ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the description of the uses of the vernacular m some grammars of Latin from the Trecento and Quattrocento, considering also the status of the vernacular in relation to Latin and the kinds of vernacular used. It offers a comparative survey of the uses made of Latin in the major grammars of the vernacular. Languages can, of course, come into contact in other ways, and in the Renaissance there were several types of contact between a dead language, Latin, and the various living languages of Italy. When Andre Martinet and Uriel Weinreich used the phrase 'languages in contact', they were referring to the interference between two living languages, used primarily in speech. Latin grammars of the Quattrocento increasingly drew on comparisons and contrasts between the two languages, thereby encouraging the analysis of the vernacular, even if the latter was still subordinate.
