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Document Details : Title: Greek in Erasmus of Rotterdam's Correspondence Related to the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense Subtitle: A Case of Cultural Triggering? Author(s): VERMEIRE, Manou Journal: Humanistica Lovaniensia Volume: 74 Date: 2025 Pages: 199-221 DOI: 10.2143/HLO.74.0.3294850 Abstract : Erasmus of Rotterdam is well-known as a proponent and practitioner of classical bilingualism, exemplified for example in his tendency to include Greek words, phrases, and sentences in his Latin writing (i.e. code-switching), and his involvement in the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense. This article investigates to what extent these two phenomena are related: does the subject of the Trilingual College trigger the use of Greek in his correspondence? The numbers seem to indicate a negative answer: of the 96 letters in the Trilingue-corpus, only six feature Greek code-switches triggered by the context of the Collegium. However, a close reading analysis yields a more nuanced conclusion. If the reference to the Trilingual College is of a practical nature, no Greek is used. But if the Trilingue occurs in an ideological sense, namely as an exponent of the humanist ideal of the bonae litterae, it can, but does not have to, trigger Latin-Greek code-switching. |
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