Prestige dialect
Encyclopedia
In sociolinguistics
, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language
or dialect
as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community
. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige
or class
within a society
. Generally, there is positive prestige associated with the language or dialect of the upper class
es, and negative prestige with the language or dialect of the lower classes. The concept of prestige is also closely tied to the idea of the standard language
, in that the most prestigious dialect is likely to be considered the standard language, though there are some notable exceptions to this rule, such as Arabic
. Prestige is particularly visible in situations where two or more languages come in contact, and in diverse
, socially stratified
urban
environments, in which there are likely to be speakers of different languages or dialects interacting frequently. Despite common perceptions that certain dialects or languages are relatively good or bad, correct or incorrect, "judged on purely linguistic grounds, all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit".
, multiple languages were considered to be of high prestige at some time or another, including "Italian
as the Mediterranean lingua franca
and as the language of the Renaissance
; and the 17th-18th century French
of the court culture
".
There is a strong correlation between the prestige of a group of people and the prestige accorded to the language they speak, as "language is intertwined with culture". Linguist Laurie Bauer's description of Latin
's prestige exemplifies this phenomenon:
Walt Wolfram, a professor of linguistics at North Carolina State University
, notes that he "can't think of any situations in the United States where low-prestige groups have high-prestige language systems".
is considered a language
or a dialect
. In discussing definitions of language, Dell Hymes
wrote that "sometimes two communities are said to have the same, or different, languages on the grounds of mutual intelligibility
, or lack thereof", but alone, this definition is often insufficient. Different language varieties in an area exist along a dialect continuum
, and moving geographically
often means a change in the local variety. This continuum means that despite the fact that standard German
and standard Dutch are not mutually intelligible, the speech of people living near the border
between Germany
and the Netherlands
will more closely resemble that of their neighbors across the border than the standard language
s of their respective home countries. Even so, speakers near the border would describe themselves as speaking a variety of their respective standard languages, and the evolution of these dialects tends to mirror that of the standard languages as well. That they are classified as such reflects the fact that "language differences are not only marks of differential group membership, but also powerful triggers of group attitudes". Such fuzziness has resulted in the aphorism
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." That is, speakers of some language variety with political and social power are viewed as having a distinct language, while "'dialect' is [...] a term that suggests lower-class or rural speech". A canonical example of this is the Scandinavian languages
, including Danish
, Swedish
, and Norwegian
, where language differences "constitute barriers to but do not wholly block communication", but are considered distinct languages because they are spoken in different countries
.
s are region
al in nature, there are also social
causes for differences in dialects. Very often, the "public prestige dialect of the elite in a stratified community differs from the dialect(s) of the non-elite strata (working class and other)". In fact, in an article which in part tried to motivate the study of sociolinguistics
, Raven McDavid wrote that "the importance of language as a mirror of culture can be demonstrated by dialect differences in American English". Thus the relation between the way speakers use a language and their social status is a long recognized tool in sociolinguistics.
, a small, highly stratified village
in India
. In all, the village has 31 caste
s, ranging from Brahman
s and Rajput
s at the top, to Chamar
s and Bhangi
s at the bottom, and 90% of the overall population was Hindu
, with the remaining 10% Muslim
. Gumperz observed that the different castes were distinguished both phonologically
and lexically, with each caste having a vocabulary
specific to their subculture
. Remarkably, the speech differences between Hindus and Muslims "are of the same order as those between individual touchable castes and certainly much less important than the variation between touchables and untouchables". Gumperz also observed that the lower prestige groups sought to imitate the higher prestige speech patterns, and that over time, that had caused the evolution
of the prestige away from the regional standard
, as higher prestige groups sought to differentiate themselves from lower prestige groups. Gumperz concluded that in determining speech patterns in this community
, "the determining factor seems to be informal friendship contacts", rather than work contacts.
