Language comparison and emancipation: The pivotal role of Ancient Greek in Renaissance language studies (ca. 1390– 1600)

When did the comparative turn occur in language studies? Even though linguistic comparison has earlier precursors, it became common only in the early modern era. The period after 1600, in particular, has been regarded as a crucial turning point. This project will investigate the hypothesis that the roots of the comparative approach should be dated earlier, in the Renaissance (ca. 1390– 1600). The rediscovery of Greek grammar played a pivotal role in this development, as many humanists tied their native vernaculars to the Greek tongue when composing grammars of both Greek and the vernaculars. This endeavor led them to compare these languages to various degrees of intensity, in various ways, and with regard to various features. This project will investigate whether and, if so, how this comparative reflex was related to the standardization of the vernaculars. More specifically, the project will systematically test for the first time the idea that the Greek language stimulated the emancipation of the vernaculars. Testing this second hypothesis is crucial, because it is often upheld in modern scholarship but barely supported with concrete evidence. The project will also explore the possibility of integrating the “comparative turn hypothesis” and the “emancipation hypothesis” into one overarching hypothesis. It will result in five scholarly articles and a database of Renaissance grammars of Greek (inspiration), provisionally entitled Anagennèsis