if Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in Occitan or Catalan, what would be the consequence, I posted this a year ago actually so I think I should ask this question again..
Aside from the fact the I don't understand why he would write in those languages ( even if you make him flee there, I think he would write in Italian), I think that the consequences would be next to nothing ( We italians would study about the two (not three) great writers of 14th century: Boccaccio and Petrarca (no Dante)).
Aside from the fact the I don't understand why he would write in those languages ( even if you make him flee there, I think he would write in Italian), I think that the consequences would be next to nothing ( We italians would study about the two (not three) great writers of 14th century: Boccaccio and Petrarca (no Dante)).
Old Occitan(the ancestor of Occitan and Catalan) was the prestige language in Western Europe at that time.
I agree on that.For once, I have to agree with Kasumigenx (it was easier when you was mimeyo) "Italian" as an unified and normative language, as most "unified" and "normative" languages in Europe, is a 19th century product. For example, a key author in late medieval Europe, Raimon Llull, wrote in catalan, and he had doubtless influence in Dante. Catalan, by the way, is much older.
That said, probably our necessary POD implies a longer pervivence of catalan and/or occitan as a prestige language in south-western Europe, or perhaps a bigger political and, specially, cultural aragonese influence. In any case, you have to play with the political map of Europe. The trick here is to make an iberian kigndom a powerful entity enough to project its language in this way or if not, an hypothetical occitan state with similar traits. To consider, first of all, none of the iberian kingdoms has been ever monolingual, and that's includes Aragon. Second of all, before dinastic unification, iberian kingdoms were, at the best, second rate powers. Though Dante, due to geographical origin, has some odds to write in "occitan" even in this case. On the other hand, survivance of Occitan or any kind of Occitania as a state is even trickier, and that possibility, with a french defeat in Muret as the most likely option, has been largelly discussed here, if I'm not wrong.
Cheers.
There were Italian poets who wrote in Occitan, including Dante's teacher Brunetto Latini, but by the time Dante wrote, Tuscan was already established as literary language and the prestige of Occitan and Catalan, though still present, was in decline.
Sure, the prestige of Tuscan was greatly enhanced by Dante, and without him we probably would not have had Boccaccio as well (not as we know him in any case).
OTL, Dante aimed at creating a common Italian upper language, for official and literary purposes. There's a rift between what he theorized as Italian common language in his theoratical writings (which were in Latin by the way) and the language he actually worked with in his Vulgar writings, the latter being far closer to spoken Tuscan.
He saw three main vulgar prestige Romance languages in his time: Oc (Occitan), Oil (French) and Si (Italian). Dante seemed to perceived the three as already established literary languages, though he felt that the Si one needed improvements, and so he committed himself to the task.
In all evidence he considered other already established Romance literatures, like the Galician and the Sicilian ones, as mere variants of the three main groups.
You need some political change that make Occitan still seen as THE prestige vulgar to be used for literary purposes at that time, as opposed to being on of at least three already in use.