Editing Macaronic language (section)

==History==

===Mixed Latin-vernacular lyrics in medieval Europe===
Texts that mixed Latin and [[vernacular language]] apparently arose throughout Europe at the end of the [[Middle Ages]]—a time when Latin was still the working language of scholars, clerics and university students, but was losing ground to vernacular among poets, [[minstrel]]s and storytellers.

An early example is from 1130, in the [[Gospel book]] of [[Munsterbilzen Abbey]]. The following sentence mixes late [[Old Dutch]] and Latin:

<blockquote>
<poem>
Tesi samanunga was edele unde scona
et omnium virtutum pleniter plena
</poem>
</blockquote>

Translated: ''This community was noble and pure, and completely full of all virtues.''

The ''[[Carmina Burana]]'' (collected c.1230) contains several poems mixing Latin with Medieval German or French. Another well-known example is the first stanza of the famous [[Carol (music)|carol]] ''[[In Dulci Jubilo]]'', whose original version (written around 1328) had Latin mixed with German, with a hint of [[Greek language|Greek]]. While some of those early works had a clear humorous intent, many use the language mix for lyrical effect.

Another early example is in the [[Middle English language|Middle English]] recitals ''[[Wakefield Mystery Plays|The Towneley Plays]]'' (c.1460). In ''[[The Talents (play)|The Talents]]'' (play 24), [[Pontius Pilate]] delivers a rhyming speech in mixed English and Latin.

A number of English political poems in the 14th century alternated (Middle) English and Latin lines, such as in MS Digby 196:
<blockquote><poem>The taxe hath tened [ruined] vs alle,
      Probat hoc mors tot validorum
  The Kyng þerof had small
      fuit in manibus cupidorum.
  yt had ful hard hansell,
      dans causam fine dolorum;
  vengeaunce nedes most fall,
      propter peccata malorum
  ''(etc)''</poem></blockquote>

Several [[anthem]]s also contain both Latin and English. In the case of 'Nolo mortem peccatoris' by [[Thomas Morley]], the Latin is used as a refrain:
<blockquote>
<poem>
Nolo mortem peccatoris; Haec sunt verba Salvatoris.
Father I am thine only Son, sent down from heav’n mankind to save.
Father, all things fulfilled and done according to thy will, I have.
Father, my will now all is this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
Father, behold my painful smart, taken for man on ev’ry side;
Ev'n from my birth to death most tart, no kind of pain I have denied,
but suffered all, and all for this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
</poem>
</blockquote>

Translated: "'I do not wish the death of the wicked'; These are the words of the Saviour." An allusion to John 3:17 and 2 Peter 3:9.

The Scottish [[Chaucerian]] [[William Dunbar]]'s ''[[Lament for the Makaris]]'' uses as a refrain for every four-line [[stanza]] the phrase from the [[Office of the Dead]] "''[[Timor mortis conturbat me]]''" ["The fear of death disturbs me"].

===Latin–Italian macaronic verse===
The term ''macaronic'' is believed to have originated in [[Padua]] in the late 15th century, apparently from ''maccarona'', a kind of pasta or [[dumpling]] eaten by peasants at that time. (That is also the presumed origin of ''[[maccheroni]]''.)<ref name="linphil">{{cite web |author=Fran Hamilton |url=http://porticobooks.com/edu/archive/issue55.htm |title=LinguaPhile online magazine, September 2007 |publisher=Porticobooks.com |access-date=2012-06-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210181651/http://porticobooks.com/edu/archive/issue55.htm |archive-date=10 February 2012}}</ref> Its association with the genre comes from the ''[[Macaronea]]'', a comical poem by [[Tifi Odasi]] in mixed Latin and Italian, published in 1488 or 1489. Another example of the genre is ''[[Tosontea]]'' by [[Corrado of Padua]], which was published at about the same time as Tifi's ''Macaronea''.

Tifi and his contemporaries clearly intended to [[satire|satirize]] the broken Latin used by many doctors, scholars and bureaucrats of their time. While this "macaronic Latin" (''macaronica verba'') could be due to ignorance or carelessness, it could also be the result of its speakers trying to make themselves understood by the vulgar folk without resorting to their speech.<ref name="macver">{{cite web |author=Giorgio Bernardi Perini |title=Macaronica Verba. Il divenire di una trasgressione linguistica nel seno dell'Umanesimo |url=http://www.fondazionecanussio.org/atti2000/bernardi.pdf|publisher=fondazionecanussio.org |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081217184031/http://www.fondazionecanussio.org/atti2000/bernardi.pdf |archive-date=17 December 2008}}</ref>

An important and unusual example of mixed-language text is the ''[[Hypnerotomachia Poliphili]]'' of [[Francesco Colonna (writer)|Francesco Colonna]] (1499), which was basically written using Italian syntax and morphology, but using a made-up vocabulary based on roots from Latin, [[Greek (language)|Greek]], and occasionally others. However, while the ''Hypnerotomachia'' is contemporary with Tifi's ''Macaronea'', its mixed language is not used for plain humor, but rather as an aesthetic device to underscore the fantastic but refined nature of the book.

