Talk:vernacular

Hello, in french

• "vernaculaire" is a word used only by philologists
• "how do you say vernacular in everydays's language ? ("comment dis-tu vernaculaire en langage courant") . It depends...
• lawyers and MD have their "jargon professionnel"
• in France many countrymen use their local "patois" even nowadays. A lot of young and old people meet in "sociétés patoisantes" to exercise and enjoy their patois, and even have yarns & plays in patois, along with local dances and attires. For them here around (south-east of France) "vernaculaire" would refer to a wet meadow planted with "Alnus glutinosa" trees (" vergne ou verne en langage courant")
• I dont remember the exact date when roman catholic priests gave up latin & began to say mass "en langue vulgaire" : somewhere about the '60s ?
• mill-workers, sailors, soldiers, local citizens use their own "argot"

• and would you say Mellors (when using broad with Mrs Chatterley) spoke in "patois" or in "argot" ?. I've wondered for half a century now : he was rather some sort of a countryman, had not worked in the coal-mines, but had been in the army ... T.y. Arapaima 08:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
• vernacular doesn't just refer to language e.g. vernacular architecture. This should be included as a meaning. 78.120.218.95 16:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

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vernacular

The challenged sense: "(Roman Catholicism) The indigenous language of a people, into which the words of the Mass are translated." Vatican II allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular.

seems virtually the same as the immediately preceding sense:

"Language unique to a particular group of people; jargon, argot." For those of a certain age, hiphop vernacular might just as well be a foreign language.

Am I missing something? DCDuring TALK 01:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. The first sense is referring to a language in the context of all the languages of the world, with Latin being considered the high, sacred language and any other language being considered a common, ordinary everyday language by comparison. The second refers to lower-prestige and/or less-formal varieties within a language, The best way to highlight the difference is to imagine an archbishop saying Mass at the national cathedral, with senators and foreign dignitaries in attendance, and asking whether the language used could be described as "jargon, argot". Chuck Entz (talk) 01:55, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Another clue is the way Roman Catholic usage tends to refer to "the vernacular", rather than "a vernacular language". Speaking of "the vernacular" in reference to slang is rarely used anymore, except as a humorous way to sound incongruously elegant and proper when describing obscenity. More common is to speak of a specific type of vernacular, such as the hip-hop vernacular in the example sentence. We might end up actually adding a sense, leaving us with three senses: the Roman Catholic sense, a general "speech of the common people" sense, and a "specific speech variety" sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see evidence to that effect and I don't believe it.

What makes that peculiar to the RCs? I could understand vernacular referring to standard language; spoken language; or non-standard dialects, argot, slang etc., not that our definitions make that clear. I could understand that religious texts might be translated into the first and second, but not the third. But lots of groups might not consider "argot" and worthwhile translation target.

And is a "particular group of people" is meant not to include, say, the speakers of a local language not officially recognized.

I also not that, unsurprisingly, we manage to exclude "vernacular" as it might apply to aspects of culture other than language, eg, architecture. DCDuring TALK 02:26, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) After looking through the entry, I would say that the real overlap is between the first sense:

1. The language of a people, a national language.

   The vernacular of the United States is English.

or the second sense:

1. Everyday speech, including colloquialisms, as opposed to literary or liturgical language.

   Street vernacular can be quite different from what is heard elsewhere.

and the Roman Catholic sense. The "jargon, argot" sense is the least similar to the Roman Catholic sense of the three. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep, but change. The Roman Catholic sense is "not Latin", used pejoratively. --80.114.178.7 23:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it's certainly not pejorative. Lmaltier (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

No, not pejorative, but the definition leaves much to be desired. The vernacular is the vernacular regardless of whether the words of the Mass have been translated into it or not. Something like "the everyday spoken language of the people in a particular place, as opposed to Latin" comes closer to it; it does seem to be quite close to the current wording of sense 2. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: Case has not been made for redundancy. Purplebackpack89 18:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep per Angr.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:51, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Kept. If the definition merely needs improvement, that is beyond the scope of RfD. bd2412 T 22:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)