Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110888140, 9783110128550

Table of contents :
Pluricentric Languages – Introduction
Portuguese as a pluricentric language
Spanish as a pluricentric language
Is Dutch a pluricentric language?
Multiple centres of language development – the case of Tamil
Swedish as a pluricentric language
German as a pluricentric language
French as a pluricentric language
English as a pluricentric language
Korean as a pluricentric language
Is Arabic a pluricentric language?
Chinese as a pluricentric language
Amēn teł hay kay: Armenian as a pluricentric language
Serbo-Croatian as a pluricentric language
Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language
Malay as a pluricentric language
Pacific Pidgin Englishes
Macedonian as an Ausbau language
Epilogue
Index of Subjects
Index of Names

Citation preview

Pluricentric Languages

Contributions to the Sociology of Language 62

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Pluricentric Languages Differing Norms in Different Nations

Edited by Michael Clyne

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

1992

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Pluricentric languages : differing norms in different nations / edited by Michael Clyne. p. cm. — (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 62) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-012855-1 (cloth ; acid-free paper) 1. Language and languages — Variation. 2. Standard language. I. Clyne, Michael G., 1939— . II. Series. P120.V37P57 1992 410 —dc20 91-35828 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging in Publication

Data

Pluricentric languages: differing norms in different nations / ed. by Michael Clyne. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1992 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 62) ISBN 3-11-012855-1 NE: Clyne, Michael [Hrsg.]; G T

© Copyright 1991 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. — Printing: Gerike GmbH, Berlin. Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer GmbH, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Contents

Michael Clyne Pluricentric Languages - Introduction

1

Alan N. Baxter Portuguese as a pluricentric language

11

R. W. Thompson Spanish as a pluricentric language

45

G. Geerts Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

71

E. Annamalai Multiple centres of language development - the case of Tamil

93

Mikael Reuter Swedish as a pluricentric language

101

Michael Clyne German as a pluricentric language

117

Georges Liidi French as a pluricentric language

149

Gerhard Leitner English as a pluricentric language

179

Chin-W. Kim Korean Hassan Is David Chinese Arabic Bradley R.S. as asaaapluricentric pluricentric Abd-el-Jawad pluricentriclanguage? language language

239 261 305

VI

Contents

S. Peter Co we Amen têt hay kay: Armenian as a pluricentric language

325

Dalibor Brozovic Serbo-Croatian as a pluricentric language

347

Hans R. Dua Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language

381

Asmah Haji Omar Malay as a pluricentric language

401

S. A. Wurm Pacific Pidgin Englishes

421

Olga Miseska Tomic Macedonian as an Ausbau language

437

Michael Clyne Epilogue

455

Index of Subjects

467

Index of Names

475

Pluricentric Languages - Introduction Michael

Clyne

The term pluricentric was employed by Kloss (1978 II: 66-67) to describe languages with several interacting centres, each providing a national variety with at least some of its own (codified) norms. Pluricentric languages are both unifiers and dividers of peoples. They unify people through the use of the language and separate them through the development of national norms and indices and linguistic variables with which the speakers identify. They mark group boundaries (Barth 1969, Tajfel 1981) indicating who belongs and who does not. National varieties may be seen as symbols of suppressed potential language conflict as the development of a distinct Ausbau language has not gone ahead (but see below). The role of language in nation-building is treated comprehensively in Fishman (1972). The advent of the variation paradigm (Labov 1969) did not lead to much study of pluricentricity. Since then, however, there has been a growing realization of pluricentricity in English and some investigations of English, and especially of its indigenized varieties (e.g., Singaporean, Malaysian, Indian, West African) have been undertaken from a pluricentric viewpoint (Strevens 1980; Trudgill - Hannah 1982; Pride 1982; Kachru 1981, 1982; Piatt - Weber - Ho 1984). In recent years, the basis for the discussion of national varieties in German has shifted from a "deviation from the centre" model to a pluricentric one (e.g., Steger 1985; Polenz 1987, 1988). Similar changes in thinking have taken place in other speech communities, but often the attitude of the most powerful nation using the language is still somewhat ambivalent (see Epilogue). The pluricentric model has been characteristically followed by linguists working from outside the traditionally more/most powerful centre of the language, such as French-Canadians or Latin-Americans (rather than those from Paris or Madrid). On the whole, linguists based in the (historically) older or politically and economically more powerful centre will tend to see other varieties as deviations from their norm, or on a par with regional dialects. As Leitner (1990: XX) points out: "The new