Tifi's ''Macaronea'' was a popular success, and the writing of [[humour|humorous]] texts in macaronic Latin became a fad in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in Italian, but also in many other European languages. An important Italian example was ''[[Baldo (Teofilo Folengo book)|Baldo]]'' by [[Teofilo Folengo]], who described his own verses as "a gross, rude, and rustic mixture of flour, cheese, and butter".<ref name="folenmac">The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford University Press (1996)</ref><ref name="caten">{{cite web |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06124a.htm |title=Teofilo Folengo in The Catholic Encyclopedia |publisher=Newadvent.org |date=1909-09-01 |access-date=2012-06-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022034217/http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06124a.htm |archive-date=22 October 2012}}</ref>

===Other mixed-language lyrics===
Macaronic verse is especially common in cultures with widespread [[bilingualism]] or [[language contact]], such as Ireland before the middle of the nineteenth century. Macaronic traditional songs such as ''[[Siúil A Rúin]]'' are quite common in Ireland. In Scotland, macaronic songs have been popular among [[Scottish Highlands|Highland]] immigrants to [[Glasgow]], using English and [[Scottish Gaelic]] as a device to express the alien nature of the anglophone environment. An example:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/primary/tunein/mixer/lyrics.shtml?lyrics=3 |title=BBC Learning - Primary - Tune in |access-date=2017-12-06 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425195304/http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/primary/tunein/mixer/lyrics.shtml?lyrics=3 |archive-date=25 April 2018}}</ref>

{{poem quote|When I came down to Glasgow first,
a-mach air Tìr nan Gall.
I was like a man adrift,
air iomrall 's dol air chall.
[...]}}

{{poem quote|translation: 
When I came down to Glasgow first,
'''''down to the Lowlands''''' ''(lit. "out to the land of foreigners").''
I was like a man adrift,
'''''astray and lost.'''''}}

Folk and popular music of the [[Andes]] frequently alternates between Spanish and the given [[South American]] language of its region of origin.

Some [[Persian poetry|Classical Persian poems]] were written with alternating [[Persian language|Persian]] and [[Arabic]] verses or hemistichs, most famously by [[Saadi Shirazi|Saadi]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sadi-sirazi |title=Saʿdi |website=Encyclopaedia Iranica |access-date=9 November 2020 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117020202/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sadi-sirazi|archive-date=17 November 2017}}</ref> and [[Hafez Shirazi|Hafez]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hafez-iii|title=Hafez iii. Hafez's Poetic Art |website=Encyclopaedia Iranica|access-date=25 April 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117062050/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hafez-iii|archive-date=17 November 2017}}</ref> Such poems were called ''molamma''' ({{lang|fa|ملمع}}, literally "speckled", plural ''molamma‘āt'' {{lang|fa|ملمعات}}),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/rhetorical-figures|title=Rhetorical Figures |website=Encyclopaedia Iranica |access-date=25 April 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117090156/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/rhetorical-figures|archive-date=17 November 2017}}</ref> Residing in [[Anatolia]], in some of his poems [[Rumi]] mixed Persian with Arabic as well as the local languages of [[Old Anatolian Turkish|Turkish]] and [[Cappadocian Greek|Greek]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCHxfZxviXIC&pg=PR13E|title=In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amīr Khusrau|first=Amīr Khusraw|last=Dihlavī|date=25 April 2018|publisher=Penguin Books India|isbn=9780670082360}}</ref>

Macaronic verse was also common in [[medieval]] India, where the influence of the Muslim rulers led to poems being written in alternating indigenous [[Hindi]] and the Persian language. This style was used by poet [[Amir Khusro]] and played a major role in the rise of the [[Urdu]] or [[Hindustani language]].

===Unintentional macaronic language===
{{Main|Homophonic translation}}

Occasionally language is unintentionally macaronic. One particularly famed piece of schoolyard Greek in France is [[Xenophon]]'s line "they did not take the city; but in fact they had no hope of taking it" ({{lang|grc|οὐκ ἔλαβον πόλιν· άλλα γὰρ ἐλπὶς ἔφη κακά}}, {{Lang|grc-latn|ouk élabon pólin; álla gàr elpìs éphē kaká}}). [[Mondegreen|Read]] [[Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching#France|in the French manner]], this becomes {{Lang|fr|Où qu'est la bonne Pauline? A la gare. Elle pisse et fait caca.}} ('Where is Pauline the maid? At the [railway] station. She's pissing and taking a shit.')<ref>Arbre d'Or eBooks. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20150923172950/http://www.arbredor.com/vmchk/pluton-ciel-que-janus-proserpine Pluton ciel que Janus Proserpine...]". {{in lang|fr}}</ref><ref>
Genette, Gérard &&nbsp;al. [https://books.google.com/books?id=KbYzNp94C9oC&pg=PA41 ''Palimpsests'', {{nowrap|p. 41}}].</ref>