Linguistic purism
Encyclopedia
Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is the practice of defining one variety
of a language
as being purer than other varieties. The ideal of purity is often opposed in reference to a perceived decline from an "ideal past" or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply to an abstract ideal. Linguistic purism was institutionalized through Language academies (of which the 1572 Accademia della Crusca
set a model example in Europe), and their decisions have often the force of law.
The perceived decline lamented by the purists, may take the form of change of vocabulary, syncretism
of grammatical elements, or loanword
s. Linguistic purism is a form of prescriptive linguistics. The unwanted similarity is often with a neighboring language whose speakers are culturally or politically dominant. The abstract ideal may invoke logic, clarity, or the grammar of "classic" languages. It is often presented as conservative, as a "protection" of a language from the "aggression" of other languages or of "conservation" of the national
Volkgeist, but is often innovative in defining a new standard. It is sometimes part of governmental language policy
which is enforced in various ways.
and Michael Walsh (2011), "some Australian interest groups (cf. Tiwi in Dorian 1994: 481-4) get hung up on misled views akin to the slogan ‘Give me authenticity or give me death!’ (cf. ‘Give me Liberty, or give me Death!’, the famous quotation attributed to Patrick Henry
from a speech he made to the Virginia Conventions
in America on 20 March 1775), where the death, of course, ends up being the Indigenous language they wish to save from ‘contamination’! (On authenticity and language revival, see also Wong 1999 and Hinton and Ahlers 1999.)"
Zuckermann and Walsh "encourage revivalists and Aboriginal leaders to be realistic rather than puristic", proposing that "purism creates unrealistic expectations that may discourage learners from acquiring the emerging language. A revived language should not be viewed negatively if it is seen to be influenced by a neighbouring language or by English. The use of words from a neighbouring language should not discredit the revived language. There might be some rare occasions when it is more appropriate for revivalists to favour purism – see Harlow (1993) on Maori. However, in the case of reclamation proper (i.e. the revival of a language that has no native speakers such as Hebrew), one must learn to embrace, celebrate and champion – rather than chastise – the inevitable hybridity of the emerging language."
" of the strong language, with the implication that it has no independent existence. In response, defenders of the other language will go to great lengths to prove that their language is equally autonomous.
In this context, Yiddish
and Dutch
have in the past sometimes been considered dialects of German
. In the case of Low German
, spoken in northern Germany
, the debate is still current. Since linguistic science offers no scholarly definition of a dialect, and linguists regard the distinction with scepticism – see A language is a dialect with an army and navy
– the argument is really about subjective questions of identity politics
, and at times it can invoke extreme emotions from the participants.
. The extreme case was with Moldovan
and Romanian
languages, which are virtually identical in all respects, except that Moldovan used Cyrillic script
– which is still in use in Transnistria
– and Romanian uses Latin script
.
Another example is Yiddish
, which is very close to German
, but uses the Hebrew alphabet
instead of the Latin alphabet, and so keeps its separateness. This results in the situation where, for example, an Israel
i could read a Yiddish text out loud to a German who could not read Hebrew
, and the German would understand it, while the Israeli could not.
A further example involves Hindi
and Urdu, which are traditionally kept separated by using Devanagari
and Arabic script
, respectively. This is a well-known example often cited in linguistic texts; however, in recent decades, it has been observed that the languages are tending to drift much further apart, due to the Sanskritization and Anglicization of Hindi and the Arabization
and Persianization
of Urdu.
Serbian
, Bosnian and Croatian
languages also differ mainly in using Cyrillic and Latin scripts, respectively. Both of them exhibit high degree of mutual intelligibility as both standard Serbian and Croatian are based on essentially the same dialect (stylised form of Neoštokavian).
This classification of puristic orientations made by George Thomas represents ideal forms. In practice, though, these orientations are often combined.
