According to Lauren Gurry's article "Spanish: not your standard language," Spain currently has four or five different official languages, since "different areas of Spain deviated from the original form of Latin centuries ago when the Moors invaded" Spain. There have been efforts by the French colonizers during the 18th century to standardize the Spanish language, but the locals of each area reverted back to their own form of Spanish after Spain became an independent nation again. Renewed efforts are now attempting to unite the country under a single official form of Spanish once again.
"According to Gabriel-Stheeman, the steps to standardizing a language are selection, codification, elaboration and acceptance." Of these, he argues that acceptance is the hardest part to successfully achieve. As I have argued in previous blogs, and as we have discussed in class, a common language plays an undeniably integral role in uniting people and creating a sense of shared experience and connection to create a shared community out of a shared geographical location. Looking at language's ability and function from this perspective, it seems much worth the effort to enforce a single official language for the nation. Considering the variations of Spanish spoken in different parts of Spain as dialects (I'm not sure how much these variations differ from each other), however, taking away a community's distinct dialect might cause that community to lose a part of its very history and culture--a part of the very ideas and traditions that define it as unique itself. This brings us back to some of the core questions we have been trying to answer this quarter: What defines language? At what point does a language stop being a dialect and become a new different language in and of itself?
According to wikipedia (alright, alright, not exactly an absolute, accurate source), "There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results." A dialect is sometimes called a dialect instead of a language only because it's not an official version of a state or country, when it lacks prestige, or when it's used only orally and not in literature or other written documents. In this sense, suppressing dialects and insisting on a single common language is like "killing" a language itself. Between national unity and preserving dialect-languages (along with the history, traditions, and unique reflections of a community that they carry within them), what then is a good balance or viable solution? This remains a question with many implications to be considered.
Source: Wikipedia - Dialect
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2 comments:
How would you propose Spain decide what its official language is? And would individual communities suffer greatly from this move? Many countries have an official language that differs from the common languages spoken by its citizens.
Nice post, though Janessa raises some important questions in her comment. I think you do manage to touch on one reason why so many people attach importance to the question of defining "language" and "dialect", as the political consequences of these definitions may be huge!
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