Language maintenance through corpus planning – the case of Kven

ABSTRACT

The Kven language that is spoken in northernmost Norway was officially recognized as a language in 2005. The history of the language community dates back to the sixteenth century according to tax books. There is still an ongoing discussion among certain language users, whether Kven is in fact a language or one of the Finnish dialects. The language planning of Kven has started in 2007 by determining the orthography and choosing principles for the standardization. This article discusses the history of the process that led to the recognition of Kven as a language and reviews the progress of the language standardization until the present. The principles of language planning are reviewed through document analysis – earlier literature, minutes or summaries and participant observation of the language board’s meetings, and expert interviews – and analysed according to Lars S. Vikør’s language planning model. Some of the preferred features seem to follow the language planning ideology of the Norwegian standards – Bokmål and Nynorsk – in terms of allowance of variation and parallel forms as well as dialectal diversity.     

Mapping languages from inside: Notes on perceptual dialectology

Language maps can represent many aspects of the linguistic situation in a certain territory. They usually draw particular views of the language setting as seen from outside, i.e. by linguists or scholars in general. However, maps can also be used to show the geographical distribution of the perception of language variation from the point of view of the speakers. The starting point for every kind of language map is the language border (and its definition): thus a perceptual language map needs a definition of border from the point of view of the speaker. To do that it is necessary to analyse 'perceptual data', that is to study the opinion the speaker has of the language diversities and compare the different kinds of perception. Points of interest can be, for example: the influence of the perceived ethnic diversity on the language variation—or vice versa, the fact that perceived ethnic borders do not match with perceived language borders; or moreover that perceived language borders do not necessarily match with the perceived comprehensibility of other language varieties (symbolic versus communicative function of language). Hence a possible linguistic borderline on perceptual language maps could be the limit among social language behaviours. From this point of view, sociolinguistic studies can be a good tool to draw perceptual language maps, since quantitative sociolinguistic researches provide the diatopic/diasthratic variation of the data, whilst qualitative research provides the perception of the variation. The paper discusses some field research case studies, coming from the Eastern and Western Alps in Italy, to better introduce this kind of perceptual geolinguistic explanation.     

“Words fail us”: Beckett,Leacock, and Johnson

ABSTRACT

This article will look at political treatments of language in Samuel Beckett’s early novel Watt and place the novel’s linguistic scepticism in conversation with three authors, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the language theorist Felix Mauthner, and the English-born, Canadian parodist Stephen Leacock. The paper will argue that Beckett, like Leacock, engages in Mauthnerian critiques of language, destabilising Johnsonian formulae for language standardisation. But while Leacock fails to develop the political implications of his critique of language, Beckett’s understanding of language standardisation is implicitly political, informed by Johnson’s conception of speech as the predicate of national identity, a standard for inclusion which Watt gleefully antagonises. Challenging nationalist calls for controls on language, Watt interrogates the ways that campaigns for linguistic unity will engender exclusionary attitudes towards the nonconforming and bar access to that speech and identity which falls outside of normative frameworks.     

Von der „Natur der Sache”︁ zur Geschichte der Sprache Der Übergang von der Sprachforschung zur Sprachwissenschaft zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts

From the “nature of things” to the history of language: The transition from the study of language to historico-comparative linguistics. This brief essay deals with a somewhat problematic phase in the history of linguistics and tries to investigate the process by which language could be understood as a historical phenomenon with a history of its own. This new understanding of language turned out to be the starting condition for a new and very prolific way in the study of language. The conjecture is that this is due to certain alterations in the semantic field of some important notions relating to language and its study. The process of alteration began by the end of the eighteenth century with conceptual achievements which could adequately be termed as temporalization of aspects of language and the notions related to these aspects. In connection with the so called discovery of the Sanskrit language and the gradual reception of its grammatical structure, looking upon language as an organic entity with autonomous and internal structures of developpement became possible after the German romantic language philosophy had developped a strictly abstract concept of language as a notion of form. This essentially metaphorical mode of speaking nevertheless inaugurated that languages were concieved of as having their own history totally independent of their speakers. With language as an autonomous object the study of language rapidly became the science of language.     