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
of a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
as being purer than other varieties. The ideal of purity is often opposed in reference to a perceived decline from an "ideal past" or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply to an abstract ideal. Linguistic purism was institutionalized through Language academies (of which the 1572 Accademia della Crusca
Accademia della Crusca
The Accademia della Crusca is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. After the Accademia Cosentina, it is the oldest Italian academy still in existence...
set a model example in Europe), and their decisions have often the force of law.
The perceived decline lamented by the purists, may take the form of change of vocabulary, syncretism
Syncretism (linguistics)
In linguistics, syncretism is the identity of form of distinct morphological forms of a word. This phenomenon is typical of fusional languages....
of grammatical elements, or loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s. Linguistic purism is a form of prescriptive linguistics. The unwanted similarity is often with a neighboring language whose speakers are culturally or politically dominant. The abstract ideal may invoke logic, clarity, or the grammar of "classic" languages. It is often presented as conservative, as a "protection" of a language from the "aggression" of other languages or of "conservation" of the national
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
Volkgeist, but is often innovative in defining a new standard. It is sometimes part of governmental language policy
Language policy
Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...
which is enforced in various ways.
Linguistic Purism versus Language Revitalization
Linguistic purism should not be confused with language revival/revitalization. However, purism does appear in many attempts to reclaim sleeping tongues. According to Ghil'ad ZuckermannGhil'ad Zuckermann
Ghil'ad Zuckermann is an Israeli-Italian-British-Australian linguist, expert of language revival, contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity...
and Michael Walsh (2011), "some Australian interest groups (cf. Tiwi in Dorian 1994: 481-4) get hung up on misled views akin to the slogan ‘Give me authenticity or give me death!’ (cf. ‘Give me Liberty, or give me Death!’, the famous quotation attributed to Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry was an orator and politician who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and subsequently, from 1784 to 1786...
from a speech he made to the Virginia Conventions
Virginia Conventions
The Virginia Conventions were a series of five political meetings in the Colony of Virginia during the American Revolution. Because the House of Burgesses had been dissolved in 1774 by Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, the conventions served as a revolutionary provisional government until the...
in America on 20 March 1775), where the death, of course, ends up being the Indigenous language they wish to save from ‘contamination’! (On authenticity and language revival, see also Wong 1999 and Hinton and Ahlers 1999.)"
Zuckermann and Walsh "encourage revivalists and Aboriginal leaders to be realistic rather than puristic", proposing that "purism creates unrealistic expectations that may discourage learners from acquiring the emerging language. A revived language should not be viewed negatively if it is seen to be influenced by a neighbouring language or by English. The use of words from a neighbouring language should not discredit the revived language. There might be some rare occasions when it is more appropriate for revivalists to favour purism – see Harlow (1993) on Maori. However, in the case of reclamation proper (i.e. the revival of a language that has no native speakers such as Hebrew), one must learn to embrace, celebrate and champion – rather than chastise – the inevitable hybridity of the emerging language."
Cognate languages
In one common case, two closely related languages or language varieties are in direct competition, one weaker, the other stronger. Speakers of the stronger language may characterize the weaker language as a "dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
" of the strong language, with the implication that it has no independent existence. In response, defenders of the other language will go to great lengths to prove that their language is equally autonomous.
In this context, Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
have in the past sometimes been considered dialects of German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. In the case of Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
, spoken in northern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the debate is still current. Since linguistic science offers no scholarly definition of a dialect, and linguists regard the distinction with scepticism – see A language is a dialect with an army and navy
A language is a dialect with an army and navy
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy" is a description of the distinction between dialect and language. It points out the influence that political conditions can have over a community's perception of the status of a language or dialect...
– the argument is really about subjective questions of identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
, and at times it can invoke extreme emotions from the participants.
Writing systems
Closely related languages often tend to mix. One way of preventing this is using different writing systems or different spelling systemsOrthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. The extreme case was with Moldovan
Moldovan language
Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...
and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
languages, which are virtually identical in all respects, except that Moldovan used Cyrillic script
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
– which is still in use in Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
– and Romanian uses Latin script
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
.
