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Major legal languages

Major legal languages. Revision. History of major legal languages. Latin: Old Latin; Classical Latin/ Vulgar Latin; Late Latin; Medieval Latin; Renaissance Latin; Modern Latin; Contemporary Latin

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Major legal languages

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  1. Major legallanguages Revision

  2. Historyof major legallanguages • Latin: Old Latin; Classical Latin/Vulgar Latin; Late Latin; Medieval Latin; Renaissance Latin; Modern Latin; Contemporary Latin • German: Old High German (-1050), MiddleHigh German (1050 to 1350; EarlyNew High German (1350–1650); Standardization • French: Vulgar Latin inGallia; Old French (8C-14C); MiddleFrench (14c-17c.); ModernFrench • English: Old English (C. 450- C. 1100); Middle English (C. 1100- C.1450); Modern English (C. 1450 - )

  3. Historyof Latin • Old Latin • Classical Latin • Vulgar Latin • Late Latin • Medieval Latin • Renaissance Latin • Modern Latin • Contemporary Latin

  4. Medieval Latin • Without the institutions of the Roman empire that had supported its uniformity, medieval Latin lost its linguistic cohesion • Meanings of many words have been changed and new words have been introduced from the vernacular. • Identifiable individual styles of incorrect classical Latin prevail

  5. Renaissance Latin • By the 15th century Medieval Latin was replaced by versions supported by the scholars of the rising universities, who attempted to discover what the classical language had been

  6. ModernLatin • During the Early Modern Age, Latin still was the most important language of culture in Europe. • Until the end of the 17th century most books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. • Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French and later just native or other languages

  7. Contemporary Latin • The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church • Some states, universities – Latin mottoes • Inscriptions on courtrooms, seals • Latin – taught at many high schools • Latin legal terms and maxims in European legal languages

  8. Classical Roman law • The first 250 years AD are the period during which Roman law and Roman legal science reached its greatest degree of sophistication. The law of this period is often referred to as the classical period of Roman law. • The literary and practical achievements of the jurists of this period gave Roman law its unique shape

  9. Germanic laws (5th-9th c.)Leges barbarorum Customary law: local, fragmented; oral, based on careful memorization When justice is oral, the judicial act is personal and subjective Power, whose origins were at once magical, divine and military, was exercised jointly by the king and his warriors

  10. CANON LAW • Law of the church courts, • Based on Roman law

  11. The Byzantine Empire • In Western Europe, Roman law as a coherent legal system disappeared with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 • Maintained at a very high level in the Byzantine Empire

  12. Corpus Iuris Civilis (Codex Justinianus, 529-35 AD) • Most comprehensive code of Roman law, compiled under Justinian I, by a commission of jurists

  13. Ius comune • The rediscovered Roman law dominated legal practice in most European countries. • A legal system, in which Roman law was mixed with elements of canon law and of Germanic custom

  14. NATIONAL CODIFICATIONS • The practical application of ius comune came to an end when national codifications were made • In 1804, the French civil code came into force • In the 19th century, many European states adopted the French model or drafted their own codes

  15. Rise of national languages • Strenghtening of nation states - the rise of the national languages as symbols of national identity and a tool of power politics

  16. Legal German History and development

  17. Kingdom of the Franks • It is the predecessor of the modern states of France and Germany. • Francia was among the last surviving Germanic kingdoms from the Migration Period era before its partition in 843. • After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, West Francia became the predecessor of France, and East Francia became that of Germany

  18. Carolingian Empire • The language of official acts in the empire was Latin. • The empire was referred to variously as universum regnum ("the universal kingdom", as opposed to the regional kingdoms), Romanorum sive Francorum imperium („Empire of the Romans and Franks"), Romanum imperium ("Roman empire") or even imperium christianum ("Christian empire„)

  19. Fragmentation of the Carolingian empire • The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of Romans in the West in over three centuries. • His death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian empire and decline that would eventually lead to the development of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

  20. The Roman Catholic Church as a unifying force • With the disintegration of the Frankish kingdom in the late 9th century, government became highly decentralized •  the Roman Catholic Church became the main unifying force in western Europe and began to claim jurisdiction over many matters that earlier had been considered secular rather than ecclesiastical. • The canon law was largely influenced by Roman law and contained very few Germanic elements.

  21. The Holy Roman Empire • The Holy Roman Empire became eventually composed of four kingdoms. The kingdoms were: • Kingdom of Germany (part of the empire since 962), • Kingdom of Italy (from 962 until 1648), • Kingdom of Bohemia (since 1002 as the Duchy of Bohemia and raised to a kingdom in 1198), • Kingdom of Burgundy (from 1032 to 1378).

  22. Holy Roman Empire • Over time, the Empire grew increasingly powerless in relation to the regional power centres • Power of the emperor diminished, that of regional princes flourished • Formally, the Empire lasted until 1806

  23. Official languages • Official languages for the Holy Roman Empire for the whole of its existence: German and Latin

  24. History of the German language • Old High German (-1050) • MiddleHigh German (1050 to 1350) • Early New High German (1350–1650) • Standardization

  25. Old High German • the surviving texts of OHG show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniform

  26. MiddleHighGerman (1050 to 1350) • Along with the increasing wealth and geographic extent of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the language of official proceedings and literature – emergence of a standardized supra-dialectal written language • While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to a greater need for regularity in written conventions

  27. Early New HighGerman (1350–1650) • As a spoken language German remained highly fractured: a vast number of often mutually-incomprehensible regional dialects spoken throughout the German states; • the invention of the printing press c.1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534 - an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language.