Language,ethnicity and religion: a complex and persistent linkage

ABSTRACT. Among the markers of ethnonational identity, language and religion have figured with equal prominence. In many cases, religion has been the bedrock of nation‐building; and even today, it is difficult to separate a number of national identities from their religious matrices. Religious identity is based on, and perpetuated in, narratives expressed in a specific language. Language and religion are related; in our secular age, however, that relationship is no longer consistent. The two may feed upon one another; language may substitute for religion; or religion may trump language. This article explores the varying relationships between language and religion.     

SEKE,the KKE and the language question

Abstract

This article presents an overview of SEKE and the KKE's views on the language question between 1918 and 1936. By examining unpublished sources, shifts in the party's views become discernible which cannot be attributed solely to changes in the language debates. The article introduces two innovations: it argues that there is a correlation between political changes within the KKE and transformations in its views on language, and analyses these with reference to ideas on language in the USSR. Studying these views augments our knowledge of a relatively neglected dimension of the language question. Moreover, as the influence of Marxism on some Greek intellectuals increased in this period, its findings can be used to elucidate aspects of literary production.     

The Pontic Greek spoken by Muslims in the villages of Beşköy in the province of present-day Trabzon

Abstract

This article consists of two parts. The first part provides general information on the language and its speakers: I describe the language, land, and livelihood of the Greek-speaking people of Be?köy in Trabzon province. In this respect it is indispensable to mention migration, which is one of the most serious threats the Greek-speaking community and their language faces today; statistical data show that Be?köy lost half of its population over the past fifty years. Despite these adverse conditions, the language has proved to be resilient enough to remain a preferred means of communication when Greek-speakers come together. In the last subsection, on language and identity, I present testimonies by native people which illustrate that positive attitudes towards both the Greek language and Turkish citizenship or Islamic identity are easily compatible.

The second part comprises a linguistic discussion of the language and aims at giving an overview of its main features. It describes its phonological system, and points out some of its most interesting morphological and syntactical characteristics. Special emphasis is laid on the differences from the Sarachos variety that has been studied by Peter Mackridge.     

‘Selig wer auch Zeichen gibt’: Leibniz as Historical Linguist

Abstract

Leibniz’s philosophical and philological interests overlapped at many points, and some of his fundamental philosophical notions shaped his views on language, particularly his thinking about language history, in decisive ways. Although he is better known for his work on universal language, his writings on natural language and language history are worth consideration both for their subtlety and for the insight they give into the complex history of thought on this topic. The principles of sufficient reason, praedicatum inest subjecto, and his doctrine of marks and traces are echoed in his work on natural languages and in his account of their histories. He attempted to reconcile philosophical investigations of the natural languages with the Biblical accounts of the confusion of languages at Babel, and in his approach to etymology he participated in a long tradition of thinking about language and its essence as hidden or secret, the truth of which remains scattered in signs and which etymology alone may occasionally reveal.     

Language identity,linguistic diversity and political cleavages: evidence from Ukraine

ABSTRACT. This article revisits the notion of linguistic diversity and its function as a political cleavage. It argues that people's linguistic and cultural attitudes are influenced not only by their communicative practice but also by their identification with particular language(s) – even though they may not always communicate in that language. In Ukraine, from which my empirical data is drawn, language identity is embodied in the concept of native language that was imposed by the Soviet institutionalisation of ethnicity and came to mean ethnic belonging as much as linguistic practice. My analysis of survey data demonstrates that native language is a powerful predictor of people's attitudes and policy preferences with regard to both language use and other socially divisive issues, such as foreign policy and historical memory. This finding should also be applicable to other societies with a large‐scale discrepancy between language practice and identity.     

Language,geography and identity: The case of the Welsh in London

This paper explores the role of language in the construction of Welsh identities in London. It begins by mapping out some key theoretical connections between language, geography and identity, and argues that a reading of diaspora theory might be helpful in conceptualizing Welsh identities in the British capital. In particular, diaspora theory stresses that identities are made up of multiple social axes that need to be seen relationally. Diasporic identities make connections with more than one place challenging the notion of culture and language as delimited by the boundaries of particular national spaces. For many Welsh people in London, language is an important part of their attempts to meet others who share a common identity. London-Welsh societies facilitate this need, defining language in different ways, and interweaving the linguistic with other social axes to form powerful senses of belonging. Whilst London is a key migration destination, it is also a space of Welsh identities that draw centrally upon language, but make different geographical connections with Wales. The paper concludes by arguing that a diasporic reading of such processes allows a wider and more progressive understanding of the Welsh language, and highlights the importance of geography in doing so.     

