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98-640: This variety (when free of localisms from Barcelona, Tarragona or Girona) is perceived by most Catalans as the standard form in Catalonia . As such, it is the variety used in most written and audiovisual media, as well as in learning materials. In the Empordà region of Catalonia there is a distinctive Empordanese subdialect. As evidenced in writings from the turn of the 19th century by authors such as Joaquim Ruyra , differences between Empordanese and Barcelonese were formerly more pronounced in such areas of usage as

196-614: A lingua franca , used to facilitate communication across a large area. However, vernaculars usually carry covert prestige among their native speakers, in showcasing group identity or sub-culture affiliation. As a border case, a nonstandard dialect may even have its own written form, though it could then be assumed that the orthography is unstable, inconsistent, or unsanctioned by powerful institutions, like that of government or education. The most salient instance of nonstandard dialects in writing would likely be nonstandard phonemic spelling of reported speech in literature or poetry (e.g.,

294-594: A lingua franca until the 17th century, when grammarians began to debate the creation of an ideal language. Before 1550 as a conventional date, "supraregional compromises" were used in printed works, such as the one published by Valentin Ickelsamer ( Ein Teutsche Grammatica ) 1534. Books published in one of these artificial variants began to increase in frequency, replacing the Latin then in use. After 1550

392-990: A liturgical language , a specialized use of a former lingua franca . For example, until the 1960s, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church was generally celebrated in Latin rather than in vernaculars. The Coptic Church still holds liturgies in Coptic , not Arabic. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church holds liturgies in Ge'ez , but parts of the Mass are read in Amharic . Similarly, in Hindu culture, traditionally religious or scholarly works were written in Sanskrit (long after its use as

490-520: A Bulgarian dialect. Chinese consists of hundreds of local varieties , many of which are not mutually intelligible, usually classified into seven to ten major groups, including Mandarin , Wu , Yue , Hakka and Min . Before the 20th century, most Chinese spoke only their local variety. For two millennia, formal writing had been done in Classical Chinese , a style modelled on the classics and far removed from any contemporary speech. As

588-492: A Romance language was a book written in manuscript form by Leon Battista Alberti between 1437 and 1441 and entitled Grammatica della lingua toscana , "Grammar of the Tuscan Language". In it Alberti sought to demonstrate that the vernacular – here Tuscan, known today as modern Italian – was every bit as structured as Latin. He did so by mapping vernacular structures onto Latin. The book was never printed until 1908. It

686-440: A big city where he spent all his money. Standard language A standard language (or standard variety , standard dialect , standardized dialect or simply standard ) is any language variety that has undergone substantial codification of its grammar , lexicon , writing system , or other features and that stands out among related varieties in a community as the one with the highest status or prestige . Often, it

784-411: A community (and thus may be defined in opposition to standard dialects) are called nonstandard or vernacular dialects. The standardization of a language is a continual process, because language is always changing and a language-in-use cannot be permanently standardized like the parts of a machine. Standardization may originate from a motivation to make the written form of a language more uniform, as

882-410: A conversational form; Ferguson had in mind a literary language. For example, a lecture is delivered in a different variety than ordinary conversation. Ferguson's own example was classical and spoken Arabic, but the analogy between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin is of the same type. Excluding the upper-class and lower-class register aspects of the two variants, Classical Latin was a literary language;

980-546: A few different languages; some examples of languages and regional accents (and/or dialects) within Great Britain include Scotland ( Scottish Gaelic ), Northumbria , Yorkshire , Wales ( Welsh ), the Isle of Man ( Manx ), Devon , and Cornwall ( Cornish ). Being the language of a maritime power, English was (of necessity) formed from elements of many different languages. Standardisation has been an ongoing issue. Even in

1078-710: A general plea for mother-tongue education in England: The first part of the elementary , published in 1582, by Richard Mulcaster . In 1586, William Bullokar wrote the first English grammar to be written in English, the Pamphlet for Grammar . This was followed by Bref Grammar , in that same year. Previously he had written the Booke at Large for the Amendment of Orthography for English Speech (1580), but his orthography

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1176-488: A grammar, syntax, and vocabulary different from the Classical Latin spoken and written by the statesman Cicero . In Brazil, actors and journalists usually adopt an unofficial, but de facto , spoken standard of Brazilian Portuguese , originally derived from the middle-class dialects of Rio de Janeiro and Brasília , but that now encompasses educated urban pronunciations from the different speech communities in