  28. Standardization (19th c.) • The most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language –DeutschesWorterbuch - created by the Brothers Grimm; composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860. • In 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in theDudenHandbuch • In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of the German language in its written form and the DudenHandbuchwas declared its standard definition.

  29. Leges barbarorum • Several Latin law codes of the Germanic peoples written in the Early Middle Ages after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire (also known as leges barbarorum "laws of the barbarians") survive, dating to between the 5th and 9th centuries. • They are influenced by Roman law, canon law, and earlier tribal customs. • Central and West European Germanic law differed from North Germanic law (Scandivanian law)

  30. Early Germanic law • For all of the Germanic peoples, law (West German, reht and êwa; High German, wizzôd; North German, lagh, from which the English word law is derived) was basically not something laid down by a central authority, such as the king, but rather the custom of a particulartribe

  31. Germanic law: Leges Barbarorum • Customary law – oral • The first written collections of Germanic law: Leges Barbarorum(5th - 9th century) written in Latin; technical terms of Roman law • Leges Barbarorum- not legislation in the modern sense but rather records of customs that were first collected and then declared as law.

  32. Demise of customary law • Merchants found that the old Germanic customary law was inadequate to cope with the problems created by the rapid growth of commerce that had occurred by the 12th century. • A special commercial law, based mainly on Roman law as developed by the Mediterranean seaborne traders, was developed to settle disputes between merchants, without regard to their nationality or place of residence.

  33. Reception of Roman law • European universities taught Roman law • ius commune created by medieval lawyers • Roman law was used to stress the status of the Holy Roman Empire as a continuation of the original Roman Empire

  34. Reception of Roman law • As the application of Roman law spread in the German justice system, judges began asking legal scholars for opinions • Case files - sent to universities • German law faculties provided a kind of higher court service esp. in 16th and 17th centuries

  35. The Renaissance • With the arrival of the Renaissance, Roman law again began to play a strong role, and later on legal scholars revived the formalities of Roman law as set by Justinian in the Corpus iuris civilis. • It became common law (Gemeines Recht) in large parts of the German-speaking world and prevailed far into the 19th century..

  36. The first codes • Prussia made an effort to bring in an all-new set of laws with the Allgemeines Landrecht für die preußischen Staaten (General National Law for the Prussian States) (1794) a system of codification, containing laws in relation to the whole spectrum of legal divisions - had a great influence on later works.

  37. French influence • After the French July Revolution of 1830, revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution and Napoleon's laws such as the Code civil, the Code pénal and the Code d'instruction criminelle strongly influenced the German legal tradition, especially in the Grand Duchy of Baden, which sometimes only translated codifications of France for its own use.

  38. Unification of Germany (1871) • With the forming of the Deutsches Reich in 1871, a major process of legal standardization ensued, beginning with criminal law and procedural law and culminating in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (Book of Civil Law) after over twenty years of creative process. • Important parts of German legislation still contain regulations of these laws. • However, the various states always maintained their own laws to an extent, and still do so in modern federal Germany.

  39. Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB, 1900 • The most celebrated piece of German legislation • Excellent internal logic of the codes (on the model of natural sciences) but its content is not easily understood from the reader’s standpoint • A monument of refined legal scholarship; written for judges versed in law, not for laymen

  40. The Weimar Constitution • In 1919 in Weimar the Weimarer Verfassung (Weimar Constitution) was created: the first democratic constitution of Germany. • A very liberal and democratic constitution, but it did not include any basic ethical or political principles. • It allowed unlimited changes, the only requirement of any legal decision was a formally correct decision of the appropriate legal institution.

  41. Legal French History and development

  42. History • Vulgar Latin inGallia • Old French (8C-14C) • MiddleFrench • (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8tu8TgrXo) • ModernFrench

  43. Vulgar Latin in Gallia • Due to Roman rule, Latin was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul, and as the language was learned by the common people it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which being attested on graffiti. • This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance languages, which include French and its closest relatives

  44. Old French (8C -14C) • The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. • These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. • A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc.

  45. Middle French • Within Old Frenchthe Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th century–17th century). • Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. • Grammatically, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. • Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. • Politically, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) proclaimed French the language of law.

  46. Modern French • During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations (lingua franca). • It retained this role until approximately the middle of the 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War. • Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language

  47. Modern French • During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders enjoyed a period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. • Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. • By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France

  48. Modern French • Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minority and regional languages (patois) spoken in France. • This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire's "Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language"..

  49. Roman law • Rome and its empire collapsed in the 5th century, but Roman law survived in Gaul at various levels and in different forms.

  50. Germaniccustom • In the north and west (the regions where Frankish and Burgundian monarchs had set the stage for legal development), it was only natural that the droit coutumier, based on Germanic custom and tradition, would prevail

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