist in society from which the users can select for various purposes. The definition of an H is intermediate between Ferguson's and Fishman's. Realizing the inappropriateness of the term diglossia (only two) to his concept, he proposes the term broad diglossia.^[7]

Sociolinguistic[link]

Within the subcategory of sociolinguistics, the term vernacular has been applied to several concepts; unfortunately, it is only possible to identify which is meant in an authored work by context.

An informal register[link]

In variation theory, pioneered by William Labov, language is a large set of styles or registers from which the speaker selects according to the social setting of the moment. The vernacular is "the least self-conscious style of people in a relaxed conversation", or "the most basic style"; that is, casual varieties used spontaneously rather than self-consciously, informal talk used in intimate situations. In other contexts the speaker does conscious work to select the appropriate variations. The one he can use without this effort is the first form of speech acquired.^[8]

A non-standard dialect[link]

In another theory, the vernacular is opposed to the standard. The non-standard varieties thus defined are dialects, which are to be identified as complexes of factors: "social class, region, ethnicity, situation, and so forth." Both the standard and the non-standard language have dialects, but in contrast to the standard, the non-standard have "socially disfavored" structures. The standard are primarily written, but the non-standard are spoken. An example of a vernacular dialect is African American Vernacular English.^[9]

An idealisation[link]

A vernacular is not a real language but is "an abstract set of norms."^[10]

First vernacular grammars[link]

Through metalinguistic publications vernaculars acquired the status of official languages. Between 1437 and 1586 the first grammars of Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German and English were written, though not always immediately published. It is to be understood that the first vestiges of those languages preceded their standardization by up to several hundred years.

Irish grammar[link]

Auraicept na n-Éces is a grammar of the Irish language which is thought to date back as far as the 7th century: the earliest surviving manuscripts are 12th century.

Welsh grammar[link]

The so-called Grammar Books of the Master-poets (W.: Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid) are considered to have been composed in the early fourteenth century, and are present in manuscripts from soon after. These tractates draw on the traditions of the Latin grammars of Donatus and Priscianus and also on the teaching of the professional Welsh poets. The tradition of grammars of the Welsh Language developed from these through the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance.^[11]

Italian grammar[link]

Italian appears before standardization as the lingua Italica of Isidore and the lingua vulgaris of subsequent medieval writers. Documents of mixed Latin and Italian are known from the 12th century, which appears to be the start of writing in Italian.^[12]

The first known grammar of a Romance language was a book written in manuscript form by Leon Battista Alberti between 1437 and 1441 and entitled Grammatica della lingua toscana, "Grammar of the Tuscan Language" In it Alberti sought to demonstrate that the vernacular – here Tuscan, known today as modern Italian – was every bit as structured as Latin; He did so by mapping vernacular structures onto Latin.

The book was never printed until 1908. It was not generally known, but it was known, as an inventory of the library of Lorenzo de'Medici lists it under the title Regule lingue florentine ("Rules of the Florentine language"). The only known manuscript copy, however, is included in the codex, Reginense Latino 1370, located at Rome in the Vatican library. It is therefore called the Grammatichetta vaticana.^[13]

More influential perhaps were the 1516 Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua of Giovanni Francesco Fortunio and the 1525 Prose della vulgar lingua of Pietro Bembo. In those works the authors strove to establish a dialect that would qualify for becoming the Italian national language.^[14]

Spanish grammar[link]

Spanish, more accurately la lengua castellana, has a development chronologically similar to that of Italian: some vocabulary in Isidore of Seville, traces afterward, writing from about the 12th century, standardization beginning in the 15th century, coincident with the rise of Castile as an international power.^[15] The first Spanish grammar by Antonio de Nebrija (Tratado de gramática sobre la lengua Castellana, 1492) was divided into parts for native and nonnative speakers, pursuing a different purpose in each: Books 1–4 describe the Spanish language grammatically in order to facilitate the study of Latin for its Spanish speaking readers. Book 5 contains a phonetical and morphological overview of Spanish for nonnative speakers.

French grammar[link]

French emerged as a Gallo-Romance language from Vulgar Latin in the late antiquity period. The written language is known from at least as early as the 9th century. That language contained many forms still identifiable as Latin. Interest in standardizing French began in the 16th century.^[16] Because of the Norman conquest of England and the Anglo-Norman domains in both northwestern France and Britain, English scholars retained an interest in the fate of French as well as of English. Some of the numerous 16th-century surviving grammars are as follows.