's 1966 study of the variable pronunciation of r in New York City
. Labov went to three New York City department store
s that catered to three clearly delineated socioeconomic groups—Saks
(high), Macy's
(middle), and S. Klein
(low)—and studied how their employees pronounced the phrase "fourth floor". His results demonstrated that the employees at Saks pronounced r most often, Macy's employees pronounced r less often, and at S. Klein, seventy-nine percent of the respondents said no r at all. Another trend Labov noticed was that at all three of the stores, but Macy's in particular, when prompted to say "fourth floor" a second time, employees were much more likely to pronounce the r.
Labov attributed his findings to the perceived prestige of each dialect. He noted that New York City's "dropped 'r' has its origins in posh British speech", but after World War II
, "with the loss of Britain’s imperial status “r”-less British speech ceased to be regarded as “prestige speech”". In 1966, when Labov performed his study, pronouncing words like car and guard with r was then considered an element of prestige speech. This resulted in middle-class employees, once made conscious of having to pronounce "fourth floor", altering their pronunciation in order to match that of the high prestige dialect. The prestige given to r was also evident in the hypercorrection
observed in lower-class speech. Knowing that r-pronunciation was a prestigious trait, many of the lower-class speakers in another Labov study—in which speakers were asked to read from word lists—added -r to words that did not have an r at all. The difference between this study and the "fourth floor" study was the fact that speakers were closely monitoring their speech, not speaking spontaneously, and were thus careful to add r in an attempt to mimic a higher social class.
, who noticed that even speakers who used non-standard dialects often believed that their own dialect was "bad" or "inferior". Labov realized that there must be some underlying reason for their use of the dialect, which he identified as a signal of group identity. One example is a 1998 study on the use of word-final -ing versus -in among college fraternity
men in the United States. The fraternity men used "-in" rather than "-ing," from which the author concluded that the men used -in to demonstrate what they saw as working-class behavioral traits, such as 'hard-working' and 'casual,' thus creating a specific identity for themselves.
Likewise, in studies of the speech patterns in British English
, Peter Trudgill
observed that more working class women spoke the standard dialect than men. Farida Abu-Haidar performed a similar study in Baghdad
of prestige in the Arabic language
, after which she concluded that in Baghdadi Arabic, women are more conscious of prestige than are men. Other areas in which this has been observed include New Zealand
and Guangdong
in China
. As explanation, Trudgill suggests that for men, there is covert prestige associated with speaking the working class dialect. In fact, he observed men claiming to speak a less prestigious dialect than that which they actually spoke. According to this interpretation then, "women's use of prestige features simply conforms to the ordinary sociolinguistic order, while men deviate from what is expected." Elizabeth Gordon, in her study of New Zealand, suggested instead that women used higher prestige forms because of the association of sexual
immorality with lower-class women
. Whatever the cause, women across many cultures seem more likely than men to modify their speech towards the prestige dialect.
Though women use prestige dialects more frequently than do men, the same gender preference for prestige languages does not seem to exist. A study of diglossic
societies by John Angle and Sharlene Hesse-Biber showed that the men were more likely to speak the prestige language than were women. One explanation put forth for this is that men are more likely to have the means of acquiring a second language than are women.
, "prestigious and standard varieties coincide to the extent that the two terms can be used interchangeably." This has a consequence that in countries like the United States
, where citizens speak many different languages and come from a variety of national
and ethnic group
s, there is a "folk linguistic
" belief that most prestigious dialect is the single standard dialect of English
that all people should speak. Linguist Rosina Lippi-Green believes that this belief in a standard language
justifies and rationalizes the preservation of the social order
, since it equates "nonstandard" or "substandard" language with "nonstandard or substandard human beings." In contrast to common popular opinions about standard languages being "better," linguists believe that no language, or variety of language, is inherently better than any other language, for every language serves its purpose of allowing its users to communicate.