1274-436: A joint publication, in 1584 by De Eglantier and the rhetoric society of Amsterdam; this was to be the first comprehensive Dutch grammar, Twe-spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst/ ófte Vant spellen ende eyghenscap des Nederduitschen taals . Hendrick Laurenszoon Spieghel was a major contributor, with others contributing as well. Modern English is considered to have begun at a conventional date of about 1550, most notably at

1372-515: A language as coherent, complex, and complete systems—even nonstandard varieties. A dialect or language variety that is a vernacular may not have historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has. According to another definition, a vernacular is a language that has not developed a standard variety , undergone codification , or established a literary tradition. Vernacular may vary from overtly prestigious speech varieties in different ways, in that

1470-594: A linguistic phenomenon termed diglossia ("split tongue", on the model of the genetic anomaly ). In it, the language is bifurcated: the speaker learns two forms of the language and ordinarily uses one but under special circumstances uses the other. The one most frequently used is the low (L) variant, equivalent to the vernacular, while the special variant is the high (H). The concept was introduced to linguistics by Charles A. Ferguson (1959), but Ferguson explicitly excluded variants as divergent as dialects or different languages or as similar as styles or registers. It must not be

1568-412: A nation-state, identifying and cultivating a standard variety can serve efforts to establish a shared culture among the social and economic groups who compose the new nation-state. Different national standards, derived from a continuum of dialects , might be treated as discrete languages (along with heteronomous vernacular dialects) even if there are mutually intelligible varieties among them, such as

1666-514: A ningú. Va travessar molta terra ferma, molts boscs i molts rius, i va arribar a una gran ciutat on [a on] va gastar tots els cèntims. "Oh, my son," said his father, "as you wish, you are a bad man and God will punish you." And afterwards he opened a small box, and divided everything he had into two parts. Some days later, the bad young man went away from the village very proudly and without saying goodbye to anyone. He travelled through many desolate lands, many woods and many rivers, and he arrived at

1764-511: A phonetical and morphological overview of Spanish for nonnative speakers. The Grammar Books of the Master-poets ( Welsh : Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid ) are considered to have been composed in the early fourteenth century, and are present in manuscripts from soon after. These tractates draw on the traditions of the Latin grammars of Donatus and Priscianus and also on the teaching of the professional Welsh poets. The tradition of grammars of

1862-440: A practical measure, officials of the late imperial dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as Guānhuà (literally "speech of officials"). In the early 20th century, many Chinese intellectuals argued that the country needed a standardized language. By the 1920s, Literary Chinese had been replaced as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese , which

1960-421: A real entity, but does function as set of linguistic norms observed to varying degrees in the course of usus – of how people actually speak and write the language. In practice, the language varieties identified as standard are neither uniform nor fully stabilized, especially in their spoken forms. From that perspective, the linguist Suzanne Romaine says that standard languages can be conceptually compared to

2058-422: A repertoire of broadly recognizable conventions in spoken and written communications used in a society; the term implies neither a socially ideal idiom nor a culturally superior form of speech. These conventions develop from related dialects, usually by social action (ethnic and cultural unification) that elevate discourse patterns associated with perceived centres of culture, or more rarely, by deliberately defining

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2156-409: A slave born in the house rather than abroad. The figurative meaning was broadened from the diminutive extended words vernaculus, vernacula . Varro , the classical Latin grammarian, used the term vocabula vernacula , "termes de la langue nationale" or "vocabulary of the national language" as opposed to foreign words. In general linguistics , a vernacular is contrasted with a lingua franca ,

2254-588: A spoken language) or in Tamil in Tamil country. Sanskrit was a lingua franca among the non-Indo-European languages of the Indian subcontinent and became more of one as the spoken languages, or prakrits , began to diverge from it in different regions. With the rise of the bhakti movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works were created in other languages: Hindi , Kannada , Telugu and many others. For example,

2352-745: A third-party language in which persons speaking different vernaculars not understood by each other may communicate. For instance, in Western Europe until the 17th century, most scholarly works had been written in Latin , which was serving as a lingua franca. Works written in Romance languages are said to be in the vernacular. The Divina Commedia , the Cantar de Mio Cid , and The Song of Roland are examples of early vernacular literature in Italian, Spanish, and French, respectively. In Europe, Latin

