Contesto generale La novella di Cisti il fornaio è la seconda della sesta giornata del Decameron di Boccaccio. In questa giornata, tutte le novelle hanno un tema comune: il modo elegante e intelligente (con arte e garbo) con cui i personaggi riescono a rispondere a situazioni difficili, spesso grazie all’arguzia, alla prontezza di spirito o all’uso sapiente delle parole (i cosiddetti “motti”). La narratrice è Pampinea, una delle sette giovani protagoniste del Decameron, che introduce la novella con una riflessione: a volte la natura e la fortuna premiano persone di umili origini, dotandole di un'anima nobile e virtuosa, proprio come accade a Cisti. Trama in breve Cisti è un fornaio fiorentino, quindi un uomo del popolo, ma di grande eleganza, educazione e intelligenza. Egli possiede un ottimo vino bianco, che desidera offrire a Geri Spina, un nobile fiorentino che ogni giorno passa davanti alla sua bottega insieme agli ambasciatori di papa Bonifacio VIII. Cisti però sa che, ...
The history of the language spoken and written in England is divided into three phases:
- Old English from the time of the first invasion of the northern tribes in the 5th century up to the Norman conquest in 1066;
- Middle English, which roughly extends from 1066 to the end of the 15th century;
- Modern English from the end of the 15th century onwards.
Old English
Old English was a thoroughly Germanic language and so contained few Latin words.
It was also heavily inflected, which means it had cases, different word endings, as in Modern German or in the classical languages.
The northern tribes like Anglo-Saxons used special letters called runes in poetry.
They stand for Anglo-Saxons sounds but they continued to be used well into the early 16th century.
The Latin alphabet was first introduced into England by Irish missionaries.
From Old English to Middle English
The passage from Old English to Middle English was characterized by some difficulties like its spelling, which was usually quite different from that of Modern English and phonetic, for example, some words like armee for army, werre for war and shoures for showers.
The transition from Old English to Middle English didn't begin immediately after the Norman conquest.
Old English went on being spoken by the common people but at a literary level it was set aside in favour of French and Latin.
It was also woth considering that Middle English consisted of several dialects such as the Midlands dialect, the one used in London and by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Modern English
During the Renaissance, English language acquired its modern form, usually called Modern English.
It was possible thanks to three factors: the printing press, the spread of popular education and increased means of communication.
In the 16th century the English language was faced with three problems:
- it had to be accepted in cultural fields where Latin was predominant (science,philosophy, law);
- the establishment of a uniform orthography, words began to be spelt in one way only and not in different ways;
- the vocabulary had to be enriched if English wanted to replace Latin as a learned language.
Consistent spelling was felt to be of paramount importance because, according to people, English spelling seemed chaotic.
This fact increased when letters were inserted in words where they weren't pronounced because the corresponding Latin words had those letter.
Then, English had acquired a consistent spelling system and its vocabulary was enriched by loans from Latin by a huge number of translations from Italian and Greek.
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