printability and standardization

[Christina Paulston]

I wrote a long response to this spate of comments, apparently caused by a
not very well put comment by me on labels not including Ladin.  And as I was
about to send it, I was cut off the net. No patience to repeat my comments
but briefly:
    1 Anyone who has read Elizabethan literature knows print and
standardization is not the same.
    2. I was not talking about LCTL, oral traditions, etc but only about
Ladin.
    3. It has been the preference of the Ladin speaking population not to
use written Ladin in their bilingual schooling because of the many different
dialects and they did not want any friction. Who are academics to tell them
what they should want?
    4. Before we condemn the policies, maybe one should ask the Ladin
speaking population what they think?
    5. The literature on bilingual education (eg Brown's dissertation on LA
French-English) is full of examples of the negative effect on dialect
attitudes by putting a written, standardized version of the dialect into the
classroom (to normal people, not linguists) - that was my intended
reference.
But I expect that no one contributing to this discussion really knows what
the reaction is of the Ladin speaking population itself. I respectfully
submit we should find out before we go on any further. Christina Paulston

----------
>From: Joshua Fishman <joshuaafishman at yahoo.com>
>To: lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
>Subject: Re: printability and standardization
>Date: Wed, Jan 7, 2004, 3:09 PM
>

> And of course, there is standardization in
> non-literate (oral) cultures! 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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