Study days - "Languages and identity in medieval origin stories".

April 3, 2023 1:30 pm - april 4, 2023 5:15 pm

The Laboratoire Langages, Littératures, Sociétés, Etudes Transfrontalières et Internationales (LLSETI) laboratory atuniversité Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB) is organizing a study day entitled "Languages and identity in medieval origin stories".

These days will take place from Monday April 3 to Tuesday April 4 on the Jacob-Bellecombette campus:

  • April 3 in room 504 from 1:30pm to 6pm,
  • and April 4 in room 20020 from 9am to 5:15pm.

For more information on these study days, download the full complete program.

April 3 program

  • 2:00 - 2:30 pm: Introduction, Marcin Kurdyka (Université Savoie Mont Blanc /University of Warsaw)
  • 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm: "Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada (1170/80-1247), historian of languages", Anne Grondeux (CNRS - Université Paris Cité - Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
  • 3.15pm - 4pm: "The languages of five peoples. Unity and ethnolinguistic diversity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", Arnaud Lestremau (Université Paris Nanterre)
  • 4pm - 4:30pm: Break
  • 4:30 - 5:15 pm: "The languages of Dalimil's Chronicle, between original project, reception and recovery", Eloïse Adde (Central European University, Vienna)
  • 5.15pm - 6pm: "Language, civilization and authority. Giraud de Barri on the Welsh and Irish languages", Fabrizio de Falco (University of Bologna)

April 4 program

  • 9:00am - 9:45am: "The ancestral language of the Franks", Magali Coumert (University of Tours)
  • 9h45 - 10h30: "Vernacular terms in Latin origin stories (British worlds, 6th-9th centuries)", Alban Gautier (Université de Caen- Normandie)
  • 10:30 - 11:00: Break
  • 11:00 - 11:45: "The names 'Germans' and 'Poles' as a weapon in the conflict of the lords and the knights with the bourgeoisie of Krakow at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries", Paweł Żmudzki (University of Warsaw).
  • 11:45 - 12:30: "A verbo vel verbis dicti ydiomatis vocati sunt Slouani. Language and Slavic identity in 14th-century origin stories", Marcin Kurdyka (Université Savoie Mont Blanc / University of Warsaw)
  • 12:30 - 2pm: Lunch break
  • 2:00 pm - 2:45 pm: "A l'autre bout du Moyen Âge: langue et origines des peuples dans les chroniques humanistes, autour des Commentaires de Pie II (Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini)", Benoît Grévin (CNRS - Centre de Recherches Historiques)
  • 14h45 - 15h30: "Between "Latinity" and "Frenchness" in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (c. 1100-1192) - linguistic and cultural aspects of group identity in Outremer", Tomasz Pełech (University of Warsaw).
  • 3:30 pm - 4 pm: Break
  • 4:00 - 4:45 pm: "...per ydioma alienigenarum Hungarii et in sua lingua propria Mogerii vocantur...The etymology of terms used to designate Hungarians in the oldest narrative sources from this country", Adrien Quéret- Podesta (Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań)
  • 16h45 - 17h15: Conclusion, Jean-Yves Tilliette (University of Geneva)

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

The aim of these study days is to examine the role of language - as it may appear in origin stories - as a constitutive factor of ethnic or national identity. While the association between a people and a language appears natural in the Middle Ages - following Isidore of Seville - it is not always present in chronicles. We'll be looking at the political and intellectual context in which this theme developed, and how chroniclers included it in their stories.

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