Another example is Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
, which is very close to German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, but uses the Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
instead of the Latin alphabet, and so keeps its separateness. This results in the situation where, for example, an Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i could read a Yiddish text out loud to a German who could not read Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, and the German would understand it, while the Israeli could not.
A further example involves Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Urdu, which are traditionally kept separated by using Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
and Arabic script
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
, respectively. This is a well-known example often cited in linguistic texts; however, in recent decades, it has been observed that the languages are tending to drift much further apart, due to the Sanskritization and Anglicization of Hindi and the Arabization
Arabization
Arabization or Arabisation describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture...
and Persianization
Persianization
Persianization or Persianisation is a sociological process of cultural change in which something non-Persian becomes Persianate. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes linguistic assimilation...
of Urdu.
Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, Bosnian and Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
languages also differ mainly in using Cyrillic and Latin scripts, respectively. Both of them exhibit high degree of mutual intelligibility as both standard Serbian and Croatian are based on essentially the same dialect (stylised form of Neoštokavian).
Based on the approach
- Archaizing purism: This occurs when a speech community tries to resuscitate the language of a perceived golden age of literature. Examples: ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Tanittamil IyakkamTanittamil IyakkamThe Thanittamil Iyakkam is a movement of linguistic purism in Tamil literature attempting to emulate the "unadulterated Tamil language" of the Sangam period, avoiding Sanskrit, Persian and English loanwords. It was notably initiated by the writings of Maraimalai Adigal and Paventhar ...
in Tamil languageTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
(see also: preservation of Icelandic), KatharevousaKatharevousaKatharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century as a compromise between Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek of the time, with a vocabulary largely based on ancient forms, but a much-simplified grammar. Originally, it was widely used both for literary and official...
GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, SanskritSanskrit revivalSanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken.-History:In 1891 there was organized activity among the Theosophists in India promoting and participating in the revival of Sanskrit...
, LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
(puristic obsession with classical forms during RenaissanceRenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
). See also Language revivalLanguage revivalLanguage revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered,...
. - Ethnographic purism: This form is based on an idealization of the countryside, folk stories and dialects. Examples: NynorskNynorskNynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...
(New Norwegian), some versions of Demotic Greek. - Elitist purism: Associated with the language spoken at the court.
- Reformist purism: The main feature here is to break the bonds with the past. An example of this is the removal of PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Arabic words during Turkish language reform under AtatürkMustafa Kemal AtatürkMustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
in order to break with the Persian- and Arabic- influenced Ottoman Turkish languageOttoman Turkish languageThe Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
. Other examples are the purist efforts in languages like HausaHausa languageHausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
, SwahiliSwahili languageSwahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
and HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
to break with the colonial past. In addition, language policiesLanguage policyMany countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...
may seek to decrease similarities between mutually intelligible languages for ethno-political reasonsIdentity politicsIdentity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
, as has been the case with Dano-NorwegianDano-NorwegianDano-Norwegian is a linguistic term for a koiné that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union between the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway . It is from this koiné that Riksmål and Bokmål developed...
, HindustaniHindustani languageHindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
(Hindi and Urdu) and MalayMalay languageMalay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
/IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
. - Patriotic purism: involves the elimination or exclusion of foreign elements. Examples include High NorwegianHøgnorskHøgnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk that reject most of the official reforms that have been introduced since the creation of Landsmål...
and AnglishAnglishAnglo-Saxon linguistic purism is a kind of English linguistic purism, which favors words of native origin over those of foreign origin. In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign ones...
. Many EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
writers of the 19th and 20th centuries extolled the virtues of "strong" Anglo-SaxonAnglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
words such as foreword, which was coined to replace the "weak" Romance word preface. FranceFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, GermanyGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and GreeceGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
are known for their preference for coining words over borrowing English words.
This classification of puristic orientations made by George Thomas represents ideal forms. In practice, though, these orientations are often combined.
