22.332, Disc: 'Justice' in Language Standardization

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LINGUIST List: Vol-22-332. Wed Jan 19 2011. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 22.332, Disc: 'Justice' in Language Standardization

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1)
Date: 11-Jan-2011
From: Bujar Dibra [berlajolli at yahoo.com]
Subject: 'Justice' in Language Standardization
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:45:32
From: Bujar Dibra [berlajolli at yahoo.com]
Subject: 'Justice' in Language Standardization

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A group of 40 renowned intellectuals in Albania, of them some linguists,
others writers, translators, professors of social sciences, intellectuals,
published a communiqué condemning the recent language conference call for
'policies for improvement and enrichment of the standard language'
(www.albanologji.com) The Conference organizers were interested in
discussing ways of attracting North Albanian (Gegh) elements into to the
standard language, based almost exclusively on the southern dialect of
Albanian (Tosc). The concept of enriching the standard Albanian has been a
subject of controversy ever since the fall of communism in the early 1990's.

The communiqué says, inter alia:

"There are allegations that in shaping the standard language the northern
dialect was subjected to injustice. We clarify that the notions of
'justice' and 'injustice' are applicable in other fields of social life,
but not in creating standard languages."

And the clarification follows: 

"'Justice' in this case would presume that all regional and literary
varieties of different dialects participated in the standard language in a
more or less proportional manner or that they were mixed arbitrarily and
artificially from different dialects. This has not happened in any other
world languages and could therefore not happen in the case of Albanian either."

My question is the following: Is it true that no notion of 'justice' is
applicable to any of the aspects of standardization or the standard
language itself? 


Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): Albanian, Tosk (als)
                     Albanian, Gheg (aln)




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