2450-645: A vernacular has an internally coherent system of grammar . It may be associated with a particular set of vocabulary , and spoken using a variety of accents , styles , and registers . As American linguist John McWhorter describes about a number of dialects spoken in the American South in earlier U.S. history, including older African-American Vernacular English , "the often nonstandard speech of Southern white planters , nonstandard British dialects of indentured servants, and West Indian patois , [...] were non standard but not sub standard." In other words,

2548-455: Is a general but far from uniform consensus among the leading scholars about what should or should not be said in standard English; but for every rule, examples from famous English writers can be found that break it. Uniformity of spoken English never existed and does not exist now, but usages do exist, which must be learnt by the speakers, and do not conform to prescriptive rules. Usages have been documented not by prescriptive grammars, which on

2646-486: Is a grammar of the Irish language which is thought to date back as far as the 7th century: the earliest surviving manuscripts are 12th-century. Italian appears before standardization as the lingua Italica of Isidore and the lingua vulgaris of subsequent medieval writers. Documents of mixed Latin and Italian are known from the 12th century, which appears to be the start of writing in Italian. The first known grammar of

2744-478: Is crucial to determining its intended sense. In variation theory, pioneered by William Labov , language is a large set of styles or registers from which the speaker selects according to the social setting of the moment. The vernacular is "the least self-conscious style of people in a relaxed conversation", or "the most basic style"; that is, casual varieties used spontaneously rather than self-consciously, informal talk used in intimate situations. In other contexts

2842-560: Is derived from the Tuscan dialect , specifically from its Florentine variety —the Florentine influence upon early Italian literature established that dialect as base for the standard language of Italy. In particular, Italian became the language of culture for all the people of Italy, thanks to the prestige of the masterpieces of Florentine authors like Dante Alighieri , as well as to the political and cultural significance of Florence at

2940-571: Is more codified , institutionally promoted, literary , or formal. More narrowly, a particular language variety that does not hold a widespread high-status perception, and sometimes even carries social stigma , is also called a vernacular , vernacular dialect , nonstandard dialect , etc. and is typically its speakers' native variety . Regardless of any such stigma, all nonstandard dialects are full-fledged varieties of language with their own consistent grammatical structure, sound system , body of vocabulary, etc. Like any native language variety,

3038-755: Is the case of Standard English . Typically, standardization processes include efforts to stabilize the spelling of the prestige dialect, to codify usages and particular ( denotative ) meanings through formal grammars and dictionaries , and to encourage public acceptance of the codifications as intrinsically correct. In that vein, a pluricentric language has interacting standard varieties. Examples are English , French , Portuguese , German , Korean , Serbo-Croatian , Spanish , Swedish , Armenian and Mandarin Chinese . Monocentric languages, such as Russian and Japanese , have one standardized idiom. The term standard language occasionally refers also to

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3136-571: Is the prestige language variety of a whole country. In linguistics , the process of a variety becoming organized into a standard, for instance by being widely expounded in grammar books or other reference works, and also the process of making people's language usage conform to that standard, is called standardization . Typically, the varieties that undergo standardization are those associated with centres of commerce and government, used frequently by educated people and in news broadcasting , and taught widely in schools and to non-native learners of

3234-583: The Académie Française and the Royal Spanish Academy , which respectively produce Le bon français and El buen español . A standard variety can be conceptualized in two ways: (i) as the sociolect of a given socio-economic stratum or (ii) as the normative codification of a dialect , an idealized abstraction. Hence, the full standardization of a language is impractical, because a standardized dialect cannot fully function as

3332-738: The Hetruscane and Mesapian , whereof though there be some Records yet extant; yet there are none alive that can understand them: The Oscan , the Sabin and Tusculan, are thought to be but Dialects to these. Here, vernacular, mother language and dialect are in use in a modern sense. According to Merriam-Webster , "vernacular" was brought into the English language as early as 1601 from the Latin vernaculus ("native") which had been in figurative use in Classical Latin as "national" and "domestic", having originally been derived from verna ,

3430-602: The Hindustani language have legal status in India: Standard Hindi (one of 23 co-official national languages) and Urdu ( Pakistan 's official tongue); as a result, Hindustani is often called "Hindi-Urdu". An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ('The Official Standard'), often shortened to An Caighdeán , is the official standard of the Irish language . It was first published by the translators in Dáil Éireann in

3528-487: The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish). Moreover, in political praxis, either a government or a neighbouring population might deny the cultural status of a standard language. In response to such political interference, linguists develop a standard variety from elements of the different dialects used by a society. For example, when Norway became independent from Denmark in 1814,