. Racial harmony is a stated policy of the Singaporean government
, and a racial harmony day
is even celebrated. One element of policy designed to promote racial harmony is that each of the four major languages spoken in Singapore is treated as an official governmental language
: Tamil
, Malay
, Chinese
, and English
. Bilingualism is also officially promoted in accordance with the belief that the ethnic language is the "carrier of culture" while English is the "language of commerce," a choice motivated by the fact that, at the time of the policy's formation, English had been the native language of few Singaporean
s. With English as the lingua franca
, no one ethnicity is favored, but the cultures are preserved. The idea behind this policy is that treating all languages as standard and thus equally prestigious will result in the speakers of each language being treated equally. While the Singaporean attitude towards different languages aims to promote equality, the opposite approach is taken with regard to dialects of Chinese. Since 1979, the Speak Mandarin Campaign
has promoted use of Mandarin, due to then Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew
's belief that Mandarin is more effective than non-Mandarin Chinese languages
because Mandarin is spoken by a larger number of people worldwide. Overall, the Singaporean government promotes the idea that all languages are equally prestigious, but at the same time pushes Mandarin due to its prestige.
, which shared elements with each other more or less equally. Far more common is for the two languages to have an unequal power relationship, as is the case of many colonial language contact situations. Languages that have a higher status in relation to a certain group often manifest themselves in word borrowing
. One example is in English, which features a large number of words borrowed from French
, as a result of the historical prestige of French. Another potential result of such contact relationships includes the creation of a pidgin
or eventually creole
through nativization
. In the case of pidgins and creoles, it is usually noted that the low prestige language provides the phonology
, while the high prestige language provides the lexicon
and grammatical structure
.
In addition to forming of a new language—known as a creole—language contact
can result in changes to the languages in contact, such as language convergence
, language shift
or language death
. Language convergence is when two languages have been exposed for a long period of time and they begin to have more properties in common. Language shift is when a speaker shifts from speaking a lower prestige dialect to a higher prestige dialect. Language death is when speakers of a language die off, and there are no new generations learning to speak this language. The intensity of the contact between the two languages, as well as their relative prestige levels, influence the degree to which a language experiences lexical borrowing
, as well as changes to the morphology
, phonology
, syntax
, and overall structure of the language.
or in a refugee
situation—the creole
that results is typically largely based on the prestige language; as noted above, linguists have observed that the low-prestige language usually provides the phonology
, while the high-prestige language provides the lexicon
and grammatical structure
. Over time, continued contact between the creole and the prestige language may result in decreolization
, in which the creole begins to more closely resemble the prestige language. Decreolization thus creates a creole continuum, ranging from an acrolect (a version of the creole that is very similar to the prestige language), to mesolects (decreasingly similar versions), to the basilect (the most “conservative” creole). An example of decreolization described by Hock and Joseph is African American Vernacular English
(AAVE), in which older, more conservative versions preserve features
such as the completive marker
done, while newer, less conservative versions do not.
, a phenomenon in which a community uses a high prestige language or dialect in certain situations—usually for newspaper
s, in literature
, on university campuses
, for religious ceremonies, and on television
and the radio
—but uses a low prestige language or dialect for other situations—often in conversation in the home or in letters, comic strip
s, and in popular culture
. Linguist Charles A. Ferguson
's 1959 article "Diglossia" listed the following examples of diglossic societies: in Switzerland, Swiss Standard German
and Swiss German
; in the Middle East and North Africa, Standard Arabic and vernacular Arabic; in Haiti, Standard French
and Kréyòl
; in Greece, Katharevousa
and Dhimotiki; and in Norway, Bokmål
and Nynorsk
.
for many centuries, underwent minimal change, while the every day low prestige languages which were spoken evolved significantly. If, however, the two languages are spoken freely, the prestige language may undergo vernacular
ization and begin to incorporate vernacular features. An example is Sanskrit
, an ancient prestige language that has incorporated the vernacular pronunciations of tʃ and [b] for word-initial y- and v-.
