Diglossia Totally Explained

Everything about Diglossia totally explained

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where, in a given society, there are two (often closely-related) languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue. The high-prestige language tends to be the more formalised, and its forms and vocabulary often 'filter down' into the vernacular, though often in a changed form. As an aspect of study of the relationships between codes and social structure, diglossia is an important concept in the field of sociolinguistics.

Etymology

The French term diglossie was first coined (as a translation of Greek διγλωσσία, 'bilingualism') by the Greek linguist and demoticist Ioannis Psycharis. The Arabist William Marçais used the term in 1930 to describe the linguistic situation in Arabic-speaking countries.

Language registers and types of diglossia

In Charles A. Ferguson's article "Diglossia" in the journal Word (1959), diglossia was described as a kind of bilingualism in a given society in which one of the languages is (H), for example has high prestige, and another of the languages is (L), for example has low prestige. In Ferguson's definition, (H) and (L) are always closely related. Joshua Fishman also talks about diglossia with unrelated languages as "extended diglossia" (Fishman 1967), for example Sanskrit as (H) and Kannada as (L) or Alsatian (Elsässisch) in Alsace as (L) and French as (H). Kloss calls the (H) variant exoglossia and the (L) variant endoglossia.
   In some cases (especially with creole languages), the nature of the connection between (H) and (L) isn't one of diglossia but a continuum; for example, Jamaican Creole as (L) and Standard English as (H) in Jamaica.
   (H) is usually the written language whereas (L) is the spoken language. In formal situations, (H) is used; in informal situations, (L) is used. One of the earliest known examples is Latin, having diglossia Classical Latin (H) and Vulgar Latin (L). The latter is the tongue from which the Romance languages descended, and is almost completely unattested in text.
   The (L) variants are not just simplifications or "corruptions" of the (H) variants. Many (L) languages have certain features that are more complex than the corresponding (H) languages: some Swiss German dialects have /e/, /ɛ/ and /æ/ while Standard German only has /ɛ(ː)/ (Berlin 'Berlin', Bären 'bears') and /eː/ (Beeren 'berries'). Jamaican Creole has fewer vowel phonemes than standard Englishes, but it has additional palatal /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/ phonemes.
   Especially in endoglossia the (L) form may also be called "basilect", the (H) form "acrolect", and an intermediate form "mesolect". Note however that there's no "mesolect" in German-speaking Switzerland and in Luxembourg. Whether Paraguay has a form of diglossia is controversial. Guaraní and Spanish are both official languages of Paraguay. Some scholars argue that there are Paraguayans who actually don't speak Guaraní. The Chinese language also offers an interesting case.
   Ferguson's classic examples include Standard German/Swiss German, Standard Arabic/vernacular Arabic, Standard French/Kréyòl in Haiti, Katharevousa/Dhimotiki in Greece, and Bokmål/Nynorsk in Norway. However, Kréyòl is now recognised as a standard language in Haiti. Swiss German dialects are hardly languages with low prestige in Switzerland; and colloquial Arabic has more prestige in some respects than standard Arabic nowadays (see Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory). And after the end of the military regime in 1974, Dhimotiki was made into Greece's only standard language (1976). Nowadays, Katharevousa is (with few exceptions, e. g. by the Greek Orthodox Church) no longer used. Harold Schiffman writes about Swiss German: "it seems to be the case that Swiss German was once consensually agreed to be in a diglossic hierarchy with Standard German, but that this consensus is now breaking." There is also a lot of code-switching especially in the Arabic world; according to Andrew Freeman this is "different from Ferguson's description of diglossia which states that the two forms are in complementary distribution." To a certain extent, there's code switching and overlap in all diglossic societies, even German-speaking Switzerland. Furthermore, in Ferguson's definition, diglossia isn't bilingualism; however this depends on the scholar's definition of language. For example, different kinds of Arabic are not mutually intelligible; even though many are, but this may also be due to exposure to different varieties rather than inherent linguistic properties.
   Examples where the High/Low dichotomy is justified in terms of social prestige include Italian dialects as (L) and Standard Italian as (H) in Italy and German dialects and standard German in Germany. In Italy and Germany, those speakers who still speak dialects typically use dialect in informal situations, especially in the family. In German-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, Swiss German dialects are to a certain extent even used in schools and to a larger extent in churches. Ramseier calls German-speaking Switzerland's diglossia a "medial diglossia", whereas Felicity Rash prefers "functional diglossia". Paradoxically, Swiss German offers both the best example for diglossia (all speakers are native speakers of Swiss German and thus diglossic) and the worst, because there's no clear-cut hierarchy.