Based on the goals
- Democratic purism: Aims at safeguarding the intelligibility of (modern) concepts for a larger group of language users through enforcing their expression by the means of common, every-day words or expressions (for example, “to back up / backing” instead of “sustain[ment]”)
- Unificatory purism: Aims at better uniting the overall user group of a language by reducing certain regional or professional linguistic peculiarities which could separate varying aspects of life, or even obstruct interconnectivity, between individuals or sub-groups of different regional provenience or professional background.
- Defensive purism: Aims at defending a language from external threats. Mostly, these are to be understood as influx of foreign ideas which a given language group (or its political system) disdains or has overthrown, or influx of foreign words or expressions which tend to substitute innate vocabulary, thus diminishing and/or endangering supra-regional or inter-generational intelligibility within a language area or between its present speakers and the literary remnants of their venerated ancestors, i. e., some kind of “classical” heritage (as e. g. Shakespeare's usage is already no more widely understood amongst many of today's English speakers).
- Prestige purism: Aims at varying prestige functions.
- Delimiting purism: Aims at establishing some kind of separating functions.
Based on the intensity
- Marginal purism: In this pattern purism never becomes at any stage a value-feature of the speech community. On the contrary, there is a certain openness to all sources of enrichment, at the same time characterized by a lack among the language elite of intellectual digestion of foreign influxes, or by a lack of such an elite as a whole. Examples: EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. - Moderate, discontinuous purism: In this pattern, a moderate attitude is discernible over a long period of time. Examples: SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. - Trimming purism: A reactive correction to a potentially dangerous trend in the development of a standard language. Examples: DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
. - Evolutionary purism: In this pattern purism is seen early in the development of a written language. There are no radical changes or orientation. During the standardisation process, the purism gains momentum after which it slows down. Examples: HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
and Slovene. - Oscillatory purism: Involves repeated swings between intense purism and a more inclusive attitude. Examples: GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and Yiddish. - Stable, consistent purism: In this pattern no interruption or fluctuation in intensity is seen. Purism is a constant value-feature of the speech community. Examples: Arabic, TamilTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
. - Revolutionary purism: An abrupt and violent change from the previously mentioned patterns to another. Examples: TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
.
Based on linguistic level
- Lexical purism: directed at the lexicon, first of all against direct lexical loans, often combined with the development of loan translations (such as in Norwegian: hand out > støtteark and snowboard > snøbrett).
- Orthographic purism: directed against foreign orthographic elements (such as in Norwegian: genre > sjanger, in Spanish: football > fútbol). Note that there is also reverse orthographic purism. Some Spanish speakers prefer the English spelling "blue jean" and object to the spelling bluyín.
- Morphological purism: directed against foreign inflection and declension (such as the resistance to plural -s in noun endings in Scandinavian languages).
- Syntactic purism: directed at syntactic features from other languages (such as the stylistic resistance in Nynorsk against some passive constructions and some constructions with the genitive).
- Phonetic purism: directed at foreign phonemes and phonematical combinations (such as gánster or champú in Spanish). Note that there is a reverse phonetic purism, which insists in the original pronunciation, such as pronouncing gángster and shampú in Spanish.
Other forms
- Regressive purism: The eradication of very old loan-words. It is one of the main features of ultrapurism.
- : The extreme upper limit of purism. In this pattern, everything expressed by human speech can become a target for puristic intervention, even geographical names, proper names, and names of physical elements, chemicals, etc. (It should be noted, however, that the attitude – in itself "puristic" and associated with increased education and foreign language competency – opposed to the translation or adaptation of toponyms, or even personal names, is historically quite recent, as names are not considered fixed or unchanging in most cultures; and there are many exceptions even in English, especially the names of historical personages, Native Americans, and even contemporary royalty. Historically, names were part of the lexicon of a language just as every other word, and it was common to have different names associated with different language communities. See exonym and endonymExonym and endonymIn ethnolinguistics, an endonym or autonym is a local name for a geographical feature, and an exonym or xenonym is a foreign language name for it...
