Talk:Standard language

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really observable?[edit]

Standard language is variety of a language that deprived of any deviances in phonology, garmmar and so forth. However, Does the use of the standard language can be really observable in everyday society, or maybe it is merely the myth that we all speak correctly ?

  • Uh, I think generally speech is more standardized now than it has been through the history. I'd guess that would mean when people from different areas of a country or a language continuum meet, they generally get closer to the language found in TV and Newspapers to make themselves understood.
  • Obviously this depends on the language and the respective government policy. For example, the Finnish standard language is virtually the only language written or spoken on TV. There are no newscasters who would speak a dialect in the news. --Vuo 01:37, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Portuguese[edit]

I am editing the information about Portuguese, since it implies that the differences in stardard written Portuguese are much more substantial than they actually are. The actual difference is a little more significant than between the international varieties of English, and consist of:

  • Brazilian lacks some silent consonants of Lusitan portuguese. E.g. contato (B) x contacto (L), ação (B) x óptimo (L), ótimo (B) x óptimo (L)
  • Brazilian uses the circumflex accent in some circumstances where Lusitan uses the acute accent, especially in proper names. E.g. anônimo (B) x anónimo(L), Antônio (B) x António (L). This corresponds also to a difference in pronunciation.
  • Brazilian has some phonetic accent indications which lack in Lusitan portuguese, especially in double-vowel hiatuses -oo -ee and the open diphtong-hiatus -eia. E.g. idéia (B) x ideia (L), vôo (B) x voo (L), lêem (B) x leem (L)
  • Brazilian uses the tréma diacritic to indicate synaeresis of the vowel u in a diphthong with i or e when preceeded by q or g. E.g. lingüiça (B) x linguiça (L), cinqüenta (B) x cinquenta (L).

And that's all. Readers of one of the varietes can read the other quite comfortably. SaintCahier 22:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Edits[edit]

I have edited the article to include information about the Portuguese language. I hope it is not controversial. 200.177.10.71 00:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Parisian French unchallenged ?[edit]

The article says that " The pre-eminence of Parisian French has reigned largely unchallenged throughout the history of recent French literature. ". Although that is basically true, it should be noted that the Office Québécois de la Langue Française, although short of proposing any "new" written standard, has nevertheless recently standardized several "Canadianisms" that are not found in Parisian French, but are common in Québec French. Should the article include an explicit reference to that (relevant) fact ? 200.177.10.71 00:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Standard American is from WHERE?[edit]

You're kidding. NEBRASKA? Nobody in the midwest talks 'normal'. Normal 'un-accented' english is what you hear on tv, and can therefore be referred to as a 'Hollywood' accent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 02:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But people don't talk that way in Hollywood. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You missed the example of the 4 standards of SerboCroatian Language.[edit]

Purposly or not, in your list of examples of standard and non-standard languages, you've missed one of the most obvious examples in SE Europe - Serbocroatian language, with its standards: Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian (and very possibly very soon-Bunjevac). Even though the differences between these politicaly existing 'standards' of Serbocroatian language are minor(2-3%), and certainly much less than the differences between the italian dialects for example, because of the meaningless hatred and poinless propaganda from the western side of this language's area, they are now theirown 'standards', recognized by not any serious scientific factor in the world. Anyway, it's rediculous what's going on with this beautiful language, all this partition is senseless and pathetic, and hopefully it will be replaced soon by a reasonable unification like it's always been and like it's a case in all civilized countries or unions like EU. Regards and cheers:)).24.86.110.10 (talk) 06:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

who exactly speaks serbo-croatian language today? i bet it's the citizens of yugoslavia, the land that no longer exists. serbs don't, croats don't etc. and that makes this entry ridiculous (not "rediculous" as you've said). unification of serbia and croatia? boy oh boy you're really not following politics that closely are you? and what unified language in EU are you talking about? either way, you obliterated the facts in this case, you pronounced a dead quasi-language as the standard of all ex-yugoslavia republics, and there's a good reason that 'ex' now stands there. with a country gone, so are the attempts to make one language from few standard languages, and that was never a single langauge, i never spoke that language even in the times of yugoslavia. (93.143.3.152 (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC))[reply]

"Regulating body"[edit]

What does it mean to be a "regulator" or a "regulating body" of a language? As a Swede, I am surprised to see here Svenska språkrådet listed as a "regulator" of the Swedish language.