• John Palsgrave: L'esclarcissement de la langue francoyse (in English), 1530
• Louis Meigret: Tretté de la grammaire françoeze, 1550
• Robert Stephanus: Traicté de la grammaire françoise, 1557

German grammar[link]

The development of a standard German was impeded by political disunity and strong local traditions until the invention of printing made possible a "High German-based book language."^[17] This literary language was not identical to any specific variety of German. The first grammar evolved from pedagogical works that also tried to create a uniform standard from the many regional dialects for various reasons. Religious leaders wished to create a sacred language for Protestantism that would be parallel to the use of Latin for the Roman Catholic Church. Various administrations wished to create a civil service, or chancery, language that would be useful in more than one locality. And finally, nationalists wished to counter the spread of the French national language into German-speaking territories assisted by the efforts of the French Academy.

With so many linguists moving in the same direction a standard German (hochdeutsche Schriftsprache) did evolve without the assistance of a language academy. Its precise origin, the major constituents of its features, remains uncertainly known and debatable. Latin prevailed as a lingua franca until the 17the century, when grammarians began to debate the creation of an ideal language. Before 1550 as a conventional date "supraregional compromises" were used in printed works, such as the one published by Valentin Ickelsamer (Ein Teutsche Grammatica) 1534. Books published in one of these artificial variants began to increase in frequency replacing the Latin then in use. After 1550 the supraregional ideal broadened to a universal intent to create a national language from Early New High German by deliberately ignoring regional forms of speech,^[18] which practice was considered to be a form of purification parallel to the ideal of purifying religion in Protestantism.

In 1617 the Fruitbearing Society, a language club, was formed in Weimar in imitation of the Accademia della Crusca in Italy. It was one of many such clubs; however, none became a national academy. In 1618–1619 Johannes Kromayer wrote the first all-German grammar.^[19] In 1641 Justin Georg Schottel in teutsche Sprachkunst presented the standard language as an artificial one. By the time of his work of 1663, ausführliche Arbeit von der teutschen Haubt-Sprache, the standard language was well established.

Dutch grammar[link]

A sermon of 1275 AD by Berthold von Regensburg made the earliest known distinction between the speech of the Niderlender and that of the Oberlender. The Niderlender, or speakers of Low German, were anyone living in the lowlands from the Baltic Sea to the Netherlands, while the Oberlender, who spoke High German, lived in more elevated terrain.^[20] The first known such distinction was made in Dutch – a Low German variant – in a printed book of 1482, which mentioned nederlantsche and oberlantsche sprake, still with the same ranges,^[21] with the meaning of neder duutsche and hoghen duutsche. Martin Luther, however, a generation later, used Niderlender to mean the population of the Burgundian Netherlands, a small state consisting of several lowland counties ruled by the Duke of Burgundy since its creation by Charles the Bald of the Holy Roman Empire in 843.^[20] By that time also northern Germany was using düdesch for their variant as opposed to duutsch in the low countries. The southerners referred to their speech as diutesch.

In the 16th century while Martin Luther was working out a compromise High German for his translation of the Bible, societies called rederijkerskamers, "chambers of rhetoric," were being formed in Flanders and Holland between 1550 and 1650, which at first attempted to impose a Latin structure on Dutch, on the presumption that Latin grammar had a "universal character."^[22] However in 1559 Jan van den Werve published his grammar Den schat der Duytsscher Talen in Dutch and so did Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (Eenen nieuwen ABC of Materi-boeck) in 1564. The Latinizing tendency changed course with the joint publication in 1584 by De Eglantier, the rhetoric society of Amsterdam, of the first comprehensive Dutch grammar, Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst/ ófte Vant spellen ende eyghenscap des Nederduitschen taals. Hendrick Laurenszoon Spieghel was a major contributor but others contributed as well.

English grammar[link]

Modern English is considered to have begun at a conventional date of about 1550, most notably at the end of the Great Vowel Shift (for example, bot, the footwear, more as in boat to boot)^{[clarification needed]}. It was created by the infusion of Old French into Old English after the Norman conquest of 1066 AD and of Latin at the instigation of the clerical administration. While modern-English-speaking adolescents regularly read Middle English authors such as Chaucer in secondary school with some coaching, Old English cannot be understood without more study.

