Dante and the Chinese Vernaculars

Dante's unfinished treatise ‘De vulgari eloquentia’ (1303–1305) is the world's earliest theoretical statement on writing in vernacular language. Its arguments on the status of vernacular writing are not only fundamental to understanding the rich linguistic variety of European literature, but may also be considered in relation to cultures outside of Europe. This paper brings them to bear on the Chinese field. It notes that in Chinese literary culture the classical language and the written vernacular of the north have enjoyed unchallenged sway, while non-Mandarin, particularly southern vernaculars have failed to establish fully fledged literatures. Considering the questions that arise when Dante's arguments confront the Chinese case, and the difficulty of answering those questions, the paper concludes that what China has thus gained in cultural unity it has lost in richness of cultural diversity.