. For example, in medieval times, Ecclesiastical Latin
developed different forms in various countries where it was used, including Italy
, France
, Spain
, Portugal
, England
, Germany
, Denmark
, Hungary
, and Slavic
countries, notably in pronunciation – see Latin regional pronunciation
. Some of these differences were minor, such as c before i and e being pronounced [tʃ] in Italy but [s] in France, but after English underwent the Great Vowel Shift
between 1200 and 1600, the vowel system in England became nearly unrecognizable to its European ecclesiastic counterparts.
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...
, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to 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...
or dialect
Dialect
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,...
as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community
Speech community
Speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans , or even tight-knit groups like families and...
. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige
Prestige (sociology)
Prestige is a word commonly used to describe reputation or esteem, though it has three somewhat related meanings that, to some degree, may be contradictory. Which meaning applies depends on the historical context and the person using the word....
or class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
within a society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. Generally, there is positive prestige associated with the language or dialect of the upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
es, and negative prestige with the language or dialect of the lower classes. The concept of prestige is also closely tied to the idea of the standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
, in that the most prestigious dialect is likely to be considered the standard language, though there are some notable exceptions to this rule, such as Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic 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...
. Prestige is particularly visible in situations where two or more languages come in contact, and in diverse
Diverse
Diverse is an American rapper. An underground hip-hop artist, he has received critical acclaim "from knowledgeable heads worldwide".-Career:...
, socially stratified
Social stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
environments, in which there are likely to be speakers of different languages or dialects interacting frequently. Despite common perceptions that certain dialects or languages are relatively good or bad, correct or incorrect, "judged on purely linguistic grounds, all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit".
Causes of prestige
Different languages and dialects are accorded prestige based upon factors which include "rich literary heritage, high degree of language modernization, considerable international standing, or the prestige of its speakers". Having many of these attributes will likely mean the language is viewed as being of high prestige; likewise, a language or dialect with few or none of these attributes will be considered to be of low prestige. This phenomenon is not limited to English speaking populations. In Western EuropeWestern Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, multiple languages were considered to be of high prestige at some time or another, including "Italian
Italian language
Italian 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...
as the Mediterranean lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
and as the language of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The 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...
; and the 17th-18th century French
French language
French 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...
of the court culture
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
".
There is a strong correlation between the prestige of a group of people and the prestige accorded to the language they speak, as "language is intertwined with culture". Linguist Laurie Bauer's description of Latin
Latin
Latin 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...
's prestige exemplifies this phenomenon:
Walt Wolfram, a professor of linguistics at North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
, notes that he "can't think of any situations in the United States where low-prestige groups have high-prestige language systems".
Language or dialect?
Prestige influences whether a language varietyVariety (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...
is considered 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...
or a dialect
Dialect
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,...
. In discussing definitions of language, Dell Hymes
Dell Hymes
Dell Hathaway Hymes was a sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist whose work dealt primarily with languages of the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics"...
wrote that "sometimes two communities are said to have the same, or different, languages on the grounds of mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
, or lack thereof", but alone, this definition is often insufficient. Different language varieties in an area exist along a dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
, and moving geographically
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
often means a change in the local variety. This continuum means that despite the fact that standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
and standard Dutch are not mutually intelligible, the speech of people living near the border
Border
Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
between 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...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
will more closely resemble that of their neighbors across the border than the standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
s of their respective home countries. Even so, speakers near the border would describe themselves as speaking a variety of their respective standard languages, and the evolution of these dialects tends to mirror that of the standard languages as well. That they are classified as such reflects the fact that "language differences are not only marks of differential group membership, but also powerful triggers of group attitudes". Such fuzziness has resulted in the aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." That is, speakers of some language variety with political and social power are viewed as having a distinct language, while "'dialect' is [...] a term that suggests lower-class or rural speech". A canonical example of this is the Scandinavian languages
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
, including Danish
Danish language
Danish 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...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish 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...
, and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian 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...
, where language differences "constitute barriers to but do not wholly block communication", but are considered distinct languages because they are spoken in different countries
Country
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
.
Class and prestige
While some differences between 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,...
s are region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
al in nature, there are also social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
causes for differences in dialects. Very often, the "public prestige dialect of the elite in a stratified community differs from the dialect(s) of the non-elite strata (working class and other)". In fact, in an article which in part tried to motivate the study of sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...