Middle English is known for its alternative spellings and pronunciations. The British Isles, although geographically limited, have always supported populations of widely variant dialects (as well as a few different languages). Being the language of a maritime power, English was of necessity formed from elements of many different languages. Standardization has been an ongoing issue. Even in the age of modern communications and mass media, according to one study,^[23] "… although the Received Pronunciation of Standard English has been heard constantly on radio and then television for over 60 years, only 3 to 5% of the population of Britain actually speaks RP … new brands of English have been springing up even in recent times ...." What the vernacular would be in this case is a moot point: "… the standardisation of English has been in progress for many centuries."

Modern English came into being as the standard Middle English – that is, the preferred dialect of the king, his court and administration. That dialect was East Midland, which had spread to London where the king resided and from which he ruled. It contained Danish forms not often used in the north or south, as the Danes had settled heavily in the midlands. Chaucer wrote in an early East Midland, Wycliffe translated the New Testament into it and William Caxton, the first English printer, wrote in it. The first printed book in England was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, published by Caxton in 1476. Caxton is considered the first modern English author.^[24]

The first English grammars were written in Latin, with some in French.^[25] After a general plea for mother-tongue education in England: The first part of the elementary, published in 1582 by Richard Mulcaster,^[26] William Bullokar wrote the first English grammar to be written in English: Pamphlet for Grammar, followed by Bref Grammar, both in 1586. Previously he had written Booke at Large for the Amendment of Orthography for English Speech (1580) but his orthography was not generally accepted and was soon supplanted, and his grammar shared a similar fate. Other grammars in English followed rapidly: Paul Greaves' Grammatica Anglicana, 1594; Alexander Hume's Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britain Tongue, 1617, and many others.^[27] Over the succeeding decades many literary figures turned a hand to grammar in English: Alexander Gill, Ben Jonson, Joshua Poole, John Wallis, Jeremiah Wharton, James Howell, Thomas Lye, Christopher Cooper, William Lily, John Colet and so on, all leading to the massive dictionary of Samuel Johnson.

First vernacular dictionaries[link]

A dictionary is to be distinguished from a glossary. Although numerous glossaries publishing vernacular words had long been in existence, such as the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, which listed many Spanish words, the first vernacular dictionaries emerged together with vernacular grammars.

Italian[link]

In the early 15th century a number of glossaries appeared, such as that of Lucillo Minerbi on Boccaccio in 1535, and those of Fabrizio Luna on Aristo^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Petrarca, Boccaccio and Dante in 1536. In the mid-16th the dictionaries began, as listed below. In 1582 the first language academy was formed, called Accademia della Crusca, "bran academy", which sifted language like grain. Once formed, its publications were standard-setting.^[28]

Monolingual[link]

• Alberto Accarisio: Vocabolario et grammatica con l'orthographia della lingua volgare, 1543
• Francesco Alunno: Le richezze della lingua volgare, 1543
• Francesco Alunno: La fabbrica del mondo, 1548
• Giacomo Pergamini: Il memoriale della lingua italiana, 1602
• Accademia della Crusca: Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, 1612

Italian/French[link]

• Nathanael Duez : Dittionario italiano e francese/Dictionnaire italien et François, Leiden, 1559–1560
• Gabriel Pannonius: Petit vocabulaire en langue françoise et italienne, Lyon, 1578
• Jean Antoine Fenice : Dictionnaire françois et italien, Paris, 1584

Italian/English[link]

• John Florio: A Worlde of Words, London, 1598
• John Florio: Queen Anna’s New World of Words, London, 1611

Italian/Spanish[link]

• Cristóbal de las Casas: Vocabulario de las dos lenguas toscana y castellana, Sevilla, 1570
• Lorenzo Franciosini: Vocabulario italiano e spagnolo/ Vocabulario español e italiano, Roma, 1620.

Spanish[link]

The first Spanish dictionaries in the 15th century were Latin-Spanish/Spanish-Latin, followed by monolingual Spanish. In 1713 the Real Academia Española, "Royal Spanish Academy," was founded to set standards. It published an official dictionary, 1726–1739.

