Difference between revisions of "Vernacular"

Revision as of 15:36, 22 December 2020

The word vernacular- pronounced with the stress on the second syllable (IPA: / və 'næ kjʊ lə/ - is used, sometimes as a noun, sometimes as an adjective, both in the study of language and in the study of architectural styles.

In the context of language the vernacular – note the definite article - is the language ordinarily spoken between themselves by the native inhabitants of a particular country or region. As such, it may be contrasted with other forms of the same language (e.g., a more ‘refined’ form which is the preserve of the educated, or a more formal and elaborate variant, the language of officialdom and bureaucracy, or an earlier form which survives as a literary language) or with another language altogether (e.g., the ‘alien’ language of a foreign nation which has acquired the territory through conquest - as the many vernacular languages of the provinces of the Roman Empire may be contrasted with.Latin, the language of the imperial power).

Slightly differently, since the contrast is not between entire languages or dialects, but between systems of nomenclature, in botany and biology the vernacular or everyday names of plants and animals (e.g., love-in-a-mist, daisy, robin redbreast, wolf) may be contrasted with their Latin or scientific names (viz., Nigella damascene, Bellis perennis, Erithacus rubecula, Canis lupus).

The word vernacular is used analogously in the study of architectural styles, where the vernacular, as the local style of architecture, the style in which domestic buildings in the region are characteristically built, may be contrasted with the grander, more imposing style of official or monumental buildings.

Vernacular comes from the Latin vernaculus, an adjective from the noun verna (a slave born in the master’s house). Vernaculus means ‘of or relating to home-born slaves, native’