3626-552: The Parable of the Prodigal Son extracted from the works of 19th-century linguist Manuel Milà i Fontanals , who wrote extensively about Catalan dialectal differences: «Ai, fill meu», va dir el pare, «com vulguis; ets un dolent i Déu et castigarà». I després va obrir un calaix, va partir la seva herència i va fer-ne [en va fer] dues parts. Al cap d'uns quants dies, el dolent se'n va anar del poble molt tibat i sense dir adéu

3724-683: The Ramayana , one of Hinduism's sacred epics in Sanskrit, had vernacular versions such as Ranganadha Ramayanam composed in Telugu by Gona Buddha Reddy in the 15th century; and Ramacharitamanasa , a Awadhi version of the Ramayana by the 16th-century poet Tulsidas . These circumstances are a contrast between a vernacular and language variant used by the same speakers. According to one school of linguistic thought, all such variants are examples of

3822-545: The Roman Republic (509 BC – 27 BC) and the Roman Empire (27 BC – AD 1453) was Classical Latin , the literary dialect spoken by upper classes of Roman society, whilst Vulgar Latin was the sociolect (colloquial language) spoken by the educated and uneducated peoples of the middle and the lower social classes of Roman society. The Latin language that Roman armies introduced to Gaul , Hispania , and Dacia had

3920-701: The Southern Netherlands came under the dominion of Spain, then of Austria (1713) and of France (1794). The Congress of Vienna created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 from which southern Netherlands (being Catholic) seceded in 1830 to form the Kingdom of Belgium , which was confirmed in 1839 by the Treaty of London . As a result of this political instability no standard Dutch

4018-805: The Welsh Language developed from these through the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance. A dictionary is to be distinguished from a glossary . Although numerous glossaries publishing vernacular words had long been in existence, such as the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville , which listed many Spanish words, the first vernacular dictionaries emerged together with vernacular grammars. Glossaries in Dutch began about 1470 AD leading eventually to two Dutch dictionaries : Shortly after (1579)

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4116-400: The imagined communities of nation and nationalism , as described by the political scientist Benedict Anderson , which indicates that linguistic standardization is the result of a society's history and sociology, and thus is not a universal phenomenon; of the approximately 7,000 contemporary spoken languages, most do not have a codified standard dialect. Politically, in the formation of

4214-607: The salat definite article (which is still common in Balearic Catalan ). In the books of Ruyra there are signs of a clear state of diglossia : the more cultured figures, including the narrator, use the standard Barcelona dialect, whilst the local fishermen employ their own dialect. Some of the chief differences are: The Christian colonisation of the Balearics was primarily done with settlers from this region and so both dialects share several similarities, most obviously

4312-450: The same dialect basis ( Štokavian ). These variants do differ slightly, as is the case with other pluricentric languages, but not to a degree that would justify considering them as different languages . The differences between the variants do not hinder mutual intelligibility and do not undermine the integrity of the system as a whole. Compared to the differences between the variants of English, German, French, Spanish, or Portuguese,

4410-639: The south of England .", but it may also be spoken with other accents, and in other countries still other accents are used ( Australian , Canadian , American , Scottish , etc.) The standard form of Modern Greek is based on the Southern dialects ; these dialects are spoken mainly in the Peloponnese , the Ionian Islands , Attica , Crete and the Cyclades . Two standardized registers of

4508-512: The " rederijkerskamers " (learned, literary societies founded throughout Flanders and Holland from the 1420s onward) attempted to impose a Latin structure on Dutch, on the presumption that Latin grammar had a "universal character". However, in 1559, John III van de Werve, Lord of Hovorst published his grammar Den schat der Duytsscher Talen in Dutch; Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert ( Eenen nieuwen ABC of Materi-boeck ) followed five years after, in 1564. The Latinizing tendency changed course, with

4606-558: The 1516 Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua of Giovanni Francesco Fortunio and the 1525 Prose della vulgar lingua of Pietro Bembo . In those works the authors strove to establish a dialect that would qualify for becoming the Italian national language. The first grammar in a vernacular language in western Europe was published in Toulouse in 1327. Known as the Leys d'amor and written by Guilhèm Molinièr, an advocate of Toulouse, it

4704-492: The 15th century, concurrent with the rise of Castile as an international power. The first Spanish grammar by Antonio de Nebrija ( Tratado de gramática sobre la lengua Castellana , 1492) was divided into parts for native and nonnative speakers, pursuing a different purpose in each. Books 1–4 describe the Spanish language grammatically, in order to facilitate the study of Latin for its Spanish-speaking readers. Book 5 contains