• Alonzo de Palencia: El universal vocabulario en latin y romance, 1490
• Antonio de Nebrija: Lexicon latino-hispanicum et hispanico-latinum, 1492
• Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco: Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, 1611
• Real Academia Española: Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726–1739

French[link]

Surviving dictionaries are a century earlier than their grammars. The Académie française founded in 1635 was given the obligation of producing a standard dictionary. Some early dictionaries are:

• Louis Cruse, alias Garbin: Dictionaire latin-françois, 1487
• Robert Estienne, alias Robertus Stephanus: Dictionnaire françois–latin, 1539
• Maurice de la Porte: Epitheta, 1571
• Jean Nicot: Thresor de la langue fracoyse, tant ancienne que moderne, 1606
• Pierre Richelet: Dictionnaire françois contenant les mots et les choses, 1680
• Académie française: Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1694 and subsequently

German[link]

High German dictionaries began in the 16th century and were at first multi-lingual. They were preceded by glossaries of German words and phrases on various specialized topics. Finally interest in developing a vernacular German grew to the point where Maaler could publish a work called by Jacob Grimm "the first truly German dictionary:"^[29]

• Joshua Maaler: Die Teutsche Spraach: Dictionarium Germanico-latinum novum, 1561

It was followed along similar lines by

• Georg Heinisch: Teütsche Sprache und Weißheit, 1616

After numerous dictionaries and glossaries of a less than comprehensive nature came a thesaurus that attempted to include all German:

• Kaspar Stieler: Der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum und Fortwachs oder Teutschen Sprachschatz, 1691

and finally the first codification of written German:^[30]

• Johann Christoph Adelung: Versuch eines vollständigen grammatisch-kritischen Wörterbuches Der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 1774–1786

Schiller called Adlung an Orakel and Wieland is said to have nailed a copy to his desk.

Dutch[link]

Glossaries in Dutch began about 1470 AD leading eventually to two Dutch dictionaries:^[31]

• Christophe Plantin: Thesaurus Theutonicae Linguae, 1573
• Cornelis Kiliaan: Dictionarium Teutonico-Latinum, 1574 (becoming Etymologicum with the 1599 3rd edition)

Shortly after (1579) the Southern Netherlands came under the dominion of Spain, then of Austria (1713) and of France (1794). The Congress of Vienna created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 from which southern Netherlands (being Catholic) seceded in 1830 to form the Kingdom of Belgium, which was confirmed in 1839 by the Treaty of London.^[32] As a result of this political instability no standard Dutch was defined (even though much in demand and recommended as an ideal) until after World War II. Currently the Dutch Language Union, an international treaty organization founded in 1980, supports a standard Dutch in the Netherlands, while Afrikaans is regulated by Die Taalkommissie founded in 1909.

English[link]

Standard English remains a quasi-fictional ideal, despite the numerous private organizations publishing prescriptive rules for it. No language academy was ever established or espoused by any government past or present in the English-speaking world. In practice the British monarchy and its administrations established an ideal of what good English should be considered to be, and this in turn was based on the teachings of the major universities, such as Cambridge University, Oxford University and Hull University, which relied on the scholars whom they hired. There is a general but far from uniform consensus among the leading scholars about what should or should not be said in standard English, but for every rule examples from famous English writers can be found that break it. Uniformity of spoken English never existed and does not exist now, but usages do exist, which must be learned by the speakers, and do not conform to prescriptive rules.

Usages have been documented not by prescriptive grammars, which on the whole are less comprehensible to the general public, but by comprehensive dictionaries, often termed unabridged, which attempt to list all usages of words and the phrases in which they occur as well as the date of first use and the etymology where possible. These typically require many volumes, and yet not more so than the unabridged dictionaries of many languages.

Bilingual dictionaries and glossaries precede modern English and were in use in the earliest written English. The first monolingual dictionary was:^[33]

• Robert Cawdrey: Table Alphabeticall, 1604

which was followed by a larger one,

• Edward Phillips: A New World of English Words, 1658
• Nathaniel Bailey: An Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1721

These dictionaries whetted the interest of the English-speaking public in greater and more prescriptive dictionaries until Samuel Johnson published a grand design for such a one:

• Samuel Johnson: Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, 1747

which would imitate the dictionary being produced by the French Academy. He had no problem acquiring the funding, but not as a prescriptive dictionary. This was to be a grand comprehensive dictionary of all English words at any period:

• Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

By 1858 the need for an update resulted in the first planning for a new comprehensive dictionary, which would document standard English, a term coined at that time by the planning committee.^[34] The dictionary, known as the Oxford English Dictionary, published its first fascicle in 1884. It attracted significant contributions from some singular minds, such as William Chester Minor, a former army surgeon who had become criminally insane and made most of his contributions while incarcerated. Whether the OED is the long-desired standard English Dictionary is debatable, but its authority is taken seriously by the entire English-speaking world. Its staff is currently working on a third edition.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Bex, Tony (1999), "Representations of English in twentieth-century Britain: Fowler, Gowers, Partridge", in Bex, Tony; Watts, Richard J., Standard English: the widening debate, New York: Routledge, pp. 89–112, 0-415-19162-9 .
• Brachin, Pierre (1985). The Dutch language: a survey. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 
• Champneys, Arthur Charles (1893). History of English: a sketch of the origin and development of the English with Examples, Down to the Present Day. New York: Macmillan and Co.. 
• DeGrauwe, Luc (2002), "Emerging Mother-Tongue Awareness: The Special Case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period", in Linn, Andrew Robert; McLelland, Nicola, Standardization: studies from the Germanic languages, Amsterdam; Philadelphis: John Benjamins Publishing Co., pp. 99–116 
• Diez, Friedrich (1863). Introduction to the grammar of the Romance languages. London, Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate. 
• Dons, Ute (2004). Descriptive adequacy of early modern English grammars. Topics in English Linguistics, 47. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 
• Fasold, Ralph W. (1984). The sociolinguistics of society. v. 1. Oxford, England; New York, NY, USA: B. Blackwell. 
• Keller, Marcello Sorce (1984). "Folk Music in Trentino: Oral Transmission and the Use of Vernacular Languages". Ethnomusicology XXVIII (1): 75–89. 
• Lodge, R. Anthony (2005). A sociolinguistic history of Parisian French. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press. 
• Mesthrie, Rajend (1999). Introducing sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 
• Noordegraaf, Jan (2000), "The Normative Study of the National Languages from the 17th Century Onwards", in Auroux, Sylvain, History of the language sciences : an international handbook on the evolution of the study of language from the beginnings to the present, Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Bd. 18, Volume 2, Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 893–900 .
• Wells, C. J. (1985). German, a linguistic history to 1945. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 

External links[link]

Look up vernacular in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Illich, Ivan. "Vernacular Values". The Preservation Institute. http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Vernacular.html. Retrieved 7 November 2009. 

John Maus (born February 23, 1980) is an American avant-garde musician and composer. A keyboard player for Animal Collective, Panda Bear and Ariel Pink, he has released three albums of his own music to mixed reviews.^[1] He grew up in Austin, Minnesota,^[2] and studied music at the California Institute of the Arts. He later went on to study philosophy at the European Graduate School, in Saas Fee Switzerland, to work towards a PhD in political philosophy.^[3] As a college student he was interested in experimental music and performance art involving music, such as the work of Michael Pisaro. When he met and began to work with and alongside Ariel Pink, he took a greater interest in pop music.^[3] He is known for his eclectic samples when composing, "an almost absurd mix – a stand-off between taut, bass-driven post-punk, whooshing electro-pop and, thanks to the chants and bleak intoning, Medieval and Gregorian disco."^[1]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• 2006: Songs (Upset the Rhythm)
• 2007: Love Is Real (Upset the Rhythm)
• 2011: We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset the Rhythm)

Compilation Appearances[link]

• 2006: From U.S. to I (Ballbearings Pinatas)
• 2006: The Human Ear Vol.1 (Human Ear Music)
• 2007: Mistletonia Xmas compilation (Mistletone)

With Ariel Pink[link]

• 1999: Underground (Vinyl International)
• 2002: Loverboy (Ballbearings Pinatas)

Underground Releases[link]

• 1991: The Janitor's First LP, with Sam Anderson and Cory Boik
• 1992: The Janitor's Second LP, with Sam Anderson and Cory Boik
• 1993: A Janitor's EP, with Sam Anderson and Cory Boik
• 1994: Early Songs 1, with Cory Boik
• 1995: Early Songs 2
• 1996: Early Songs 3
• 1997: Early Songs 4
• 1998: Mass Appeal, with the Tony Alonso Ensemble
• 1998: The Mystery Molasses LP, with Ian Stahl, Jay Jensen, Gabe Schlake and Jess Bednar
• 1998: Early Songs 5
• 2000: Fish With Broken Dreams
• 2000: Love Letters From Hell
• 2001: Snowless Winters EP
• 2003: I Want to Live
• 2011: Demos

References[link]

External links[link]

• John Maus on Myspace
• Fan Site Mausspace
• Upset The Rhythm
• Essay and Interview
• Excerpt, "Listening Music"