, Raven McDavid wrote that "the importance of language as a mirror of culture can be demonstrated by dialect differences in American English". Thus the relation between the way speakers use a language and their social status is a long recognized tool in sociolinguistics.
Dialect differentiation and social stratification in a North Indian village
One of the earliest studies of the relationship between social differences and dialect differences was done by John Gumperz, who studied the speech patterns in KhalapurKhalapur
Khalapur is a census town in Panvel subdivision of Raigad district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is a suburb of Karjat. It is an industrial area with many chemical, plastic and steel units....
, a small, highly stratified village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. In all, the village has 31 caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
s, ranging from Brahman
Brahman
In Hinduism, Brahman is the one supreme, universal Spirit that is the origin and support of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is sometimes referred to as the Absolute or Godhead which is the Divine Ground of all being...
s and Rajput
Rajput
A Rajput is a member of one of the patrilineal clans of western, central, northern India and in some parts of Pakistan. Rajputs are descendants of one of the major ruling warrior classes in the Indian subcontinent, particularly North India...
s at the top, to Chamar
Chamar
Chamar |tanner]]"; from the Sanskrit Charmakara) is a prominent occupational caste in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Chamar is a Dalit sub-caste mainly found in the northern states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and in Nepal at least north to the Himalayas...
s and Bhangi
Bhangi
Bhangi is an Indian caste or jāti traditionally treated as untouchable, and was historically restricted to three occupations: cleaning latrines, sweeping, and scavenging . They prefer to be known as Balmiki...
s at the bottom, and 90% of the overall population was Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
, with the remaining 10% Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
. Gumperz observed that the different castes were distinguished both phonologically
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and lexically, with each caste having a vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
specific to their subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
. Remarkably, the speech differences between Hindus and Muslims "are of the same order as those between individual touchable castes and certainly much less important than the variation between touchables and untouchables". Gumperz also observed that the lower prestige groups sought to imitate the higher prestige speech patterns, and that over time, that had caused the evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
of the prestige away from the regional standard
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
, as higher prestige groups sought to differentiate themselves from lower prestige groups. Gumperz concluded that in determining speech patterns in this community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
, "the determining factor seems to be informal friendship contacts", rather than work contacts.
Social stratification of New York City
One notable example of the relationship between dialect and social stratification in English is William LabovWilliam Labov
William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...
's 1966 study of the variable pronunciation of r in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Labov went to three New York City department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s that catered to three clearly delineated socioeconomic groups—Saks
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue is a luxury American specialty store owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises , a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the high-end specialty store market in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, i.e. 'the 3 B's' Bergdorf, Barneys, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor...
(high), Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
(middle), and S. Klein
S. Klein
S. Klein On The Square, or simply, S. Klein, was a popular priced department store chain based in New York City that is now defunct. The flagship stores were located along Union Square in Manhattan; this location would combine with the 1920s idiomatic catch phrase "on the square" to provide the...
(low)—and studied how their employees pronounced the phrase "fourth floor". His results demonstrated that the employees at Saks pronounced r most often, Macy's employees pronounced r less often, and at S. Klein, seventy-nine percent of the respondents said no r at all. Another trend Labov noticed was that at all three of the stores, but Macy's in particular, when prompted to say "fourth floor" a second time, employees were much more likely to pronounce the r.
Labov attributed his findings to the perceived prestige of each dialect. He noted that New York City's "dropped 'r' has its origins in posh British speech", but after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, "with the loss of Britain’s imperial status “r”-less British speech ceased to be regarded as “prestige speech”". In 1966, when Labov performed his study, pronouncing words like car and guard with r was then considered an element of prestige speech. This resulted in middle-class employees, once made conscious of having to pronounce "fourth floor", altering their pronunciation in order to match that of the high prestige dialect. The prestige given to r was also evident in the hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
observed in lower-class speech. Knowing that r-pronunciation was a prestigious trait, many of the lower-class speakers in another Labov study—in which speakers were asked to read from word lists—added -r to words that did not have an r at all. The difference between this study and the "fourth floor" study was the fact that speakers were closely monitoring their speech, not speaking spontaneously, and were thus careful to add r in an attempt to mimic a higher social class.
