printability and standardization

[Joshua Fishman]

Which should also remind us that there is
language standardization in many oral traditions
that lack writing entirely, or reserve it for
only part of their repertoire. JAF



--- "Harold F. Schiffman"
<haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> Thank you, Joshua, for reminding us that
> standardization and print are
> separate issues.  I have tried to make that
> case for 'standard' Spoken
> Tamil, which doesn't often appear in print,
> since literary Tamil (with
> extreme diglossic differences) serves that
> purpose.  People who work in
> western linguistic traditions tend to think
> that print equals
> standardization, and nothing else matters.
> Sanskrit developed a method of
> controlling 'standard' without resorting to
> print, and other languages can
> do the same.
>
> My article on this is ``Standardization and
> Restandardization: the case of
> Spoken Tamil." Language in Society, Vol. 27 (3)
> 359-385. (1998)  and it's
> also available on my website at
>
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/public/stantam/STANTAM.HTM
>
> Hal Schiffman
>
> On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Joshua Fishman wrote:
>
> > The discussion of (non-)Standardization of
> Ladin
> > and the "reluctance" of the Italian
> government to
> > utilize it in print should remind us that
> print
> > and standardization are quite separate and
> > independent of each other. Many languages
> have
> > been printed (and, of course, also written)
> far
> > before their standardization and, indeed,
> their
> > use in print contributed greatly to their
> > ultimate standardization (viz. D-B Kerler
> 2003).
> > Of course, standardization did not rescue
> Latin,
> > Greek, Hebrew, etc. from disappearing as
> > vernaculars. It would be particularly
> > "indelicate" for the Italian government to
> snub
> > Ladin due to Ladin's lack of full
> > standardization, given the lack of full
> > standardization of Italian to this very day.
> > English too is far from being fully
> standardized,
> > which should lead most of us to be rather
> less
> > dismissive of Ladin for this same very human
> > "failing". All in all, "complete
> standardization"
> > is a will-of-the-whisp and some small
> languages
> > are far closer to this goal (acting on the
> > mistaken assumption that it will promote
> their
> > acceptance) than much larger ones who
> couldn't
> > care less. Joshua A. Fishman
> >
> >
> > =====
> >
>
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