2

Michael

Clyne

(standard) varieties show clearly that existing grammars, even if they do mention that type of 'national' variation occasionally are basically monovarietal and mononormative." Hence the widespread belief in the "core" of, say, standard English (Strevens 1985: 6; Hansen 1982). The lumping together of national varieties - e.g., Australian, New Zealand, South African and to some extent Falkland Islands English (Trudgill Hannah 1982; Wells (1982: 592) and Leitner (1990) call them "Southern Hemisphere English") - is determined largely by their deviation from British English (i.e., by the absence of certain British features). In the theoretical sense, the pluricentric model has been employed much longer in Eastern Europe than in the west. Shveitser (1986: 20) and Shveitser - Nikolskij (1986) use "standard language variant" as a "variety of a standard language limited to a certain national area" such as Standard German in Austria, Standard French in Canada and Standard Spanish in the Argentine. The term 'national variety' was introduced into Russian as early as 1962 by Riesel. This volume is, to my knowledge, the first attempt at gathering comparative data on the situation of a representative selection of pluricentric languages throughout the world. It sees the relationship between national varieties as a dynamic and interactive one. National varieties, those of nations or national groups, are differentiated from dialects - local and regional varieties - at the status level though not always in their linguistic indices. As Wardhaugh (1986: 31) points out, the distinctive element in grammar and lexis may be quite small; it is a matter more of "flavor" than of "substance". National varieties are, of course, identified with a particular nation - by both the in- and the outgroup (cf. also Hogg - Joyce - Abrams 1984) - and are used to exclude "non-nationals". Varieties with limited distance need to increase distance through corpus planning to promote the symbolic function of language. However, the development of dialects (such as Swiss-German and Letzebuergesch) to Ausbausprachen in di- or triglossic situations can detract from national varieties of a standard language (e.g., Standard German in Switzerland and Luxembourg). Generally, pluricentric languages are employed across the boundaries of individual political entities (e.g., Abd-el-Jawad; Liidi; Thompson, this volume) but this has not always been the case (e.g., Croatian and Serbian [see Brozovic, this volume] have been used by different "nationalities" in Yugoslavia). Many pluricentric languages form a contiguous or almost contiguous region (e.g., German, Korean, Swedish) but due to imperialism and/or emigration, others are dispersed (e.g.,

Pluricentric Languages

3

Chinese, English, Portuguese) or are used over both contiguous and dispersed areas (e.g., French, Spanish, Tamil). Accordingly, we can distinguish between traditional substratum national varieties (e.g., Scots or Welsh English), immigrant ones (e.g., Australian or American English) and nativized (neo-) colonial ones (e.g., Indian or Singaporean English). Nativized varieties have evolved, or are evolving of Dutch, French, Portuguese as well as English. The powerful base of a language can shift over time (e.g., Dutch - from Flanders to Holland; English from England to the U.S.) There are, of course, major languages which are monocentric - Russian and Japanese are examples. The Pacific Pidgin Englishes (Wurm, this volume) are three different language varieties but they can be regarded as potential to become a pluricentric language. Some pluricentric languages, such as Swahili, developed as lingua francas for the post-colonial era. (Unfortunately the prospective writer on Swahili was unable to complete the task.) While most of the languages have a "claim" to a particularly territory, there are some (Cowe, this volume; also Kurdish and Yiddish) now used solely or predominantly in emigrant contexts and/or where the division between Eastern and Western Europe is responsible for pluricentricity. The division between the "socialist" and "capitalist" blocs is or has been relevant in the cases of Armenian (Cowe); Chinese (Bradley); Korean (Kim); German (Clyne); and, to a lesser extent, Spanish (Thompson). Chinese has pluricentricity running alongside variation in fangyan (e.g., Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka). German has had two levels of pluricentricity (East/West German, Austrian, Swiss, Luxembourgian; East, West German; the former being much more established and probably far less reversible than the latter, as recent events have shown. The reunification of Vietnam has led to the playing down of North-South variation in the standard language, except among emigrant communities overseas. This reminds us that the relationship between national varieties in a pluricentric language is highly dependent on political factors. Of the eighteen chapters in this collection, three cover Ausbausprachen codified as separate languages - Macedonian [Tomic]; Hindi and Urdu [Dua]; and Indonesian and Malay [Omar]. (Czech/Slovak, not included here, would also fit into this category). Croatian and Serbian (Brozovic) are in an advanced state of development towards the status of Ausbau languages. Thus it will be possible to consider the limits of pluricentric languages. Each of the remaining language chapters is devoted to a different pluricentric language. They include a treatment of the linguistic indices of each national variety - syntactic, phonological,