English during the Norman invasion

Historically, England had diglossia between a French-speaking ruling class and Germanic-speaking commoners. English was created through the merger of this divide. However, there's still evidence of a division, between "academic" words and "common" words. Many "power" words (such as bailiff) are "academic".

Arabic

Standard Arabic and the spoken varieties of Arabic form a distinct diglossia. The spoken varieties, in addition, are generally mutually unintelligible. For various reasons, Standard Arabic, an educated dachsprache, is mostly used for literary and official purposes, and is acquired only through education rather than at home. An example of this is in modern egypt, the spoken arabic, a'meyya, contrasts with the formal FusHa that's prominent in texts and media that emphasizes formality. However, because of the increasing popularity of egyptian films, egyptian colloquial arabic is becoming increasingly understood by the whole of the arab world.

Catalan

With the exception of Andorra, Catalan as spoken outside of Catalonia may be diglossic in various grades, from highly to barely diglossic. Diglossia in Catalan is typically stronger in metropolitan areas than in moderately to sparsely populated areas.
This phenomenon affects Alghero (whose local Catalan dialect remains in severe danger of extinction despite the recent revival in its usage), some areas in the Balearic Islands, so-called "North Catalonia" and, in its Valencian modality, some areas in the Valencian Community as well.

Chinese

For over two thousand years, the Chinese used Classical Chinese (Literary Chinese) as a formal standard written language. The standard written language served as a bridge for communication throughout China (and other countries in the CJKV area) for millennia.
However, the colloquial spoken Chinese varieties continued to evolve. The gulf became so wide between the formal written and colloquial spoken languages that it was blamed for hindering education and literacy, and some even went so far as to blame it in part for the political turmoil that occurred in China during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This eventually culminated into the adoption of Vernacular Chinese, which was based on modern spoken Mandarin, for all formal communication.

Modern Chinese

After the adoption of Vernacular Chinese as the modern standard written language in the early 20th century, diglossia was no longer a big issue among the majority of Chinese speakers who natively spoke Mandarin Chinese. However, Vernacular Chinese and its pronunciation in local dialects still is an acrolect in regions where Mandarin isn't spoken natively, such as most of South China.
For instance in Hong Kong, Standard Cantonese is the primary language of spoken communication, although all formal written communication is done in Vernacular Chinese. Unique among the other Chinese dialects, Cantonese has its own written form, but it's only used in informal contexts and is often inconsistent due to the absence of standardization.
Literate Chinese speakers can read and write in the Mandarin-based standard written language. However because the graphemes in Chinese's logographic writing system are not directly linked to pronunciation (though there are quasi-phonetic hints), Cantonese speakers who don't speak Mandarin will read aloud the characters in Cantonese pronunciation only. The resulting speech is Mandarin-based grammar and vocabulary pronounced word-by-word in Cantonese. If the same sentence were to be spoken using regular colloquial Cantonese, it might be quite different. Here is an example:

English Sentence	Please give me his book.
Standard Written Chinese Rendition
Standard Mandarin Pronunciation of Writing	Qǐng gěi wǒ tā de shū.
Cantonese Pronunciation of Writing	Chíng kāp ngóh tā dīk syū.
Written Colloquial Cantonese Rendition
Colloquial Cantonese Pronunciation	M̀h-gōi béi kéuih bún syū ngóh.

In the above example, note the switching of the direct and indirect objects and the use of different vocabulary for certain words in the standard Chinese and colloquial Cantonese renditions. In addition, Cantonese allows the use of measure words to serve in the place of a genitive particle.
Cantonese pronunciation of standard written Chinese is generally understandable to Cantonese speakers educated in the standard written language. It is most often used in Cantonese newscasts, albeit with certain substitutions of colloquial Cantonese vocabulary so as to make it not sound as stilted. This form of spoken Cantonese is a higher register and can be considered the acrolect to the colloquial Cantonese basilect.

Classical Chinese

Before the modern adoption of Vernacular Chinese, the diglossic situation also applied to Mandarin speakers when Classical Chinese was the standard written language.
Continuing the previous example for comparison, using Classical Chinese it would be:

Classical Chinese Rendition
Standard Mandarin Pronunciation of Classical Chinese	Qiú ěr yǔ wǒ qí shū.
Cantonese Pronunciation of Classical Chinese	Kàuh yíh yúh ngóh kèih syū.