There are no general laws in Sweden regulating language use and there is no body that sets an agenda for the future development of the language. The Swedish Language Council simply documents the current usage of the language and acts as an expert group for those seeking advice on usage of the language. They also publish recommendations on writing style and grammar use, based on current developments of the Swedish language. To some extent their work goes further into a slightly more leading role, by publishing terminology glossaries on relatively new technological terms, but calling it "regulating" still seems a bit strong.

If you would ask most Swedes who is regulating their language, they would say either "nobody", "the media" or "the Swedish Academy", since the latter publishes continuously its etymological and historical "word book" and annually its "word list" documenting the current active vocabulary of the Swedish language. But they are still not regulating, just documenting.

The last actual regulative act enacted in Sweden regarding the Swedish language was the Orthographical Reform of 1906, on the initiative of the "Minister for Ecclesiastics" (minister for church, education, and popular upbringing), defining the standard orthography taught in Swedish schools.

Four transnational dialects of Spanish?[edit]

What is the criterion to say that four varieties of Spanish are "transnational"? Rioplatense Spanish and Caribbean Spanish are transnational varieties, but why are Mexican Spanish and Castillian Spanish transnational? Mexican Spanish is clearly the one spoken in Mexico and could be called a single variety of Spanish even though there are many different varieties of Mexican Spanish. But it is spoken nowhere outside Mexico. In the same way, Castillian Spanish is spoken nowhere outside Spain, so why is it "transnational"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.156.43.151 (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

clacke (talk) 22:51, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight given to pluricentrism[edit]

This article claims that many languages have pluricentric, and even goes as far as to name their standards as:

  • Pluricentric Standard Arabic
  • Pluricentric Standard Persian
  • Pluricentric Standard French
  • Pluricentric Standard German
  • etc.

Etc. But none of these terms are used outside of Wikipedia. None of those four languages are even clearly pluricentric. For each, one could argue that there is a single standard, and then various regional varieties, or that the standardised parts have one standard (e.g. the spelling) and the other aspects are simply not standardised.

Pluricentrism is never certain, and this article is abusing the term by applying it to languages without any consensus. I'd suggest almost completely removing references to "pluricentrism" from this article (I'd do it myself but I've done a lot of clean-up recently and am a bit tired of it). Gronky (talk) 14:07, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Persian?[edit]

Why is Persian out of order on the chart?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Propose merger[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was no consensus. Consequently, the pages were not merged. Cnilep (talk) 01:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that Nonstandard dialect should be merged into Standard language. The two concepts are closely related, as nonstandard dialects include most dialects that are not considered standard. Currently, the term nonstandard appears only in the See also section of Standard language. Furthermore, Nonstandard dialect is short and cites only a single source. Thus, both articles would be improved by merging, at least until such time as Nonstandard dialect grows beyond its current treatment. Cnilep (talk) 03:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "nonstandard dialect" is not a coherent topic, but that stub may not have much to contribute to this article. Perhaps Dialect#Standard and non-standard dialect would be a better target. Kanguole 14:20, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The concept of nonstandard dialects is a pretty rich area of study in linguistics, particularly sociolinguistics. Request expansion if you'd like, but it strikes me as odd to merge it into the article that covers its very opposite. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is a mixture of short footnotes made with sfn and full footnotes made with ref tags[edit]