4

Michael Clyne

lexical, pragmatic - and, where applicable, script. They deal with convergence between some varieties at the top of the sociolinguistic continuum. Among other key issues addressed by the papers are: What is the status of each variety - in the country, nation or national group concerned; in the "out-groups" using other national varieties; and among foreigners learning and using the language? If one variety predominates, what are the reasons for this dominance? What is the nature and degree of codification of each national variety and what are the agencies of planning? The history of the autonomy of the varieties is discussed (including changes in status and attitudes) as is the impact of pluricentricity on language change and reform. In a recent paper, Ammon (1989) offers a quantitative model of codification taking into account the existence of model speakers (and spoken model texts), model writers (written model texts), codex of spelling (orthographic dictionaries, explicit rules), defining dictionaries, codex of pronunciation, codex of morphology and syntax, and codex of style. This facilitates a scale from full endonormativity (models and codex entirely from the country concerned) via predominant endonormativity, semiendonormativity, predominant exonormativity, to full exonormativity (models and codex entirely from outside). The scale enables Ammon to differentiate between "full centres", "nearly full centres", "semi-centres", and "rudimentary centres of a language". Willemyns and Bister (1989) and Bister and Willemyns (1988) develop a compromise between the more traditional "deviation from the norm" model and a pluricentric one when they contrast "centres of gravity" with "peripheral" areas. These (which correspond to Ammon's categories other than "full centres") distinguish themselves from "centres of gravitation" in four ways (Willemyns and Bister 1989): (i) by their language usage; (ii) by "particular" and "ambiguous" attitudes to the standard language and variation; (iii) by the linguistic security of the speakers; (iv) in some cases, by political considerations determining language structures and the relation between standard and other varieties. The "high status" national variety may or may not be the one from which language change spreads. Since power hierarchy of national varieties is accounted for, wherever it occurs, it will be possible to make cross-language generalizations in the epilogue. The question can be asked - when is a national variety codified and why? For instance, why has codification been stepped up in recent years far more for Australian

Pluricentric Languages

5

English than for Canadian or New Zealand English? Why is Australia conducting a more aggressive export campaign of its variety while Canada is not? Why is Macedonian standardized in Yugoslavia but not in Greece? There are both internal and external motives. The degree and direction of convergence/adaptation (Cf. Giles 1977) in interaction between speakers of different national varieties is discussed in the chapters where appropriate, and a comparative treatment (see epilogue) may contribute to the study of linguistic convergence. Such adaptation occurs in international business and academic interaction and in immigration contexts, either in one of the "native" countries of the language or in "third countries" (e.g., contact between Germans, Austrians and Swiss in Australia, between Spaniards, Chileans and Puerto Ricans in the U.S.) This is mediated by perception of oneself, in relation to group membership, since pluricentric languages entail multiple group membership of their speakers (e.g., people may be part of both a Peruvian and a Spanish-speaking community or both an Austrian and a German-speaking community). Different "centres" of a pluricentric language may have varying attitudes to the transference of items and constructions from other languages - e.g., Belgian Dutch and Finnish Swedish are more "purist" than Dutch Dutch or Swedish Swedish. The same applied at least until recently to East German German in comparison with, say, Swiss Standard German. This may or may not be due to the varying contact situations of different national varieties. Again, a comparative treatment can throw light on the sociolinguistic variables mediating "purism" in language planning. Co-operation between the nations using a particular pluricentric language can facilitate planning (e.g., spelling reform in Dutch) or mutual convergence, but pluricentricity can have an impeding effect if one nation wishes to "go it alone" (e.g., Swiss replacement of β by 55) or if agreement cannot be reached (e.g., with capitalization in German). In some languages, such as English, variations in the spelling system are characteristic of pluricentricity. Bi- or multilateral agreements can have the effect of giving equal status to all or both varieties or of strengthening one national variety (as is the case in Dutch). Stewart (1970) talks of "polycentric" and "monocentric" standards. Research into TV viewing habits show a larger proportion of Flemish people watching Dutch TV than vice versa (EIM 1988: 36-37). The same study refers to the higher prestige of French French programs than local ones in the Frenchspeaking part of Belgium. The "pluricentric" satellite TV programs, TV 5