Because Chinese's logographic writing system doesn't indicate exact pronuncation, the pronunciation of Classical Chinese in Old Chinese is generally not possible (though tentative reconstructions of the phonology of Old Chinese have been attempted). Instead, Classical Chinese is also generally pronounced according to the local dialect (such as the Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations given above), much like how Cantonese speakers pronounce the modern Mandarin-based Vernacular Chinese using Cantonese.
Unlike the situation with modern Chinese though, Classical Chinese spoken according to the pronunciations of the modern spoken Chinese varieties is still largely unintelligible without training due to the syntax and vocabulary changes that Chinese has undergone since Old Chinese. In addition, sound mergers in the modern dialects cause many distinct words in Classical Chinese to sound homophonous. For one notable example, see Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.

Greek

Until the seventies, the Greek language distinguished between Dimotiki, the colloquial language which was used in everyday discussions and the extremely formal and archaic Katharevousa, which was used in more "educated" contexts, as in school, in court, in law texts etc. Extreme Katharevousa was, in fact, nearly pure Ancient Greek, and as such, nearly completely unintellegible for children and adults without higher education. This was the reason for the Greek language question, which was a heated dispute on which language form was to be the official language of the state. This dispute was eventually settled, and today the single language used in all texts is an educated variant of Dimotiki, which was enriched by many expressions from Katharevousa. This variant is commonly called Modern Greek.

Maltese

Malta is officially a bi-lingual country: both Maltese and English are official languages. Maltese is, uniquely for Europe, a Semitic language left over from Arab domination of the islands which ended some 900 years ago and English as Malta was a colony until 1964.
Maltese society has been traditionally quite strongly divided, politically, between the working class and middle and upper classes and this is reflected in their language use. Although all Maltese can speak their native language, the extent to which one uses and is able to speak English often reflects one's background. This is most clearly illustrated by the different newspapers in Malta: the liberal/conservative ones are in English (with names like the Times of Malta and Malta Independent) and the more left-leaning ones are in Maltese. Maltese people of a middle- and upper-class background will often speak English or use code-switching extensively in public. There have been warnings from several quarters including a linguistics professor from the university of Malta that the Maltese language could become endangered if the government (currently the right of centre Nationalists) doesn't do more to promote it, in the same way that English displaced Welsh in Wales.
Before 1934, Italian was the official language of Malta. Those in higher class positions spoke Maltese, and were often associated with the Italian irredenta movement, which promoted the unification of Malta with Italy. It was only those of lower class at the time whose ancestors came from Sicily too long ago for them to still be fluent in Italian, that spoke Maltese. Today, the influence of the Italian language is still very present in Malta. Not only is it used in the professional workplace, but it's also key to Malta's media, such as Television, Radio, and publications .

Portuguese

According to some contemporary Brazilian linguists (Bortoni, Kato, Mattos e Silva, Perini and most recently, with great impact, Bagno), Brazilian Portuguese may be a highly diglossic language. This theory claims that there's an L-variant (termed "Brazilian Vernacular"), which would be the mother tongue of all Brazilians, and an H-variant (standard Brazilian Portuguese) acquired through schooling. L-variant represents a simplified form of the language (in terms of grammar, but not of phonetics) that could have evolved from 16th century Portuguese, influenced by Amerindian (mostly Tupian) and African languages, while H-variant would be based on 19th century European Portuguese (and very similar to Standard European Portuguese, with only minor differences in spelling and grammar usage). Mário A. Perini, a Brazilian linguist, even compares the depth of the differences between L- and H- variants of Brazilian Portuguese with those between Standard Spanish and Standard Portuguese. However, his proposal is still not widely accepted by either grammarians or academics.

Russian

Russian, the language spoken in Russia, was the low language from the Middle Ages till the Baroque period while Church Slavonic served for all official purposes. | first = | title = | date = 1927 | location = Paris }} Many Russian abstract and scientific terms have Slavonic morphology, in contrast to the corresponding words from spoken language.

Russian word	Slavonic word	Russian term
(voice)		(vowel)
(milk), (feed)	,	(mammals)

On the other hand, the language of the Russian Orthodox church suffered significant corruption with Russian vernacular forms after Peter the Great cancelled its official status and subordinated the Church to the State.

Urdu

In Pakistan there's a diglossia between the extremely Persianised Urdu (used by the literary elite such as poets and writers, and the Government officials) to an Urdu that's very similar to Hindi (spoken by common people, and known as Hindustani among the linguists).