Gender and covert prestige
Non-standard dialects are usually considered low-prestige, but in some situations dialects "stigmatized by the education system still enjoy a covert prestige among working-class men for the very reason that they are considered incorrect". These situations occur when the speaker wants to gain recognition, acceptance, or solidarity with a specific—and non-prestigious—group of people, or to signal to other speakers their identification with that group. The idea of covert prestige was first introduced by William LabovWilliam Labov
William Labov born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist, widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics...
, who noticed that even speakers who used non-standard dialects often believed that their own dialect was "bad" or "inferior". Labov realized that there must be some underlying reason for their use of the dialect, which he identified as a signal of group identity. One example is a 1998 study on the use of word-final -ing versus -in among college fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
men in the United States. The fraternity men used "-in" rather than "-ing," from which the author concluded that the men used -in to demonstrate what they saw as working-class behavioral traits, such as 'hard-working' and 'casual,' thus creating a specific identity for themselves.
Likewise, in studies of the speech patterns in British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, Peter Trudgill
Peter Trudgill
Professor Peter Trudgill FBA is a sociolinguist, academic and author.He was born in 1943 in Norwich, England, where he attended the City of Norwich School from 1955....
observed that more working class women spoke the standard dialect than men. Farida Abu-Haidar performed a similar study in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
of prestige in the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic 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...
, after which she concluded that in Baghdadi Arabic, women are more conscious of prestige than are men. Other areas in which this has been observed include New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. As explanation, Trudgill suggests that for men, there is covert prestige associated with speaking the working class dialect. In fact, he observed men claiming to speak a less prestigious dialect than that which they actually spoke. According to this interpretation then, "women's use of prestige features simply conforms to the ordinary sociolinguistic order, while men deviate from what is expected." Elizabeth Gordon, in her study of New Zealand, suggested instead that women used higher prestige forms because of the association of sexual
Human female sexuality
Human female sexuality encompasses a broad range of behaviors and processes, including female sexual identity and sexual behavior, the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious aspects of sex...
immorality with lower-class women
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
. Whatever the cause, women across many cultures seem more likely than men to modify their speech towards the prestige dialect.
Though women use prestige dialects more frequently than do men, the same gender preference for prestige languages does not seem to exist. A study of diglossic
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
societies by John Angle and Sharlene Hesse-Biber showed that the men were more likely to speak the prestige language than were women. One explanation put forth for this is that men are more likely to have the means of acquiring a second language than are women.
Connection with "standard" language
The notion of a "standard" language in a speech community is related to the prestige of the languages spoken in the community. In general, "greater prestige tends to be attached to the notion of the standard, since it can function in higher domains, and has a written form." While there are some counterexamples, such as ArabicArabic language
Arabic 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...
, "prestigious and standard varieties coincide to the extent that the two terms can be used interchangeably." This has a consequence that in countries like the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where citizens speak many different languages and come from a variety of national
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....
and ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
s, there is a "folk linguistic
Folk linguistics
Folk linguistics is a term applied to the amateur study of linguistics. The term is often used as a pejorative.The linguist Ray Jackendoff points out that applying folk linguistics to education can be potentially damaging to the attainment of students who speak less standard dialects...
" belief that most prestigious dialect is the single standard dialect of English
English language
English 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...
that all people should speak. Linguist Rosina Lippi-Green believes that this belief in a standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
justifies and rationalizes the preservation of the social order
Social order
Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. It refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving....
, since it equates "nonstandard" or "substandard" language with "nonstandard or substandard human beings." In contrast to common popular opinions about standard languages being "better," linguists believe that no language, or variety of language, is inherently better than any other language, for every language serves its purpose of allowing its users to communicate.