African American

Frederick Douglass · Barack Obama · Rosa Parks Condoleezza Rice · M. L. King, Jr. · Beyoncé Knowles Malcolm X · Oprah Winfrey · Booker T. Washington Michael Jordan · Harriet Tubman · Muhammad Ali
Total population
African American 42,020,743[1] (13.6% of the US population)
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly in the Southern United States and in urban areas within the country
Languages
American English · African American Vernacular English · Gullah language
Religion
Predominantly Protestant; also Roman Catholic, Muslim and agnostic
Related ethnic groups
Other Afro-American peoples of the Americas (especially Anglophones) Americo-Liberians · Sierra Leone Creole people Black Nova Scotians, Foreign-born Afro-Americans, Afro-Latin American view talk edit

African Americans^[2] (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.^[3]

African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States.^[4] Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States.^[5][6] However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.^[3]

African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

History[link]

Slavery era[link]

The first African slaves arrived in the present-day United States as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped slaves behind on North American soil.

In 1565, the colony of Saint Augustine in Florida, founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, became the first permanent European settlement in North America. It included an unknown number of free and enslaved Africans that were part of this colonial expedition.

The first recorded Africans in British North America (including most of the future United States) arrived in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. As English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. The Africans were likely treated as indentured servants, similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.^[7] Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom.^[8] They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers.^[9] By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards.

An artist's conception of Crispus Attucks (1723–1770), the first "martyr" of the American Revolution.

The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven black slaves into New Amsterdam (present-day New York City). All the colony's slaves, however, were freed upon its surrender to the British.^[10] Massachusetts was the first British colony to legally recognize slavery in 1641. It was not until 1662 that Virginia ruled that a slave mother's children would remain slaves.^[11]

The first black congregations and churches were organized before 1800 in both northern and southern cities following the Great Awakening. By 1775, Africans made up 20% of the population in the American colonies, which made them the second largest ethnic group after the English.^[12] During the 1770s, Africans, both enslaved and free, helped rebellious English colonists secure American Independence by defeating the British in the American Revolution.^[13] Africans and Englishmen fought side by side and were fully integrated.^[14] James Armistead, an African American, played a large part in making possible the 1781 Yorktown victory, which established the United States as an independent nation.^[15] Other prominent African Americans were Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell, who are both depicted in the front of the boat in George Washington's famous 1776 Crossing the Delaware portrait.

By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the United States due to the Atlantic slave trade, and another 500,000 African Americans lived free across the country.^[16] In 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared that all slaves in states which had seceded from the Union were free.^[17] Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865.^[18]

Reconstruction and Jim Crow[link]

Jesse Owens shook racial stereotypes both with Nazis and segregationists in the USA at the 1936 Berlin olympics.

African Americans quickly set up congregations for themselves, as well as schools, community and civic associations, to have space away from white control or oversight. While the post-war reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, in the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement.^[19] Most African Americans followed the Jim Crow laws, using a mask of compliance to prevent becoming victims of racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity, African Americans such as Anthony Overton and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build their own schools, churches, banks, social clubs, and other businesses.^[20]

In the last decade of the 19th century, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom in the United States. These discriminatory acts included racial segregation—upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896^[21]—which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disenfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities.

Great Migration and Civil Rights Movement[link]

The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century,^[22] combined with a growing African American community in the Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 was directed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Americans, particularly in the Southern United States. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the conditions which brought it into being are credited with putting pressure on President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

An African American boy outside of Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1940s

March on Washington, August 28, 1963, shows civil rights and union leaders

Johnson put his support behind passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions, and the Voting Rights Act (1965), which expanded federal authority over states to ensure black political participation through protection of voter registration and elections. By 1966, the emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from 1966 to 1975, expanded upon the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority.^[23]

Post-Civil Rights era[link]

Politically and economically, blacks have made substantial strides during the post-civil rights era. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African-American elected governor in U.S. history. There is currently one black governor; governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Clarence Thomas became the second African-American Supreme Court Justice. In 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. There were 8,936 black officeholders in the United States in 2000, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001 there were 484 black mayors.

On November 4, 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain to become the first African American to be elected President. At least 95 percent of African-American voters voted for Obama.^[24][25] He also received overwhelming support from young and educated whites, a majority of Asians, Hispanics,^[26] and Native Americans^{[27][not in citation given]} picking up a number of new states in the Democratic electoral column.^[24][25] Obama lost the overall white vote, although he won a larger proportion of white votes than any previous nonincumbent Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter.^[28] The following year Michael S. Steele was elected the first African-American chairman of the national Republican Party.^[29]

Demographics[link]

African Americans as a percentage of total population, 2000.