4802-476: The 1710s, due to the military power of Louis XIV of France . Certain languages have both a classical form and various vernacular forms, with two widely used examples being Arabic and Chinese: see Varieties of Arabic and Chinese language . In the 1920s, due to the May Fourth Movement , Classical Chinese was replaced by written vernacular Chinese . The vernacular is also often contrasted with

4900-573: The 1950s. As of September 2013, the first major revision of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil is available, both online and in print. Among the changes to be found in the revised version are, for example, various attempts to bring the recommendations of the Caighdeán closer to the spoken dialect of Gaeltacht speakers, including allowing further use of the nominative case where the genitive would historically have been found. Standard Italian

4998-478: The Anglo-Norman domains in both northwestern France and Britain, English scholars retained an interest in the fate of French as well as of English. Some of the numerous 16th-century surviving grammars are: The development of a standard German was impeded by political disunity and strong local traditions until the invention of printing made possible a " High German -based book language". This literary language

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5096-516: The Latin did spread all over that Country; the Calabrian , and Apulian spoke Greek, whereof some Relics are to be found to this day ; but it was an adventitious, no Mother-Language to them: 'tis confess'd that Latium it self, and all the Territories about Rome, had the Latin for its maternal and common first vernacular Tongue; but Tuscany and Liguria had others quite discrepant, viz.

5194-447: The adjective "nonstandard" should not be taken to mean that these various dialects were intrinsically incorrect, less logical, or otherwise inferior, only that they were not the socially perceived norm or mainstream considered prestigious or appropriate for public speech; however, nonstandard dialects are indeed often stigmatized as such, due to socially-induced post-hoc rationalization. Again, however, linguistics regards all varieties of

5292-478: The age of modern communications and mass media, according to one study, "… although the Received Pronunciation of Standard English has been heard constantly on radio and then television for over 60 years, only 3 to 5% of the population of Britain actually speaks RP … new brands of English have been springing up even in recent times ...." What the vernacular would be in this case is a moot point: "…

5390-517: The capital of Minas Gerais , Belo Horizonte , is the accent from Brazilian Portuguese that is the nearest to sotaque neutro . European and African dialects have differing realizations of /ʁ/ than Brazilian dialects, with the former using [ʁ] and [r] and the latter using [x] , [h] , or [χ] . Four standard variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian are spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Montenegro , and Serbia . They all have

5488-473: The case of the English language , while it has become common thought to assume that nonstandard varieties should not be taught, there has been evidence to prove that teaching nonstandard dialects in the classroom can encourage some children to learn English. The first known usage of the word "vernacular" in English is not recent. In 1688, James Howell wrote: Concerning Italy, doubtless there were divers before

5586-427: The concept still further by proposing that multiple H exist in society from which the users can select for various purposes. The definition of an H is intermediate between Ferguson's and Fishman's. Realizing the inappropriateness of the term diglossia (only two) to his concept, he proposes the term broad diglossia. Within sociolinguistics , the term "vernacular" has been applied to several concepts. Context, therefore,

5684-511: The distinctions between the variants of Serbo-Croatian are less significant. Nonetheless, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro have all named the language differently in their constitutions. In Somalia , Northern Somali (or North-Central Somali) forms the basis for Standard Somali , particularly the Mudug dialect of the northern Darod clan. Northern Central Somali has frequently been used by famous Somali poets as well as

5782-532: The east, their Standard Macedonian was based upon vernaculars from the west of the republic, which were the dialects most linguistically different from standard Bulgarian , the previous linguistic norm used in that region of the Balkan peninsula . Although Macedonian functions as the standard language of the Republic of North Macedonia , nonetheless, for political and cultural reasons, Bulgarians treat Macedonian as

5880-675: The end of the Great Vowel Shift . It was created by the infusion of Old French into Old English , after the Norman conquest of 1066 AD, and of Latin at the instigation of the clerical administration. While present-day English speakers may be able to read Middle English authors (such as Geoffrey Chaucer ), Old English is much more difficult. Middle English is known for its alternative spellings and pronunciations. The British Isles, although geographically limited, have always supported populations of widely-varied dialects, as well as