Racial harmony in Singapore
One example of the interplay between standard languages and prestige is SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. Racial harmony is a stated policy of the Singaporean government
Government of Singapore
The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to mean the Executive branch of government, which is made up of the President and the Cabinet of Singapore. Although the President acts in his personal discretion in the exercise of certain functions as a check...
, and a racial harmony day
Racial Harmony Day
Racial Harmony Day is celebrated annually on 21 July in Singapore. The event is to commemorate the 1964 Race Riots, which took place on 21 July 1964....
is even celebrated. One element of policy designed to promote racial harmony is that each of the four major languages spoken in Singapore is treated as an official governmental language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
: Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil 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...
, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, and English
English language
English 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...
. Bilingualism is also officially promoted in accordance with the belief that the ethnic language is the "carrier of culture" while English is the "language of commerce," a choice motivated by the fact that, at the time of the policy's formation, English had been the native language of few Singaporean
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
s. With English as the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
, no one ethnicity is favored, but the cultures are preserved. The idea behind this policy is that treating all languages as standard and thus equally prestigious will result in the speakers of each language being treated equally. While the Singaporean attitude towards different languages aims to promote equality, the opposite approach is taken with regard to dialects of Chinese. Since 1979, the Speak Mandarin Campaign
Speak Mandarin Campaign
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the government of Singapore to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Mandarin, one of the four official languages of Singapore...
has promoted use of Mandarin, due to then Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew, GCMG, CH is a Singaporean statesman. He was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, governing for three decades...
's belief that Mandarin is more effective than non-Mandarin Chinese languages
Spoken Chinese
Chinese comprises many regional language varieties sometimes grouped together as the Chinese dialects, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, and even many of the regional varieties are themselves composed of a number of...
because Mandarin is spoken by a larger number of people worldwide. Overall, the Singaporean government promotes the idea that all languages are equally prestigious, but at the same time pushes Mandarin due to its prestige.
Linguistic prestige in language contact situations
When different languages or language varieties come in contact with one another, a variety of relationships can form between the two, all typically influenced by prestige. When the two contact languages have equal power or prestige, they form adstratum, as exemplified by Old English and NorseOld Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
, which shared elements with each other more or less equally. Far more common is for the two languages to have an unequal power relationship, as is the case of many colonial language contact situations. Languages that have a higher status in relation to a certain group often manifest themselves in word borrowing
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,...
. One example is in English, which features a large number of words borrowed from French
French language
French 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...
, as a result of the historical prestige of French. Another potential result of such contact relationships includes the creation of a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
or eventually creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
through nativization
Nativization
Nativization is the process whereby a language gains native speakers. This happens necessarily where a second language used by adult parents becomes the native language of their children...
. In the case of pidgins and creoles, it is usually noted that the low prestige language provides the phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, while the high prestige language provides the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
and grammatical structure
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
.
In addition to forming of a new language—known as a creole—language contact
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
can result in changes to the languages in contact, such as language convergence
Language convergence
Language convergence is a type of contact-induced change whereby languages with many bilingual speakers mutually borrow morphological and syntactic features, making their typology more similar....
, language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
or language death
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
. Language convergence is when two languages have been exposed for a long period of time and they begin to have more properties in common. Language shift is when a speaker shifts from speaking a lower prestige dialect to a higher prestige dialect. Language death is when speakers of a language die off, and there are no new generations learning to speak this language. The intensity of the contact between the two languages, as well as their relative prestige levels, influence the degree to which a language experiences lexical borrowing
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,...
, as well as changes to the morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, and overall structure of the language.
Effects on language structure
When two languages with an asymmetrical power relationship come into contact—such as through colonizationColony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
or in a refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
situation—the creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
that results is typically largely based on the prestige language; as noted above, linguists have observed that the low-prestige language usually provides the phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, while the high-prestige language provides the lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
and grammatical structure
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
. Over time, continued contact between the creole and the prestige language may result in decreolization
Decreolization
Decreolization is a hypothetical phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with one of the standard languages from which it originally derived...