语用中的民俗

语用中的民俗作为一种语言化现象,包括的范围很广,如副语言习俗、数习俗、言语风尚以及语法、修辞、语音、字诸方面的习俗惯制要素等。本主要通过汉语的例子管中窥豹,对谐音、和谐与对称、言语禁忌、语言崇拜、语言伦理等五种语用民俗作了一些探讨。目的在于揭示语言的化性质、化价值、化功能和语言化的相对性特点。     

4. THE GADAMERIAN APPROACH TO THE RELATION BETWEEN EXPERIENCE AND LANGUAGE

Narrativism as a theory of historical depiction intuitively opens the question: what is left of reality when it is poured through the filter of language structures? And, extended a little bit further, questions arise: What is responsible for the final shape of a historical depiction? Is it experience or language? What is affecting what? Narrativism typically accuses language units of transforming experience in a specific way. However, even in asking these questions, the problem of the separation of experience from language and language from experience remains. In this article, I address this issue using Gadamer's hermeneutical frame. Wherever philosophical tradition insists on the separation of certain positions, Gadamer tries to show their ontological connections. For Gadamer, understanding is a basic ontological structure, within which both sides of a dialogue affect and constitute each other. In Gadamerian hermeneutical ontology, there is no “starting point” or first responsible position. In the understanding, dialogue has the permanently moving character of a play, where separate positions are erased. This Gadamerian view can also be applied to the question of language and experience and their mutual connection in depicting any experience via language. In Gadamer's example of the work of art, the original subject matter (Urbild) is articulated through its depiction. The subject matter dictates possible ways of depicting, which in turn dictate the final shape of depiction. In this article, I discuss Gadamer's term “articulation of the world,” by which he means a function of language. Articulation is simply a transformation of shapeless matter into a shape, and in our case it is a transformation of an experience into a language depiction. I show that the Gadamerian approach to language and experience can offer an interesting perspective on the issues discussed in reaction to narrativist philosophy of history.     

Italy: A new language for a new politics?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the language used by the major actors in contemporary Italian politics. After a brief introduction, which lists the general questions posed by such an analysis, we examine the language of the pre‐1992 regime, which has been rather too hastily condemned as obscure and solipsistic. We then pass to the self‐consciously simple language of Bossi, who constructs a discourse of protest, and of Berlusconi, who offers a discourse of government. These lead to the very different, albeit sometimes complementary, languages of Prodi and D'Alema, which go beyond populism and open new political perspectives. Through these and other examples we examine the role of political language in a changing Italy.     

No place for ‘Kashmiri’ in Kashmiri nationalism*

Language is often taken as a primary differentiating factor between people as it functions as a vehicle of cultural expression, thus becoming one of the primary markers of identity. In the history of nationalism, language has always enjoyed a privileged position. Not only had the German Romantics such as Herder and Fichte held language as the fundamental characteristic of a nation, but modernist scholars such as Anderson, too, have given language a central place in their respective assessments of nationalism. In Anderson's analysis, ‘languages of power’ enable an imagined community to become real. However, are all nationalisms glotto‐centric? If not, why not? This article takes the case of Kashmiri nationalism, or the Tehreek, to demonstrate that language and nationalism are not necessarily codependent. The paper will first explain why Kashmiri never came to become a language of power in the region and how the disadvantaged position of the Kashmiri language precludes/d it from having any significant role in Kashmiri nationalism. Second, the paper argues that the multilingualism of Kashmiris has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Tehreek and allowed Kashmiri nationalism to assert its civic character.     