5978-482: The entirety of a language that includes a standardized form as one of its varieties. In Europe, a standardized written language is sometimes identified with the German word Schriftsprache (written language). The term literary language is occasionally used as a synonym for standard language , a naming convention still prevalent in the linguistic traditions of eastern Europe. In contemporary linguistic usage,

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6076-416: The language. Within a language community, standardization usually begins with a particular variety being selected (often towards a goal of further linguistic uniformity), accepted by influential people, socially and culturally spread, established in opposition to competitor varieties, maintained, increasingly used in diverse contexts, and assigned a high social status as a result of the variety being linked to

6174-562: The linguistic authority, as in the case of specialist terminology ; moreover, the standardization of spoken forms is oriented towards the codified standard. Historically, a standard language arises in two ways: (i) in the case of Standard English , linguistic standardization occurs informally and piecemeal, without formal government intervention; (ii) in the cases of the French and Spanish languages, linguistic standardization occurs formally, directed by prescriptive language institutions, such as

6272-412: The linguistic norm of the upper class , composed of the peerage and the gentry . Socially, the accent of the spoken version of the standard language then indicated that the speaker was a man or a woman possessed of a good education, and thus of high social prestige . In England and Wales, Standard English is usually associated with Received Pronunciation , "the standard accent of English as spoken in

6370-403: The massive dictionary of Samuel Johnson . French (as Old French ) emerged as a Gallo-Romance language from Colloquial Latin during late antiquity . The written language is known from at least as early as the 9th century. That language contained many forms still identifiable as Latin. Interest in standardizing French began in the 16th century. Because of the Norman conquest of England and

6468-584: The midlands. Chaucer wrote in an early East Midland style; John Wycliffe translated the New Testament into it, and William Caxton , the first English printer, wrote in it. Caxton is considered the first modern English author. The first printed book in England was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , published by Caxton in 1476. The first English grammars were written in Latin , with some in French , after

6566-460: The most successful people. As a sociological effect of these processes, most users of a standard dialect—and many users of other dialects of the same language—come to believe that the standard is inherently superior to, or consider it the linguistic baseline against which to judge, the other dialects. However, such beliefs are firmly rooted in social perceptions rather than any objective evaluation. Any varieties that do not carry high social status in

6664-425: The norms of standard language with selected linguistic features drawn from the existing dialects, as in the case of Modern Hebrew . Either course of events typically results in a relatively fixed orthography codified in grammars and normative dictionaries , in which users can also sometimes find illustrative examples drawn from literary, legal, or religious texts. Whether grammars and dictionaries are created by

6762-509: The official languages of Singapore (as Huáyǔ "Chinese language"). Standard Chinese now dominates public life, and is much more widely studied than any other variety of Chinese . In the United Kingdom, the standard language is British English , which is based upon the language of the medieval court of Chancery of England and Wales. In the late-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Standard English became established as

6860-625: The only written language was Danish. Different Norwegian dialects were spoken in rural districts and provincial cities, but people with higher education and upper-class urban people spoke "Danish with a Norwegian pronunciation". Based upon the bourgeois speech of the capital Oslo (Christiania) and other major cities, several orthographic reforms, notably in 1907 and 1917, resulted in the official standard Riksmål , in 1929 renamed Bokmål ('book tongue'). The philologist Ivar Aasen (1813–1896) considered urban and upper-class Dano-Norwegian too similar to Danish, so he developed Landsmål ('country tongue'),

6958-440: The people spoke Vulgar Latin as a vernacular. Joshua Fishman redefined the concept in 1964 to include everything Ferguson had excluded. Fishman allowed both different languages and dialects and also different styles and registers as the H variants. The essential contrast between them was that they be "functionally differentiated"; that is, H must be used for special purposes, such as a liturgical or sacred language. Fasold expanded

7056-443: The political elite, and thus has the most prestige among other Somali dialects. The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository uses 001 as the region subtag for a standardized form such as ar-001 for Modern Standard Arabic . Vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken form of language, particularly when perceived as having lower social status or less prestige than standard language , which

7154-563: The publications of Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson ) where it is sometimes described as eye dialect . Nonstandard dialects have been used in classic literature throughout history. One famous example of this is Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . This classic piece of literature, commonly taught in schools in the U.S., includes dialogue from various characters in their own native vernaculars (including representations of Older Southern American English and African-American English ), which are not written in standard English. In

