Editing Vernacular (section)

===General linguistics===
====In contrast with lingua franca====
[[File:Dante 3 Luca.jpg|thumb|left|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]]
[[File:Incunabula distribution by language.png|thumb|Ratio of books printed in Europe in the vernacular languages to those in Latin in the 15th century<ref name="ISTC">{{cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html |title=Incunabula Short Title Catalogue |publisher=[[British Library]] |access-date=2 March 2011}}</ref>]]
In [[Linguistics|general linguistics]], a vernacular is contrasted with a ''[[lingua franca]]'', a third-party language in which persons speaking different vernaculars not understood by each other may communicate.<ref>{{cite book |title=An introduction to sociolinguistics |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoso00ward |url-access=registration |first=Ronald |last=Wardhaugh |location=Malden, Mass.; Oxford |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontoso00ward/page/59 59] |isbn=9781405135597 |quote=In 1953, UNESCO defined a lingua franca as 'a language which is used habitually by people whose mother tongues are different in order to facilitate communication between them.'}}</ref> 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 language]]s are said to be in the vernacular. The ''[[Divine Comedy|Divina Commedia]]'', the {{Lang|osp|[[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 {{Circa|1701}}, in its latter stage as [[Neo-Latin]].

In religion, [[Protestantism]] was a driving force in the use of the vernacular in Christian Europe, the [[Bible]] having been 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 ([[New Testament]] 1522); 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; Bible in Slovene, published in 1584 by Jurij Dalmatin. 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 Catholic]]s, continue to practice [[Liturgical use of Latin|Latin Mass]]. In [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], four [[Gospels]] translated to vernacular Ukrainian language in 1561 are known as [[Peresopnytsia Gospel]].

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 {{Circa|1600}}, though some of his works remained in Latin. A later example is [[Isaac Newton]], whose 1687 ''[[Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica|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]].

{{further|Vernacular literature}}

====As a low variant in diglossia====
The vernacular is also often contrasted with a [[liturgical language]], a specialized use of a former ''lingua franca''. For example, until the 1960s, the [[Roman Rite]] of the [[Catholic Church]] was generally celebrated in [[Latin]] rather than in vernaculars. The [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox Churches]] use their [[Ancient language|archaic]] language forms for their [[Liturgy|liturgies]] like [[Koine Greek]] for the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] and [[Church Slavonic]] for the [[Slavs|Slavic]] Churches. The [[Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria|Coptic Church]] still holds liturgies in [[Coptic language|Coptic]], not Arabic. The [[Ethiopian Orthodox Church]] holds liturgies in [[Ge'ez language|Ge'ez]], but parts of the 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 language|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 languages, 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 other languages: [[Hindi]], [[Kannada language|Kannada]], [[Telugu language|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 [[Reddy dynasty|Gona Buddha Reddy]] in the 15th century; and ''[[Ramacharitamanasa]]'', a Awadhi 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<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=diglossia |encyclopedia=Stedman's Medical Dictionary |year=1918 |edition=5th}}</ref>). In it, the language is bifurcated: the speaker learns two forms of the language and ordinarily uses one but under special circumstances uses 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. It 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 Ferguson 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Fasold|1984|pp=34–60}}</ref>