In 1790, when the first U.S. Census was taken, Africans (including slaves and free people) numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% of the population. In 1860, at the start of the Civil War, the African American population had increased to 4.4 million, but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of the overall population of the country. The vast majority were slaves, with only 488,000 counted as "freemen". By 1900, the black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the South, but large numbers began migrating north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape Jim Crow laws and racial violence. The Great Migration, as it was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million black people moved north. But in the 1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed, with more African Americans moving south to the Sun Belt than leaving it.

The following table of the African American population in the United States over time shows that the African American population, as a percentage of the total population, declined until 1930 and has been rising since then.

By 1990, the African American population reached about 30 million and represented 12% of the U.S. population, roughly the same proportion as in 1900.^[31] In 2010, 38.9 million Americans identified as "Black or African American," representing 12.6% of the population. Controversy has surrounded the "accurate" population count of African Americans for decades. The NAACP believed it was under counted intentionally to minimize the significance of the black population in order to reduce their political power base^{[citation needed]}.

At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8% of African Americans lived in the South. In that year, 17.6% of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest, while only 8.9% lived in the western states. The west does have a sizable black population in certain areas, however. California, the nation's most populous state, has the fifth largest African American population, only behind New York, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. According to the 2000 Census, approximately 2.05% of African Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino in origin,^[4] many of whom may be of Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Haitian, or other Latin American descent. The only self-reported ancestral groups larger than African Americans are the Irish and Germans.^[32] Because many African Americans trace their ancestry to colonial American origins, some simply self-identify as "American".^{[citation needed]}

U.S. cities[link]

Almost 58% of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents, New York City had the largest black urban population in the United States in 2000, overall the city has a 28% black population. Chicago has the second largest black population, with almost 1.6 million African Americans in its metropolitan area, representing about 18 percent of the total metropolitan population.

Among cities of 100,000 or more, Detroit, Michigan had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2010, with 82%. Other large cities with African American majorities include New Orleans, Louisiana (60%), Baltimore, Maryland (63%) Atlanta, Georgia (54%), Memphis, Tennessee (61%), and Washington, D.C. (50.7%).

The nation's most affluent county with an African American majority is Prince George's County, Maryland, with a median income of $62,467. Within that county, among the wealthiest communities are Glenn Dale, Maryland and Fort Washington, Maryland. Other affluent predominantly African American counties include Dekalb County in Georgia, and Charles City County in Virginia. Queens County, New York is the only county with a population of 65,000 or more where African Americans have a higher median household income than White Americans.^[33]

Education[link]

Charles F. Bolden, Jr. is the current Administrator of NASA

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist

By 2000, African Americans had advanced greatly. They still lagged overall in education attainment compared to white or Asian Americans, with 14 percent with four year and 5 percent with advanced degrees, though it was higher than for other minorities.^[34] African Americans attend college at about half the rate of whites, but at a greater rate than Americans of Hispanic origin. More African American women attend and complete college than men. Black schools for kindergarten through twelfth grade students were common throughout the U.S., and a pattern towards re-segregation is currently occurring across the country.^[35]

Historically black colleges and universities remain today which were originally set up when segregated colleges did not admit African Americans. As late as 1947, about one third of African Americans over 65 were considered to lack the literacy to read and write their own names. By 1969, illiteracy as it had been traditionally defined, had been largely eradicated among younger African Americans.^[36]

US Census surveys showed that by 1998, 89 percent of African Americans aged 25 to 29 had completed high school, less than whites or Asians, but more than Hispanics. On many college entrance, standardized tests and grades, African Americans have historically lagged behind whites, but some studies suggest that the achievement gap has been closing. Many policy makers have proposed that this gap can and will be eliminated through policies such as affirmative action, desegregation, and multiculturalism.^[37]

In Chicago, Marva Collins, an African American educator, created a low cost private school specifically for the purpose of teaching low-income African American children whom the public school system had labeled as being "learning disabled".^[38] One article about Marva Collins' school stated,

Working with students having the worst of backgrounds, those who were working far below grade level, and even those who had been labeled as 'unteachable,' Marva was able to overcome the obstacles. News of third grade students reading at ninth grade level, four-year-olds learning to read in only a few months, outstanding test scores, disappearance of behavioral problems, second-graders studying Shakespeare, and other incredible reports, astounded the public.^[39]