7252-557: The southeast. This artificial accent is called sotaque neutro . In that standard, ⟨s⟩ represents the phoneme /s/ when it appears at the end of a syllable (whereas in Rio de Janeiro this represents /ʃ/ ) and the rhotic consonant spelled ⟨r⟩ is pronounced [h] in the same situation (whereas in São Paulo this is usually an alveolar flap or trill ). The sociolect of prestige of mineiro spoken in

7350-406: The speaker does conscious work to select the appropriate variations. The one they can use without this effort is the first form of speech acquired. In another theory, the vernacular language is opposed to the standard language . The non-standard varieties thus defined are dialects, which are to be identified as complexes of factors: "social class, region, ethnicity, situation, and so forth". Both

7448-468: The spread of the French national language into German-speaking territories assisted by the efforts of the French Academy. With so many linguists moving in the same direction, a standard German ( hochdeutsche Schriftsprache ) did evolve without the assistance of a language academy. Its precise origin, the major constituents of its features, remains uncertainly known and debatable. Latin prevailed as

7546-453: The standard and non-standard languages have dialects, but in contrast to the standard language, the non-standard language has "socially disfavored" structures. The standard language is primarily written (in traditional print media), whereas the non-standard language is spoken. An example of a vernacular dialect is African American Vernacular English . A vernacular is not a real language but is "an abstract set of norms". Vernaculars acquired

7644-580: The standard based upon the dialects of western Norway. In 1885 the Storting (parliament) declared both forms official and equal. In 1929 it was officially renamed Nynorsk (New Norwegian). Likewise, in Yugoslavia (1945–1992), when the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (1963–1991) developed their national language from the dialect continuum demarcated by Serbia to the north and Bulgaria to

7742-415: The standard usually functions as a normalizing reference for speech and writing. In educational contexts, it usually informs the version of the language taught to non-native learners. In those ways, the standard variety acquires social prestige and greater functional importance than nonstandard dialects , which depend upon or are heteronomous with respect to the standard idiom. Standard usage serves as

7840-540: The standardisation of English has been in progress for many centuries." Modern English came into being as the standard Middle English (i.e., as the preferred dialect of the monarch, court and administration). That dialect was of the East Midland, which had spread to London , where the king resided and from which he ruled. It contained Danish forms not often used in the north or south, as the Danes had settled heavily in

7938-435: The state or by private citizens (e.g. Webster's Dictionary ), some users regard such linguistic codifications as authoritative for correcting the spoken and written forms of the language. Effects of such codifications include slowing the pace of diachronic change in the standardized variety and affording a basis for further linguistic development ( Ausbau ). In the practices of broadcasting and of official communications,

8036-403: The status of official languages through metalinguistic publications. Between 1437 and 1586, the first reference grammars of Italian , Spanish , French , Dutch , German and English were written, though not always immediately published. It is to be understood that the first precursors of those languages preceded their standardization by up to several hundred years. In the 16th century,

8134-721: The supraregional ideal broadened to a universal intent to create a national language from Early New High German by deliberately ignoring regional forms of speech, which practice was considered to be a form of purification parallel to the ideal of purifying religion in Protestantism . In 1617, the Fruitbearing Society , a language club, was formed in Weimar in imitation of the Accademia della Crusca in Italy. It

8232-432: The terms standard dialect and standard variety are neutral synonyms for the term standard language , usages which indicate that the standard language is one of many dialects and varieties of a language, rather than the totality of the language, whilst minimizing the negative implication of social subordination that the standard is the only form worthy of the label "language". The term standard language identifies

8330-481: The time and the fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. It would later become the official language of all the Italian states , and after the Italian unification it became the national language of the Kingdom of Italy . Modern Standard Italian 's lexicon has been deeply influenced by almost all regional languages of Italy . The standard language in

8428-562: The use of the salat definite article (practically extinct in Empordanese but still common in Balearic varieties). In addition, some synonyms are more preferred to their Standard Catalan equivalents, for example capir , capieixo , for entendre , entenc ('to understand', 'I understand') and testa for cap ('head') which share a closer similarity to modern Italian ( capire , capisco / testa ) than Standard Catalan. Excerpt from

8526-424: The vernacular can be a distinct stylistic register , a regional dialect , a sociolect , or an independent language. Vernacular is a term for a type of speech variety , generally used to refer to a local language or dialect, as distinct from what is seen as a standard language. The vernacular is contrasted with higher-prestige forms of language, such as national , literary , liturgical or scientific idiom, or

