Diglossia

[Alexander King]

Mark has indeed started a very interesting thread. I have found a similar
situation in Kamchatka, Russia. An indigneous group, Koryaks, have a script
established by the Soviets in the 1930s in Cyrillic. "Official Koryak" is
based on the language spoken by reindeer herders, while sea coast-dwelling
Koryaks speak a rather different dialect, some argue different language.
Even the reindeer herders' dialect of Koryak varies from one community to
another. I had many people tell me that they "can't read" official Koryak.
"There are too many letters" or "there are letters missing" were statements
I heard a lot. Official Koryak is also rejected as "not my language."

Complaints about written Koryak seem to be similar to other examples posted
on this list of people expending a lot of effort decoding the written form.
Koryaks  are used to the shapes of Russian words.

Official Koryak supposedly covers a population of 7000-7500 speakers, but
the largest speech community of one dialect is probably no more than 1000
people. Koryak is a dying language and education attempts to teach it
children aren't working because the version taught in schools is not
similar enough to what local grandparents speak. Most importantly, Koryak
is not the primary language used at home among people under 30.

All Koryaks under 60 are fluent in Russian. Younger people are native
speakers of Russian. All Koryak speakers use Russian for writing (notes,
letters, documents), even if they are more fluent in Koryak. Here we seem
to have a situation opposite that of Tamil. The official version of Koryak
is rejected or devalued as "artificial" or "foreign." People are not
willing to use multiple registers, say official Koryak for reading or
writing or radio, and local ways of speaking Koryak for daily
communication. Some Koryaks lament the switch of children from learning
Koryak to learning Russian, while many see Koryak as a disadvantage in
contemporary life and want their children to learn English as a second
language for better job and education opportunities.


Alex King
University of Virginia

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         Koryak Language and Culture
         http://www.people.virginia.edu/~adk8c