Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide Part I: Pluricentric Languages across Continents. Features and Usage
edited by Rudolf Muhr, Corey Miller, Kelen Fonyuy, Zeinab Ibrahim
This is the first of two thematically arranged volumes with papers that were presented at the “World Conference of Pluricentric Languages and their non-dominant Varieties” (WCPCL). It comprises papers about 21 PCLs and 17 NDVs around the world. The second volume encompasses a further 17 papers about the pluricentricity of Portuguese and Spanish. The conference […]
Language(s) dealt with: Australian English, Austrian German, Belarusian Russian, Belgian Dutch, Bhojpuri Hindi, Brazilian Portuguese, Cameroon English, Canal Sur and Sevillian Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Cypriot Greek, Eastern Armenian, Egyptian Arabic, Finland Swedish, Frisian (Friisk), Hokkien, Italian Italian, Kuwaiti Arabic, Low German (Plattdüütsch), Madeiran Portuguese, Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan French, Mozambique Portuguese, Nigerian English, Occitan, South Jutish (Sønderjysk), Swiss Italian, Ukrainian Russian, Valencian Catalan, Western Armenian
Details
published by Peter Lang Verlag (Vienna/ Frankfurt a. M. et. al.)
November 15, 2016 | 483 pages | ISBN 978-3-631-69433-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-653-07112-2
This is the first of two thematically arranged volumes with papers that were presented at the “World Conference of Pluricentric Languages and their non-dominant Varieties” (WCPCL). It comprises papers about 21 PCLs and 17 NDVs around the world. The second volume encompasses a further 17 papers about the pluricentricity of Portuguese and Spanish. The conference was held at the University of Graz, (Austria) on July 8th-11th 2015. It was the fourth gathering organized by the “Working Group on Non-Dominant Varieties of Pluricentric Languages” (WGNDV) since the foundation of the group and at the same time celebrating its 5th anniversary. The main objective of the conference was to get more information about the situation of as many pluricentric languages and non-dominant-varieties (NDVs) as possible. We hoped to get more empirically secured descriptions of the effects of non-dominance in order to strengthen the theory of pluricentric languages (PCLs) and to extend the description of pluricentric languages around the world. And there was the hope that papers about “new” PCLs, lesser known and researched PCLs and NDVs would be presented.
The editors are happy to say that all objectives have been met. Four “new” PCLs were identified: Euskara/Basque (G. Edelmann), Hausa (G. Ziegelmayer), Swahili (D. Waldburger) and Tamazight/Berber (A. Arezki) in Africa which brings the total number of known PCLs to 38. And there are papers about NDVs that have never been researched before. For the first time research is being presented on Kazakhstan’s Russian (E. Zhuravleva) and on Russian in Crimea (Del Gaudio/J. Dorofeev) whose features of a NDV of Ukraine Russian is presently brought into line with Russian Russian. Among the NDVs with little or no research so far are papers about Asian Englishes (M. Takahashi), Hindi in Bihar (S. Hashami), Mandarin in New Zealand (T. Lee/E. Ballard), Swedish on the Åland Islands (M. Nelson), Luxembourg German (M. Wagner), and on second level Pluricentrism in Tehran Persian (C. Miller / H. Saeli). Another important result of the conference is the large number of papers about Hungarian as a PCL (M. I. Huber) and the difficult situation of its NDVs (A. Biro) that are pressed by the DV to follow the centralized norm of Hungarian Hungarian (S. Sebők), causing problems for the educational system (I. Kozmács / I. Vančo).
The complex language situation in diglossic and multilingual language communities is discussed in several papers. They deal with the development of diglossia in Arabic (M. Aboelezz), the multilingual situation in Cameroon (K. E. Fonyuy), the double pluricentricity of Hindi and Urdu (T. Rahman) as national languages in Pakistan and India and their function as “roof languages” (Dachsprachen). The situation of “Chinese” which subsumes many “fangyan” (regional languages) under the roof term “Chinese” resembles the one of Hind/Urdu (A. Tien). Language contact is typical for “exiled languages” too, leading to new varieties as the contact of Eastern and Western Armenian shows (J. Dum-Tragut)
Another 15 papers deal with the pluricentricity of European languages inside Europe. They show how Austrian German became “invisible” in the course of the 18th century (A. Havinga), the effects of intensive contact of this variety with Romance languages (K. Ille) and the missing language loyalty of Austrian teachers towards their native language (I. E. Fink). While Swiss German texts of science are purified of native features (St. Wyss) is Luxembourg German burdend by its unclear status in the educational domain that complicates its tuition (M. Wagner). Hungarian in Slovakia and Serbia is also struggling with problems of status and the acknowledgement of its native norms for educational purposes. The low status of a NDV is also reflected in learner’s attitudes of Cyprus Greek as a foreign language (D. Evripidou/S. Karpava). Legitimating problems are a also a major problem for Belgium French (B. Snyers/Ph. Hambye) while the codification of Belgium Dutch and Finland Swedish are now done on a symmetric basis (G. Laureys). How complicated it can be to find an appropriate name for a PCL is shown on the example of Serbian which has changed its name several times (G. Ilić Marković). The results of five years research are summarized and integrated in an updated account of the theory of pluricentricity developed by the WGNDV (R. Muhr). The papers complement earlier data about PCLs and their NDVs in many ways, support the information that was gathered in the previous publications of the WGNDV and complete the picture on NDVs.
The editors would like to thank the regional government of the Austrian Bundesland Styria, Utica College, Utica, NY, USA and the University of Graz for the financial support of this publication, enabling it to be published. And we would also like thank those colleagues who – in addition to the editors – acted as reviewers and helped in the editing of the manuscript: Catrin Norrby (Stockholm, SWE), Jasmine Dum-Tragut, Aditi Ghosh, (Calcutta, IN), Salvatore Del Gaudio (Kiev, UKR), Máté Imre Huber (Pécs, HU), Gerhard Leitner (Berlin, DE), Dawn Marley (Guildford, UK) and Adrian Tien (Dublin, IRL).
Rudolf Muhr, Kelen Ernesta Fonyuy, Zeinab Ibrahim and Corey Miller
Graz, Bambili, Qatar and Maryland in April 2016