8624-534: The vernacular was Galileo , writing in Italian c.  1600 , though some of his works remained in Latin. A later example is Isaac Newton , whose 1687 Principia was in Latin, but whose 1704 Opticks was in English. Latin continues to be used in certain fields of science, notably binomial nomenclature in biology, while other fields such as mathematics use vernacular; see scientific nomenclature for details. In diplomacy, French displaced Latin in Europe in

8722-589: Was based on Mandarin dialects. In the 1930s, Standard Chinese was adopted, with its pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect , but with vocabulary also drawn from other Mandarin varieties and its syntax based on the written vernacular. It is the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China (where it is called Pǔtōnghuà "common speech"), the de facto official language of the Republic of China governing Taiwan (as Guóyǔ "national language") and one of

8820-532: Was defined (even though much in demand and recommended as an ideal) until after World War II . Currently the Dutch Language Union , an international treaty organization founded in 1980, supports a standard Dutch in the Netherlands, while Afrikaans is regulated by Die Taalkommissie founded in 1909. Standard English remains a quasi-fictional ideal, despite the numerous private organizations publishing prescriptive rules for it. No language academy

8918-527: Was ever established or espoused by any government past or present in the English-speaking world. In practice the British monarchy and its administrations established an ideal of what good English should be considered to be, and this in turn was based on the teachings of the major universities, such as Cambridge University and Oxford University , which relied on the scholars whom they hired. There

9016-612: Was not generally accepted and was soon supplanted, thus his grammar shared a similar fate. Other grammars in English followed rapidly; Paul Greaves' Grammatica Anglicana (1594), Alexander Hume 's Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britain Tongue (1617), and many others. Over the succeeding decades, many literary figures turned a hand to grammar in English; Alexander Gill , Ben Jonson , Joshua Poole, John Wallis , Jeremiah Wharton, James Howell , Thomas Lye, Christopher Cooper , William Lily , John Colet and more, all leading to

9114-524: Was not generally known, but it was known, as an inventory of the library of Lorenzo de'Medici lists it under the title Regule lingue florentine ("Rules of the Florentine language"). The only known manuscript copy, however, is included in the codex , Reginense Latino 1370, located at Rome in the Vatican library . It is therefore called the Grammatichetta vaticana. More influential perhaps were

9212-592: Was not identical to any specific variety of German. The first grammar evolved from pedagogical works that also tried to create a uniform standard from the many regional dialects for various reasons. Religious leaders wished to create a sacred language for Protestantism that would be parallel to the use of Latin for the Roman Catholic Church . Various administrations wished to create a civil service, or chancery, language that would be useful in more than one locality. And finally, nationalists wished to counter

9310-466: Was one of many such clubs; however, none became a national academy. In 1618–1619 Johannes Kromayer wrote the first all-German grammar. In 1641 Justin Georg Schottel in teutsche Sprachkunst presented the standard language as an artificial one. By the time of his work of 1663, ausführliche Arbeit von der teutschen Haubt-Sprache , the standard language was well established. Auraicept na n-Éces

9408-581: Was published in order to codify the use of the Occitan language in poetry competitions organized by the company of the Gai Saber in both grammar and rhetorical ways. Chronologically, Spanish (more accurately, lengua castellana ) has a development similar to that of Italian. There was some vocabulary in Isidore of Seville, with traces afterward, writing from about the 12th century; standardisation began in

9506-506: Was used at Tridentine Mass until the Second Vatican Council of 1965. Certain groups, notably Traditionalist Catholics , continue to practice Latin Mass . In Eastern Orthodox Church , four Gospels translated to vernacular Ukrainian language in 1561 are known as Peresopnytsia Gospel . In India, the 12th century Bhakti movement led to the translation of Sanskrit texts to the vernacular. In science, an early user of

9604-1430: Was used widely instead of vernacular languages in varying forms until c.  1701 , in its latter stage as Neo-Latin . In religion, Protestantism was a driving force in the use of the vernacular in Christian Europe, the Bible having been translated from Latin into vernacular languages with such works as the Bible in Dutch: published in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt ; Bible in French: published in 1528 by Jacques Lefevre d'Étaples (or Faber Stapulensis); German Luther Bible in 1534 ( New Testament 1522); Bible in Spanish: published in Basel in 1569 by Casiodoro de Reina (Biblia del Oso); Bible in Czech: Bible of Kralice, printed between 1579 and 1593; Bible in English: King James Bible , published in 1611; Bible in Slovene, published in 1584 by Jurij Dalmatin. In Catholicism , vernacular bibles were later provided, but Latin

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