, in which the creole begins to more closely resemble the prestige language. Decreolization thus creates a creole continuum, ranging from an acrolect (a version of the creole that is very similar to the prestige language), to mesolects (decreasingly similar versions), to the basilect (the most “conservative” creole). An example of decreolization described by Hock and Joseph is African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
(AAVE), in which older, more conservative versions preserve features
Feature (linguistics)
A feature is a concept applied to several fields of linguistics, typically involving the assignment of binary or unary conditions which act as constraints.-In phonology:...
such as the completive marker
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
done, while newer, less conservative versions do not.
Diglossia
Some instances of contact between languages with different prestige levels have resulted in diglossiaDiglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
, a phenomenon in which a community uses a high prestige language or dialect in certain situations—usually for newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, on university campuses
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
, for religious ceremonies, and on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and the radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
—but uses a low prestige language or dialect for other situations—often in conversation in the home or in letters, comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s, and in popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. Linguist Charles A. Ferguson
Charles A. Ferguson
Charles Albert Ferguson was a U.S. linguist who taught at Stanford University. He was one the founders of sociolinguistics and is best known for his work on diglossia. The TOEFL test was created under his leadership at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC...
's 1959 article "Diglossia" listed the following examples of diglossic societies: in Switzerland, Swiss Standard German
Swiss Standard German
Swiss Standard German, referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or Hochdeutsch, is one of four official languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian and Romansh...
and Swiss German
Swiss German
Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
; in the Middle East and North Africa, Standard Arabic and vernacular Arabic; in Haiti, Standard French
Standard French
Standard French is an unofficial term for a standard variety of the French language...
and Kréyòl
Kreyol
The word Kreyol may mean:*Liberian Kreyol language*Haitian Creole language *Louisiana Creole language -See also:*Creole peoples*creole language*Kriol *Krio *Kriolu*Criol...
; in Greece, Katharevousa
Katharevousa
Katharevousa , 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...
and Dhimotiki; and in Norway, Bokmål
Bokmål
Bokmål is one of two official Norwegian written standard languages, the other being Nynorsk. Bokmål is used by 85–90% of the population in Norway, and is the standard most commonly taught to foreign students of the Norwegian language....
and Nynorsk
Nynorsk
Nynorsk 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...
.
Vernacularization
In diglossic societies, the prestigious language tends to be very conservative and resist change over time, while the low-prestige language, the local vernacular, undergoes normal language change. For instance, Latin, the high prestige language of EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
for many centuries, underwent minimal change, while the every day low prestige languages which were spoken evolved significantly. If, however, the two languages are spoken freely, the prestige language may undergo vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
ization and begin to incorporate vernacular features. An example is Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, an ancient prestige language that has incorporated the vernacular pronunciations of tʃ and [b] for word-initial y- and v-.
Regionalization
The prestige language may also change under the influence of specific regional dialects in a process known as regionalizationRegionalisation
Regionalization is the tendency to form regions, or the process of doing so.Regionalization can be observed in various disciplines:*In geography, it has two ways: the process of delineating the Earth, its small areas or other units into regions and a state of such a delineation.*In globalization...
. For example, in medieval times, Ecclesiastical Latin
Ecclesiastical Latin
Ecclesiastical Latin is the Latin used by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in all periods for ecclesiastical purposes...
developed different forms in various countries where it was used, including Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, 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...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
countries, notably in pronunciation – see Latin regional pronunciation
Latin regional pronunciation
Latin pronunciation, both in the classical and post-classical age, has varied across different regions and different eras. As the respective languages have undergone sound changes, the changes have often applied to the pronunciation of Latin as well....
. Some of these differences were minor, such as c before i and e being pronounced [tʃ] in Italy but [s] in France, but after English underwent the Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
between 1200 and 1600, the vowel system in England became nearly unrecognizable to its European ecclesiastic counterparts.