During the 2006–2007 school year, Collins' school charged $5,500 for tuition, and parents said that the school did a much better job than the Chicago public school system.^[40] Meanwhile, during the 2007–2008 year, Chicago public school officials claimed that their budget of $11,300 per student was not enough.^[41]

Economic status[link]

Economically, African Americans have benefited from the advances made during the Civil Rights era, particularly among the educated, but not without the lingering effects of historical marginalization when considered as a whole. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed. The black middle class has grown substantially. In 2010, 45% of Africa-Americans owned their homes, compared to 67% of all Americans.^[42] The poverty rate among African Americans has decreased from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004, compared to 12.7% for all Americans.^[43] African Americans have a combined buying power of over $892 billion currently and likely over $1.1 trillion by 2012.^[44][45] In 2002, African American-owned businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the US's 23 million businesses.^[46] As of 2011 African American-owned business account for approximately 2 million US businesses.^[47] Black-owned businesses experienced the largest growth in number of businesses among minorities from 2002 to 2011.^[47]

Oprah Winfrey, the wealthiest African American of the 20th century.^[48][49][50] A pair of economists estimate that Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama delivered one million votes for him in the close 2008 Democratic primaries.^[51]

In 2004, African American men had the third-highest earnings of American minority groups after Asian Americans and non-Hispanic whites.^[52]

Twenty-five percent of blacks had white-collar occupations (management, professional, and related fields) in 2000, compared with 33.6% of Americans overall.^[53][54] In 2001, over half of African American households of married couples earned $50,000 or more.^[54] Although in the same year African Americans were over-represented among the nation's poor, this was directly related to the disproportionate percentage of African American families headed by single women; such families are collectively poorer, regardless of ethnicity.^[54]

By 2006, gender continued to be the primary factor in income level, with the median earnings of African American men more than those black and non-black American women overall and in all educational levels.^{[55][56][57][58][59]} At the same time, among American men, income disparities were significant; the median income of African American men was approximately 76 cents for every dollar of their European American counterparts, although the gap narrowed somewhat with a rise in educational level.^[55][60]

Overall, the median earnings of African American men were 72 cents for every dollar earned of their Asian American counterparts, and $1.17 for every dollar earned by Hispanic men.^[55][58][61] On the other hand by 2006, among American women with post-secondary education, African American women have made significant advances; the median income of African American women was more than those of their Asian-, European- and Hispanic American counterparts with at least some college education.^[56][57][62]

African Americans are still underrepresented in government and employment. In 1999, the median income of African American families was $33,255 compared to $53,356 of European Americans. In times of economic hardship for the nation, African Americans suffer disproportionately from job loss and underemployment, with the black underclass being hardest hit. The phrase "last hired and first fired" is reflected in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment figures. Nationwide, the October 2008 unemployment rate for African Americans was 11.1%,^[63] while the nationwide rate was 6.5%.^[64]

The income gap between black and white families is also significant. In 2005, employed blacks earned only 65% of the wages of whites, down from 82% in 1975.^[43] The New York Times reported in 2006 that in Queens, New York, the median income among African American families exceeded that of white families, which the newspaper attributed to the growth in the number of two-parent black families. It noted that Queens was the only county with more than 65,000 residents where that was true.^[33]

In 1999, the rate of births to unwed African American mothers was estimated by economist Walter E. Williams of George Mason University to be 70%.^[65] The poverty rate among single-parent black families was 39.5% in 2005, according to Williams, while it was 9.9% among married-couple black families. Among white families, the comparable rates were 26.4% and 6%.^[66]

According to Forbes magazine's "wealthiest American" lists, a 2000 net worth of $800 million dollars made Oprah Winfrey the richest African American of the 20th century; by contrast, the net worth of the 20th century's richest American, Bill Gates, who is of European descent, briefly hit $100 billion in 1999. In Forbes' 2007 list, Gates' net worth decreased to $59 billion while Winfrey's increased to $2.5 billion,^[67] making her the world's richest black person.^[49][68] Winfrey is also the first African American to make Business Week's annual list of America's 50 greatest philanthropists.^[69] BET founder Bob Johnson was also listed as a billionaire prior to an expensive divorce and as of 2009, had an estimated net worth of $550 million.^[70] Winfrey remains the only African American wealthy enough to rank among the country's 400 richest people.^[67] Some black entrepreneurs use their wealth to create new avenues for both African Americans and new opportunities for American business in general. Examples such as Tyler Perry who created new filming studios in Atlanta, Georgia which makes it possible to film movies and television shows outside of California.^[71]

Religion[link]