Les Wisigoths, des germanophones devenus latinophones

Abstract

The matter is to consider still anew the question about the relative proportion of civilised and barbarous uses at the very times when the Roman Empire did step by step lost its positions to the benefit of new historic entities, the inappropriately so-called « barbarous », but in a much more fitting way said « germanic » kingdoms, precisely considering the linguistic state prevalent in Vth century Toulouse, when dominated by the dynasty of the wisigothic kings lawfully associated with Rome on the basis of a foedus more and more decaying as generations passed by. A general review that aims at giving up the old « apolyptical-style » descriptions, has made clear that reading the documents available for this period on the basis of a new approach of sociolinguistical type, a discipline constructed during the second part of the past century, authorize us to dismantle the precedently aesthetic (unfounded) judgments in order to engage a pragmatical checking (efficient), which points toward concluding that the latin language, still spoken (so variable) in its late shape (so changed) by the mass of inland speakers (even illitterati), was also spoken by the minority of german intruders, themselve since a long time being on their path toward an acculturation process, and precisely by their kings who could upgrade themselves to the high levels of this late latinophonia.

Keywords

• Theodoric II
• Euric
• Sidoine Apollinaire
• Ulfila
• gothic language
• spoken latin