Sinhala

Sinhala (also known as Sinhalese), spoken in Sri Lanka, is a diglossic language. There are several differences between the literary language (also known as Literary Sinhala, LS) and the spoken language (Spoken Sinhala, SS), specially about verbs:

different personal pronouns:
- "he, she": LS ohu, æja; SS eja (lit. "that one", common);

lack of inflection of the verb in SS:

"I do", "you (sing.) do": LS mamə kərəmi, obə kərəi (inflected); SS mamə kərənəʋa, obə kərənəʋa (not-inflected, the same form for all persons)

lack of future tense in SS, substituted by present tense plus optional temporal adverb:

LS mamə jannəmi "I will go"; SS heʈə mamə janəʋa "tomorrow I'll go" (lit. "tomorrow I go");

different verbal forms (for example present participle in LS versus reduplicated form in SS);

different adpositions:

"with": LS saməⁿgə; SS ekːa
"from" (temporal): LS siʈə; SS iⁿdəla
"before" : LS perə; SS isːelːa, isːəra

different vocabulary, for example:

"to help": LS upəkaːrə kərənəʋa; SS udau kərənəʋa
"to touch": LS sparʃəjə kərənəʋa; SS allənəʋa
"to marry": LS ʋiʋahə ʋenəʋa; SS kasaːdə baⁿdinəʋa
"to study": LS adːjənəjə kərənəʋa; SS paːɖəm kərənəʋa
"to fight": LS saʈən kərənəʋa; SS ranɖu kərənəʋa

Literary or written Sinhala is commonly understood, and used in literary texts and formal occasions (public speeches, TV and radio news broadcasts, etc.), whereas the spoken language is used as the language of communication in everyday life. The children are taught the written language at school almost like a foreign language.

Tagalog

Tagalog is the language spoken in the southern part of Luzon, the northermost group of islands in the Philippines. Southern Luzon covers the provinces around the capital Metro Manila, including the capital itself. The language spoken there, Tagalog, is the basis for the country's national language, Filipino, which is basically the standardized form of the Tagalog spoken in Metro Manila. Tagalogs from Tagalog-speaking areas, other than Metro Manila, speak their own dialect of Tagalog. Foremost example is that of Batangas, Batangueño Tagalog. When those who speak Batangueño Tagalog, for example, go to Manila, that'll eventually learn to use the Manila dialect and speak only their native dialect when they go back to their provinces or when they gather together. At the moment, very little is written using any other dialect of Tagalog other than that of Manila. Also, having a regional accent is viewed to be not beneficial in the Philippines. And although there are some who would maintain their accents, their use is very minimal outside the provinces.

Tamil

Tamil is a diglossic language spoken in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. The classic form of the language - called "Senthamizh" - is different from the spoken form known since ancient times as Iyatramizh.
   The classic form is preferred for writing, and is also used for public speaking. While written Tamil is mostly standard across various Tamil-speaking regions, the spoken form of the language differs widely from the written form. The diglossic form of Tamil has held back its development as a language. Therefore, Perunchitthranar, a Tamil nationalist and others of his ilk, advocated that all Tamils speak only the pure form of the language, for example, Senthamizh.
   Tamil fiction-writers use "Senthamizh" for all descriptive writing and use "Iyatramizh" only to narrate conversations between the characters in their works. Even though all Tamils - no matter how educated they're - always converse in colloquial Tamil, Tamil novels used to depict educated people speaking in the classic form. Several decades ago, most Tamil movies only had characters who spoke in classical Tamil.
   Regional and caste differences can be distinctly heard in spoken Tamil. Tamil in the state capital Chennai (formerly Madras) is somewhat distinct from that spoken elsewhere. Due to its proximity to Andhra Pradesh, Chennai Tamil has more Telugu loan words than the Tamil spoken in southern Tamil Nadu . Chennai Iyatramizh also often has more words of Urdu (or Deccani) than do varieties of Tamil from elsewhere in the state.
   Throughout Tamil Nadu, there are several varieties of spoken Tamil. Tamil Brahmins speak a sort of "brahmin tamil". The largely agrarian middle castes converse in their own dialect of Iyatramizh; this is the 'standard' spoken Tamil of today's Tamil movies and fiction. Similarly, the Scheduled Castes (formerly called Untouchables) speak forms of Iyatramizh with clear grammatical differences from the varieties spoken by the so-called higher castes.
   However, regional differences are more interesting to note. The Tamil dialects spoken by people in Northern districts of Tamil Nadu like Arcot, Chennai and Southern districts like Tirunelveli and Madurai are somewhat different from each other. Like in other parts of the world, the dialectical differences between various regions are vanishing due to the influence of mass communications. So apparently are the differences between the speech patterns of the various caste groupings in Tamil Nadu. It is important to note that all forms of spoken Tamil have always been mutually intelligible. Also see (External Link

) for dialectical variations in Iyatramizh

Ukrainian

Using the Matched-Guise Test, Laada Bilaniuk (University of Michigan) administered surveys to 2,000 participants in Ukraine. In her article "Diglossia in Flux: Language and Ethnicity in Ukraine", Bilaniuk reports that until now, Russian has been the High language and Ukrainian the Low language. However, her data shows that diglossia in Ukraine is shifting.
Now, both standard Russian and standard Ukrainian are considered the High languages, and the Low category is filled with all non-standard dialects of the High languages.

