VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
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<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">I have to thank Hal Schiffman for his sensible and reasoned attempt to clarify the questions and the issues raised by John's request and the characterizations that formed part of it. Personally, I have no desire or intention of entering into a contentious discussion on the topic (or any others of that kind--I have had enough of those in my quite long academic career,)</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">However, I cannot forbear from a few comments and suggestions.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">First, John raised some interesting points, some of which have been pursued in the research literature more than others, and further research on diglossia in both its structural and socio-anthropological aspects should be welcomed. If it leads to discussion, the bringing together of research in different languages and settings, great, and that would be even better if it lead to new research.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>What seems to have happened here is that John used the word "fanaticism", which appears to be what disturbed Peter. On the other hand, it might be advisable to avoid words like "offensive". and I suggest that we might usefully apply ourselves to the collection and analysis of results and data, and relating the work from different languages, contrasting and comparing what is there in some principled fashion. i that that John was, in fact contemplating something of the kind, which is all to the good.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I didn't think that he was really suggesting that political pan-Arabism is a *general* motivation for the maintenance of thediglossic system in Arabic-speaking societies" in those terms. Rather, as I read it, however unfortunately it might have been put, and once I stripped it of the hot word, he opined that diglossic maintenance in that case was linked to religion and Arab nationalism and identity.Setting aside the PC aspects, this can be considered as a hypothesis to be entertained. As Hal says "In other words, there are many sociolingustic factors involved here, but Ithink it's an area for more research. In any event, it's not an ignorant question, and it's not meant to be offensive."</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I have had limited contact with Arabic, but I have guided at least one thesis in Arabic diglossia (or multi-glossia), and the attitude toward Qu'ranic Arabic among Arabic speakers, and the veneration in which it is held is I found quite different from that towards Tamil, with which i had somewhat more experience, and Sinhala, with which i have had considerably more. The latter two lack the intimate religious connection that forms an integral part of the Arabic situation. (Someone is sure to bring up some connection of Sinhala with Buddhism, but that is at most indirect, filtered through communal identity, and in any event not directly related to H, as far as I know). There has been a fair amount of work on the Sinhala situation, some of it mine, and also a significant amount on Tamil by Hal and others. We could use more of it. I hope that people are aware of the volume <i>South Asian Languages: Structure, Convergence and Diglossia</i>, edited bh Bh. Krishnamurti and others (Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), which contains several papers on the subject, including Hal (with Arokianathan) and me, and including one by my late, lamented colleague M.W.S. De Silva that directly addresses Diglossia and literacy. He also has a 1976 Monograph entitled <i>Diglossia and Literacy, </i>and one happy byproduct of the present exchange is that it spurred my recollection of that work. Three of my own papers, including the one in the Krishnamurti volume, are included in my 1998 OUP collection, and I would be happy to make them available. There is also interesting work on diglossia by John Paolillo, focusing on Sinhala. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">One thing is clear: the situations, whatever features they share, are also different in significant ways, and the factors affecting maintenance are different. Hal mentioned distance between varieties as a factor, and the difficulty of measuring it.One feature of Sinhala, for example, is the considerable grammatical distance between H and L, and the emergence of a kind of "middle" variety (formal spoken). the growth of which has been energized by the demands of immediate communication in the mass media. One factor that I might mention, with regard to both maintenance and literacy, is a kind of cross-varirty asymmetry in the relation of script and phonology. The variety of script used in Literary includes several historically relevant distinctions not maintained in the spoken language (or, for that matter in some earlier literary varieties. For example, the full alphabet includes aspirated and unaspirated consonants, a distinction lost by the earliest inscriptions ca. 3rd ctry BCE, and certainly in the spoken language but used in dealing with IA loanwords.It also writes a distinction between retroflex and dental nasals and laterals, which were retained in early Sinhala, but lost by about the 8th ctry CE.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>In reading, this does not cause any really serious handicap, since, for example, aspirated and unaspirated consonants are pronounced unaspirated (except in rare cases where one may attempt virtuosity in rendering the aspirated ones). Thus in essence, the two-to-one drelationshipis relatively straightforwatd. In writing, however one must learn the distinctions as they pertain to specific lexical items. Thus <tana> 'breast' and <taNa> 'grass' are orthographically distinct but phonologically the same. I once ventured that, counter to Ferguson's initial description of diglossia and what might lead to its demise, widespread literacy in Sinhala did not lead to its loss, but that there might be such an effect when more people were led to write more extensively. Whether this is indeed to be the case remains to be seen, but without attempting a formal survey of some sort, it does appear that the formal spoken mentioned above is expanding its domain.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">One last point, since this is already becoming much longer than i had planned. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">It is undoubtedly true that, as Peter says, " that diglossia is perpetuated because it is traditionally an integral part of some linguistic culture". However,the important question is what are the elements of the different "linguistic cultures" that bear on and define the different situations with regard to nature and maintenance.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">We have to thank John Myhill for bringing up the issue, and Peter Slomanson for stirring it up. Now let's hope for some further knowledge.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The interesting contributions by Hal and Lakshmi Srinivas came in, apparently while I was writing this, but I'll send it as it is, since there is no conflict, noting alao note that Lakshmi brings in a new dimension, leading one to recall also the much discussed line in the Pali canon in which the Buddha states in what variety his teachings may be conveyed.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">collegially,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">James W. Gair</font></div></body></html>