Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Where To Get Elgydium

Monde latin, germanique monde?

La pensée binaire plaît non seulement au folklore, mais encore aux intellectuels. Si la tradition folklorique merely oppositions challenged as little light and night, the raw and the cooked (Levi-Strauss) and so the temptation is great to see the opposition between "east" and "west" cultures "Nordic" and "southern", "Latin" and "Germanic" something more refined, more scientific ... The first option is defended by Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilization". The second variant was theorized in "Man of the south and the man of the North" (1824) of Charles Victor Bonstetten (1745-1832).
The opposition between Latin and Germanic worlds is sometimes invoked to explain the alleged or real intercultural conflicts in Switzerland and Belgium, countries shared purpose by a linguistic border between French (or Italian) and germanophones or Dutch. In this respect, Jacques Neirynck wrote in a delicious historical novel he dedicated to the Belgian case:
"From Dunkirk to Klagenfurt tacking the linguistic border between the Latins and Germans. Its layout follows the thrust of Germanic tribes invading the Empire Roman here fifteen centuries. It is not only the transition between two families of languages, but also a culture change. The way to govern itself as the art of eating differ at all in all, the distance between the instinct of duty on the one hand and the ability to enjoy the other. "

Is this really the case? - I try to think of a linguistic point of view and background: as can be seen in reproduced image thereafter (source: Wikipedia), both Switzerland and Belgium were all part of the Roman Empire, that is to say Latin, before the death of Theodosius in AD 395. From this view, nothing explains the linguistic border that runs through both countries. The substrate is, in both countries, 100% latin.
What about Switzerland? - It also provides a cultural space unified blend of Celtic-Latin substrates which v iennent addition of Germanic superstrate (Alemanni, Burgundians) different. According to the theory of the novel Andres Kristol, the center of Dialectology, University of Neuchâtel, the ultimate linguistic boundary followed the river Reuss (more east than the Sarine between Francophone and germanophones today). This boundary would separate two different areas proto-Romanesque, which gave one day to what is now the Rhaeto and the other produced the Francoprovençal (Evolène survived at Savièse around Gruyères and the valley Aosta), "patois" which is actually the fifth language of Switzerland. The Rhaeto Francoprovençal patois and are far more indigenous than the "good" German Wittenberg, the "good" French of Paris and the "good" Italian in Florence, imported into Switzerland in the modern era, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the seventh century, a traveler heading to Munich Lyonentendait Proto-Rhaeto in Zurich, and proto-Francoprovençal in Geneva. It is possible that he could not see much differences.
Regarding the arrival of Germanic superstrate, it is important to note that most of the Latin world, Lombardy (with the Lombards, "Longobardi"), to Spain (With the Visigoths) through France (with France) was occupied by Germanic peoples and powers who settled permanently in the conquered countries. In the fifth century, almost all the Swiss plateau, with a few fringes occupied by the Alamanni, was under Burgundian government (see image below). Archaeologists are struggling to demonstrate the difference between homes of Alemanni and Burgundians at that time, the two "cultures" (?) Being too close :
"The Burgundian kingdoms, legitimized in 438 or 443, are decentralized and will prevail simultaneously in the Burgundian kings cities that are included. It is likely that an alliance with the kingdom Alaman that supports proximity in the organization of power and cultural syncretism, has allowed expansion joint on the Gallo-Roman after the fall of the Empire. "( art. Wikipedia )
From the perspective of political and cultural history, and point of view of the history of languages, we are all - Belgians and Swiss - the Latin Germanized. A good question for "conflicts" cultural, it amounts to formulating the novel as the difference between (d) s and siblings Germanized Romanized. A good French would say, in the best Gallic minds (!): C'est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet.

PS
Luke me signals qu'en Belgique, on dit "chou chou vert et vert" voir http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/chou_vert_et_vert_chou . Merci Lukas!

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