Bibliography

Eeden, Petrus van. "Diglossie" http://www.afrikaans.nu/pag7.htm

Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. "Diglossia," Word 15: 325-340.

Fishman, Joshua. 1967. “Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism.” Journal of Social Issues 23: 29-38.

Freeman, Andrew. "Andrew Freeman's Perspectives on Arabic Diglossia" http://www-personal.umich.edu/~andyf/digl_96.htm

Lubliner, Jacob. "Reflections on Diglossia" http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~coby/essays/refdigl.htm

Rash, Felicity. 1998. The German Language in Switzerland. Multilingualism, Diglossia and Variation. Bern: Peter Lang.

Schiffman, Harold. "Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Situation" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/messeas/diglossia/node1.html

Ukrainian/Russian

Diglossia in flux: language and ethnicity in Ukraine. Texas Linguistic Forum (1993) 33:79-88. Yavorska Galyna M. Prescriptyvna lingvistyka yak dyskurs: Mova, kultura, vlada (Prescriptive linguistics as a discourse: Language. Culture. Power). Kyiv, VIPOL, 2000. - 288 p. Yavorska G. Do problemy naivnoyi linguistyky (On the problem of folk linguistics). - Lingvistychni studii. Cherkassy, 1999, # 3. - 13-20. Yavorska G. Dejaki osoblyvosti movnykh kontaktiv blyz'kosporidnenykh mov (do kharakterystyky ukrain's'koho puryzmu) (On contacts of closely related languages: some features of Ukrainian purism). In memoria of K. Trofymovych. L'viv, Litopys, 1998.

Bulgarian/Macedonian

Diglossia in flux: Macedonian language was officially declared after World War II. It is based on Bulgarian dialects, spoken by the local population. As a result of Serbian and Russian propaganda it was declared to be a separate language. Modern Macedonian differs in lexic from Bulgarian, but not from grammatical point of view. In 19 century one can consider both languages to be one - Bulgarian. All folksongs from Macedonia are spoken in a language which is 100% Bulgarian.

Language A/Language B

Diglossia in flux: The examples like Bulgarian/Macedonian, Roumanian/Moldavian and many other confirm the results of different theories. Imagine the population of the nation A is separated in 2 parts by a wall. No communication between parts A1 and A2. In 50 years the language will "divide". About 16% of the language in A1 will change, and 16% in A2 also, may be not the same 16%! As a result the percentage will be between 16 and 32. The situation now, 50 years adter World War II in the countries mentioned above is very close to these scientific theoretical results that we've not on the base of research of these countries.

Other sources for reference (by Bilaniuk)

The Languages of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. REECAS Newsletter, Russian, East European & Central Asian Studies, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington (Spring).

A typology of surzhyk: mixed Ukrainian-Russian language. International Journal of Bilingualism 8(4):409-425.

Gender, language attitudes, and language status in Ukraine. Language in Society. 32:47-78.

Pidsvidome stavlennia do mov: zerkalo movnoï polityky. (Subconscious language attitudes: a mirror of language politics.) Urok Ukraïnskoï (Ukrainian journal for educators and language planners). Kyiv. 7:5-8. [Basedon 1998 "Purity & power" data.]

Kartyna movnoho svitohliadu v Ukraïni. (Linguistic ideology in Ukraine). Movoznavstvo (major Ukrainian linguistics journal). 4/5:44-51. [Basedon 1997 "Matching guises" data.]

Movna krytyka i samovpevnenist': ideolohichni vplyvy na status mov v Ukraïni. [Linguisticcriticism and self-confidence: ideological influences on language status in Ukraine]. Derzhavnist' ukraïns'koï movy i movnyi dosvid svitu: materialy mizhnarodnoï konferentsiï. *Kyiv: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Pp. 131-138.

Speaking of surzhyk: ideologies and mixed languages. Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 21(1/2):93-117.

Purity and power: the geography of language ideology in Ukraine. Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 13:165-189.

Matching guises and mapping language ideologies in Ukraine. Texas Linguistic Forum 37:298-310.Further Information

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