Aristotle’s legacy

Abstract

Chapter 8 treats two interpretations of the language / dialect distinction which early modern scholars considered useful diagnostic criteria. Firstly, in the seventeenth century, an interpretation of the conceptual pair emerged according to which related dialects showed only accidental differences, whereas distinct languages varied substantially. This analysis was grounded in two traditional categories of Aristotelian ontology and implied a binary opposition; numerous scholars realized, however, that linguistic distance comes in degrees or layers. Secondly, the criterion of mutual intelligibility, often bracketed together with the Aristotelian criterion, had its origin in the Renaissance. The eccentric humanist Johannes Goropius Becanus played a key role in its emergence and specified it further as immediate mutual intelligibility. This criterion, too, was conceptualized in predominantly binary terms. Contradictorily, numerous scholars complained about the lack of mutual intelligibility among speakers of related dialects, pointing out the wider communicative reach of a language.