that "offensive" survey request on diglossia

[Peter Slomanson]

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          John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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My objection was not to the idea that a diglossic linguistic culture in
which the H language is linguistically distant from the vernacular
language may be an impediment to literacy.

My only objection was to the reference to ostensible ideological
motivations for the maintenance of diglossia, and more specifically to
the terms used, including "fanaticism" and that "they" wish to "create a
maximally large 'Arab people'".  Why would one suggest that political
pan-Arabism is a *general* motivation for the maintenance of the
diglossic system in Arabic-speaking societies?  Why should explicitly
political motives necessarily be associated with the maintenance of
diglossia in (predominantly) Muslim linguistic cultures?  When was
the last time Swiss Germans were referred to as fanatics of any variety
in discussions of the maintenance of a diglossic system in Switzerland?

What about the idea that diglossia is perpetuated because it is
traditionally an integral part of some linguistic culture?  That
dynamic (simple cultural conservatism) would apply in all of the
linguistic cultures to which John referred.  I certainly take that to be the
motivation for the maintenance of diglossia in Tamil, for example, although
general Tamil language maintenance is an extremely politicized matter.
The idea that only the vernacular is the variety with which its speakers
ought to identify may be completely logical to linguists from non-diglossic
linguistic cultures, but it is hardly a universal perspective.  That  fact
obviates the need to look for a grand ideological motivation for maintaining
diglossia, a motivation which, widespread or not, might also be described in
less judgmental terms.

John noted that literacy in Sinhala and in Malayalam are quite high.
I have assumed that educational policy/conditions can go a long way
toward mitigating any negative effects of diglossia.  I have long found
the extent of literacy in Sinhala to be particularly impressive at this
point in history.  Although diglossia may contribute to difficulties in
education elsewhere, I am unaware of any literature making such a
claim with reference to Sinhala.  (Of course they may well exist.)
Linguistic informants/consultants have drawn my attention to
problems that arise in Sri Lanka when children there are educated
in a language that is unrelated to their home and peer group
language, however this is another matter.  I would be very interested
indeed in a longer discussion of diglossia and education in South
Asia with anyone who cares to jump in, in this forum or privately.

Peter Slomanson

2008/2/5, Harold F. Schiffman <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>:
> VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
> Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
>           John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
> Details:  Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say: INFO VYAKARAN
> Subscribe:Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say:
>           SUBSCRIBE VYAKARAN FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME
>           (Substitute your real name for first_name last_name)
> Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu
>
> In reply to various people who found the diglossia survey "offensive", I'd
> like to add what I can to hopefully clarify this. The point John was
> trying to make is that the greater degree of distance there is between the
> H and L varieties of a language, the more difficult it is to achieve
> literacy for people who only know L and are attempting to master H. I am
> not an expert on Arabic, but I have heard people who are say that the
> extreme diglossia of Arabic is in fact an impediment to literacy in
> H-variety (Qu'ranic) Arabic, and I would agree that this is true for
> Tamil, a language I spent 28 years of my career teaching. In fact I used
> to teach H-variety Tamil and L-variety spoken Tamil separately, almost as
> if they were two different but related languages, because otherwise
> students tended to confuse the two varieties, especially at first.  So I
> don't think that offense was meant by this question, and I don't find the
> question offensive when seen in this light.
>
> My only reservation is that I don't know of any number-crunching metric
> one can use to ascertain what the "distance" is between the H and L of any
> diglossic language, so that unless someone has come up with a way to
> measure this, the "degree of distance" can only be guessed at,
> impressionistically.  I think there is room here for some interesting
> kinds of testing, e.g. to see how much of a different dialect speakers of
> a given language can understand, e.g. how much Sri Lanka Tamil can Indian
> Tamil speakers understand, vs. Sri Lanka speakers understanding Indian
> Tamil.
>
> The problem of course is that mutual intelligibility, or lack of it, often
> has to do with factors other than "pure" perceptual cues, or measurable as
> phonological morphological, lexical or syntactic differences.  (SL Tamil
> speakers tend to understand Indian Tamil better than vice versa because of
> the dominance of Indian Tamil in films, etc., or so I'm told.  I once had
> the experience of speaking Indian Tamil to a woman in Sri Lanka who
> replied to me in H-variety Tamil; if she had spoken SL Tamil I would have
> not understood, but the arrangement worked well.) And we also have
> literature on non-reciprocal intelligibility that is based on political
> factors.
>
> In other words, there are many sociolingustic factors involved here, but I
> think it's an area for more research.  In any event, it's not an ignorant
> question, and it's not meant to be offensive.
>
>
> Hal Schiffman
>