Currently this article has two different styles of footnotes. Some references use {{sfn}} to make short footnotes in the text, which work conjunction with citations in the section 'Bibliography'. Other references enclose the citations in <ref> tags, which has the effect of putting the full footnote in the 'References' section. Either citation style is acceptable, as both are used elsewhere on Wikipedia. Within a single article, though, one or the other should be selected, and all of the references made consistent. Cnilep (talk) 03:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's realistic to ask for such a level of consistence in a WP page. Sorry. --Jotamar (talk) 23:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And yet WP:Citing sources asks that "citations within any given article should follow a consistent style." Cnilep (talk) 01:04, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's not that big of an ask. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:56, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done I noticed a few citations that should have page numbers don't, but whoever addresses that would need access to all of the sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:20, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Opening paragraph[edit]

I have again partially reverted changes to the opening paragraph:

  • "more narrowly" in the first sentence is inappropriate: these are alternative names for the article topic.
  • The second sentence is about which varieties get codified, rather than the result.

Kanguole 11:48, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya. Here are my full thoughts:
  • "Standard language" is obviously a broader term than "standard dialect (or variety, etc.)" in the same sense that a "language" is broader than a "dialect", and we does not treat those two as perfect synonyms.
  • Fine with your second sentence.
  • I do think a bit of explanation on what "codification" means might be useful to the lead section (though I realize piping exists -- but it is so crucial for standardized varieties). I'm open to disagreement on this. But I thought it quite useful that I formerly added that codification is about socially prescribed and prestigious rules, and These socially imposed rules are distinct from the naturally emerged rules or patterns that a language follows (the latter being the focus of linguistics).
    • A sub-thought: it currents reads that standards have undergone codification of grammar and usage. Is that shorthand for "grammar and other ways the variety is used/performed"? My preference was to actually list multiple features that are commonly codified, which is often not just grammar, but also pronunciation, lexicon, writing conventions, etc. For example, the standard English dialect of England includes not just codified grammar, of course, but also traditionally a codified accent and other linguistic features. Wolfdog (talk) 20:48, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article is about a topic rather than a term (WP:NOTDIC), and those are all names for that topic.
It is surely clear that codification is an artificial process that is applied to a language. The quoted sentence is just belabouring the point. Similarly the point about prestige is already made twice in that paragraph, though "referential displacement" is indeed unhelpful. "elaboration of function" is a bit more meaningful, though.
I agree that listing features would be helpful. Kanguole 21:32, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm content with all your comments but would just push back on one: It is surely clear that codification is an artificial process. The existence of standard varieties itself practically disproves that! Humans are part of a culture, typically unconscious that so much of their own beliefs and values is actually conditioned in them by that culture. Most people certainly believe "codification" is a natural process where the "best" or most "proper" features rise to the top (how often a word like "irregardless" is accused of being "illogical" as if language were always and straightforwardly logical!). The default for most people is that the background of power dynamics goes totally unrecognized.
Thanks for your concession on listing features. OK if I return that wording? Wolfdog (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you were proposing to replace "grammar and usage" with "pronunciation, lexicon, writing, ...", which seems like an improvement. Kanguole 00:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Open paragraph, part 2[edit]

Any way we can simply replace By processes that linguistic anthropologists call "referential displacement" and that sociolinguists call "elaboration of function",[clarification needed] these varieties acquire high social prestige. into something like By processes [here briefly explained], these varieties acquire high social prestige and keep the technical jargon to just the body of the article. Does anyone object to my, or have feedback for me, making edits in this sentence? Wolfdog (talk) 16:39, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of those terms is discussed in the body of the article, so it is difficult to justify retaining them in the introduction. Kanguole 17:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the current lead, including your recent edits, looks good. I agree that technical language should be minimized in the lead. The only change I might suggest regards standardization usually begins with a particular variety being selected [...], accepted by influential people, socially and culturally spread to include influential people or groups, since standardization may involve groups such as governments, industries, etc. But that is not something I would insist on. Cnilep (talk) 02:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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