. Also, the names of physical elements and chemicals, or astronomical objects, do vary between languages, sometimes quite radically. The longer established the tradition of a name or term, the more likely are strong differences.) The only two recorded examples of this are High IcelandicHigh IcelandicHigh Icelandic or Hyper Icelandic is a type of linguistic purism started by the Belgian Jozef Braekmans, aimed at removing loan words from the modern Icelandic language. Its vocabulary is described by its creator as an "ultra-purist" compilation of already existing Icelandic neologisms, and other...
(Háfrónska), and the usage of the German renaissance humanist Johann Georg TurmairJohannes AventinusJohannes Aventinus was a Bavarian historian and philologist. He wrote Annals of Bavaria, a valuable record of the early history of Germany...
who even translated the name of the ancient Roman general Fabius CunctatorFabius MaximusQuintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator was a Roman politician and general, born in Rome around 280 BC and died in Rome in 203 BC. He was Roman Consul five times and was twice Dictator in 221 and again in 217 BC. He reached the office of Roman Censor in 230 BC...
into Zauderer Bohnenmaier (i. e. literally “Laggard Bean-Mayor”). While not ultra-purism per se, phono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
is commonly used in a number of languages, notably for translating proper names into Chinese.
Linguistic purism by language
- CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
– Croatian linguistic purismCroatian linguistic purismOne of the features of standard Croatian language and in common with several languages such as Czech, Finnish, Slovenian, Tamil or Turkish is word coinage using roots or elements perceived as being characteristic or unique to the speech of the community.... - EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
– AnglishAnglishAnglo-Saxon linguistic purism is a kind of English linguistic purism, which favors words of native origin over those of foreign origin. In its mild form, it merely means using existing native words instead of foreign ones... - GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
– KatharevousaKatharevousaKatharevousa , is a form of the Greek language conceived in the early 19th century as a compromise between Ancient Greek and the Modern Greek of the time, with a vocabulary largely based on ancient forms, but a much-simplified grammar. Originally, it was widely used both for literary and official... - IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
– Háíslenska/High IcelandicHigh IcelandicHigh Icelandic or Hyper Icelandic is a type of linguistic purism started by the Belgian Jozef Braekmans, aimed at removing loan words from the modern Icelandic language. Its vocabulary is described by its creator as an "ultra-purist" compilation of already existing Icelandic neologisms, and other... - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
– Accademia della CruscaAccademia della CruscaThe Accademia della Crusca is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. After the Accademia Cosentina, it is the oldest Italian academy still in existence...
, Italian language purist institution
- NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
– Høgnorsk/High NorwegianHøgnorskHøgnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk that reject most of the official reforms that have been introduced since the creation of Landsmål... - Sinhala – Hela HavulaHela HavulaThe Hela Havula is a Sinhalese literary organization founded by Munidasa Cumaratunga in 1941. The movement advocates the replacement of Sanskritic words with Hela versions. It was incorporated in 1985. Besides Munidasa Cumaratunga, other prominent members included Sunil Shantha , Amarasiri...
- TamilTamil languageTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
– Tanittamil IyakkamTanittamil IyakkamThe Thanittamil Iyakkam is a movement of linguistic purism in Tamil literature attempting to emulate the "unadulterated Tamil language" of the Sangam period, avoiding Sanskrit, Persian and English loanwords. It was notably initiated by the writings of Maraimalai Adigal and Paventhar ... - TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
– Türk Dil Kurumu
See also
- Inkhorn debate
- Language policyLanguage policyMany countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...
- Language planningLanguage planningLanguage planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of languages or language variety within a speech community. It is often associated with government planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations, such as grass-roots...
- Language revitalization
- Language secessionismLanguage secessionismLanguage secessionism is an attitude supporting the separation of a language variety from the language to which it normally belongs, in order to make this variety considered as a distinct language...
- Linguistic imperialismLinguistic imperialismLinguistic imperialism, or language imperialism, is a linguistics concept that "involves the transfer of a dominant language to other people...
- Linguistic prescriptionLinguistic prescriptionIn linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct...
- Phono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....