7 - The Romance languages in the Renaissance and after

Summary

This chapter covers the period that runs from the sixteenth century, when various national and literary languages firmly established their prestige alongside Latin, until the end of the nineteenth century, when Romanian and Italian eventually acquired the status of national languages. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian are the Romance varieties that established themselves, at different historical moments, as the national languages of their respective states. The chapter also considers the external history of the Romance languages within the European continent. The sixteenth century saw the first concerted efforts to analyse and regularize the vernacular languages alongside the development of European national literatures. All grammarians of sixteenth century Portugal involved with the codification and renovation of the language were preoccupied with the issue of orthographic reform, with two coexisting forces pulling towards a phonetic tradition.