Uma proposta pedagógica da língua grega em um tratado gramatical em latim: De differentiis de Erígena

Abstract

De differentiis (De differentiis et societatibus Graeci Latinique Verbi) is a grammatical treatise that makes a comparison between the Latin and Greek verbal systems, highlighting their similarities and differences, as the title suggests. Presenting a reading and analysis of this treatise, linked to the context of Eriugena (Iohannes Scotus Eriugena - 9th century), we read De Differentiis as a pedagogical project, looking for textual and extratextual elements that support this hypothesis. In order to investigate the possibility of it being read as a text intended to teach Greek to Latin speakers, we also present a description of the corpus, thus investigating the thought it brings about language in the medieval context. In order to do so, we investigated, firstly, data on Erigena, as well as on his "climate of opinion" (KOERNER, 2016), and the relationship between the text of Macrobius, De uerbis, and our corpus. By making this description, we analyse the extent to which the text deals with the Latin verbal system as opposed to the Greek one. We try to observe whether it is mostly attached to the grammatical explanations of the Greek or the Latin language. Secondly, we investigate to what extent Greek language is present in the treatise and in what consists that presence. For this, we analyse the use of the Greek letters (alphabet) and we seek not only to map them but also to describe them, while presenting some descriptive observations of the treatise, such as, what language the model treats as a prototypical; which authors represent this language; what we can infer from the relation between his citations and grammatical examples (exempla); what their analytical and descriptive mechanisms of linguistic phenomena are, as well as their logical operations; as its grammatical meta-language dialogues with Greek grammatical terminology, and how the treatise itself transposes a bilingual context. Finally, after presenting some ideas to justify this comparison, we investigated the status of the Greek language as well as his teaching in the time of Eriugena, at the court of Charles the Bald. In order to reach the stated objectives, we are theoretically and methodologically guided by the principles of the Historiography of Linguistics (AUROUX, 1992; KONERER, 1989, 2014a, 2014b; SWIGGERS, 1981, 2012, 2013). With our research we conclude that Erigena was an important name in the West connected to the Greek letters (teaching and translation), which contributes to justify a reading of the treatise in its light. We may also say that De Differentiis dwells more on the Greek language system than on the Latin language, resorting to the linguistic knowledge of Latin as propaedeutic for Greek language teaching. Thus, in addition to allowing us a brief notion of the teaching of Greek language in the Carolingian Empire, this work seeks, using the Historiography of Linguistics, to contribute to the history of Linguistics.