Cultural attraction, ‘soft power’ and proximity: the popularity of Japanese language in Hong Kong since the 1980s

This paper discusses the cultural attraction, ‘soft power’, and importance of cultural proximity to the popularity of the Japanese language in Hong Kong over the last three decades. Exploration of both primary and secondary sources constitutes the main research methodology employed. Email surveys and face-to-face interviews were undertaken to ascertain the nature and degree of the cultural attraction that stimulates local people's interest in learning Japanese language and culture. The paper concludes that Japan's ‘soft power’, i.e., popular culture and cultural products, are the most influential driving forces behind the popularity of Japanese language in Hong Kong. Also, the Japanese cultural proximity to the Chinese is another factor that excites local people's interest in learning Japanese as a foreign language. In the Hong Kong context, geopolitical and national identity factors do not seem to detract from the popularity of the Japanese language.     

Implementing political agreement in Northern Ireland: Planning issues for Irish language policy

This paper examines the place of the Irish language in the context of the political agreement recently reached in Northern Ireland. Language planning issues are seen to turn on critical relationships between the emergent legislative framework and local Irish-speaking communities in the region. A model for community-based language planning initiatives is proposed as a means of ensuring the effective engagement of language policy with Irish-speakers. It is suggested that the issue of language rights is likely to become much more pressing as the new institutions of state seek to reflect the socio-political diversity of the region.     

Endangered minority and regional languages (‘dialects’) in Italy

The Italian linguistic situation is characterised by a remarkable number of language varieties, although the development of Italian in the past 150 years has been the cause of a language shift from local languages to Italian. The degree of endangerment suffered by so-called ‘Italian dialects’ is shown using the Major Evaluative Factors of Language Vitality drawn up by a UNESCO ad hoc expert group in 2003, and the data offered by the 2006 ISTAT survey on language use. The debate in Italy on the vitality of ‘dialects’ and their future has done little to activate mechanisms and strategies to reverse the worrying language shift that both minority languages and ‘dialects’ are undergoing.     

Language of political socialization: language of resistance

This paper discusses the notion of language as resistance for Palestinian children living in the West Bank. Drawing from the global/local language discourse, children constructed meaning of language that echoed the Palestinian political environment. The study examines the Palestinian children's language usage and language meaning as a method of political resistance, resilience and reworking. Children's conceptualization of language meaning emerged from discussion of the diversity of naming and strategies of resistance. Data for the study was drawn from the interviews of 12 Palestinian children (six females and six males) 11–13 years of age from cities, villages, and refugee camps in the West Bank.     

Transnational practices and language maintenance: Spanish and Zapoteco in California

The theoretical framework of transnationalism has become more prominent within migration studies, examining how (im)migrants maintain connections with communities in their homeland (Sánchez, P. 2007a. “Cultural Authenticity and Transnational Latina Youth: Constructing a Meta-narrative Across Borders.” Linguistics and Education 18: 258–282). Children's identities are also affected by maintaining ties to their parents’ homeland through language. In California, a group of (im)migrants from Mexico, of Zapotec-speaking backgrounds, were among the families who wanted their children to maintain their Spanish language by enrolling in a dual immersion school. Although California has exhibited anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislated against bilingual education, some programs supporting heritage language maintenance continue to exist. This article presents interview data from 10 students who attended this school and their parents. Students maintained transnational and intergenerational ties to their families and communities in both Mexico and southern California through the maintenance of Spanish, but a subset of students who spoke Zapoteco as a heritage language also valued this language and used it as social capital.     

Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir: post-territorial Irishness and Canadian multiculturalism

In 2007 a remarkable development for the Irish language outside of Ireland took place. A dedicated space for speaking and learning the language was established in Ontario, Canada, now known as Gaeltacht Thuaisceart an Oileáin Úir. While the adoption of the term ‘Gaeltacht’ may be controversial in an allochthonous context, this site is sustained by a diasporic community that endeavours to preserve an Irish cultural identity through learning and speaking the language. This paper presents the results of fieldwork conducted among Irish-language learners in Canada who have invested time and resources to establish a permanent space for the language. Data retrieved through an online survey reveal that the language serves as a vehicle for those wishing to maintain or connect with an Irish cultural identity, as well as for those outside of the diaspora who learn the language for other social, professional or educational purposes. Notably, such narratives are perfectly at ease within a modern, multicultural Canada.