Abstract
Melchior Cesarotti was among the most famous protagonists who contributed to the Questione della Lingua during the Italian Enlightenment. Through a close reading process, using the method of discourse analysis, this paper aims to retrace the central theses and the motivations of Cesarotti, and to show their importance within the process of the development of a national italian language. The merit of Cesarotti was not to have excelled the language of the tre corone fiorentine as model of written language, but to have come up with the freedom to enrich the italian language with new terms, deriving from the noble part of all idioms spoken in the Italian territory.
Keywords:
Cesarotti; Saggio Sulla Filosofia Delle Lingue; Questione Della Lingua; History Of The Italian Language; National Language