6

Michael

Clyne

(Belgium, France, Switzerland and Quebec) and 3-Sat (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) receive different amounts of program input from the various countries, with France and Germany respectively predominating. The 3-Sat program is located in Mainz; TV 5 receives half of its funding from the French Foreign Office. (EIM 1988: 101) The closer economic and political integration of Europe will be of importance to pericentric languages. European trade with non-European countries using the languages will provide increased interaction between the varieties. But there will be even more need for co-operative planning between European countries sharing a pluricentric language. Decisions will have to be made, for instance, on which word or construction to be employed on official documents and in international materials. In some pluricentric languages, codification has been a relatively brief process; in others it is open-ended and continuing. Pluricentric languages offer an exception to Wardhaugh's (1986: 33) statement: "The standardization process is also obviously one which attempts either to reduce or to eliminate diversity and variety." A question the answer to which all the chapters will contribute to is: How symmetrical can pluricentricity be in a world in which political, economic and strategic power is unequally distributed? As national varieties are markers of national identity, their downgrading on the basis of power relationships can be seen as an instrument of oppression or an indication of low national self-esteem. It is hoped that the collection will also lead to a typology of pluricentric languages which can form part of a theoretical framework in the sociology of language (see Epilogue). Since the book was planned, major political changes have taken place. Some developments discussed in individual chapters are in a state of flux. By the time the chapters are read, some present tenses should be replaced by the past. In certain instances, it is already unclear whether a statement might still apply or not. To promote critical discussion, the majority of authors were recruited from outside the official language community of their chapter or from a 'non-dominant' nation of the language community. They are all scholars who have been investigating pluricentricity for some time. One of them (Brozovic) was elected to a political role (Vice-President of the Republic of Croatia) while working on his chapter!

Pluricentric Languages

7

References Ammon, Ulrich (ed.) 1989a Status and function of language and language varieties. Berlin: de Gruyter. 1989b "Towards a descriptive framework for the status / function / social position of a language within a country", in: Ulrich Ammon (ed.), 21-106. Barth, Frederik (ed.) 1969 Ethnic groups and boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown. Bister, Helga - Roland Willemyns 1988 "Perifere woordenschat in woordenboeken van het Duitse, Franse en Nederlandse taalgebied" [Peripheral vocabulary in dictionaries of the German, French and Dutch language area], in: De Nieuwe taalgids 81: 417-29. Clyne, Michael 1984 Language and society in the German-speaking countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988 Europe 2000: What kind of television? The report of the European Television Task Force. Manchester: The European Institute for the Media, Manchester University. Fishman, Joshua A. 1972 Language and Nationalism. Rowley: Newbury House. Giles, Howard 1977 "Social psychology and applied linguistics: toward an integrative approach", in: ITL 35: 27-42. Hansen, K. 1987 "Zur regionalen Differenzierung des Englischen", in: Linguistische Studien A 100, 65-60. Hogg, Michael - Nicholas Joyce - Dominic Abrams 1984 "Diglossia in Switzerland? A social identity analysis of speaker evaluations", in: Journal of Language and Social Psychology 3: 185-196. Kachru, Braj B. 1981 "American English and other Englishes", in: Charles A. Ferguson and Shirley Brice Heath (eds.), Language in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 21-43. Kachru, Braj B. (ed.) 1982 The other tongue: English across cultures. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Kloss, Heinz 1952 Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kultursprachen seit 1800. [1978] (2nd edition.) Düsseldorf: Schwann. Leitner, Gerhard 1989 "Core grammar versus variety grammar - the case of English", in: G. Graustein and Gerhard Leitner (eds.), Reference grammars and modern linguistic theory, 163-183. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

8

Michael Clyne 1990

"Divergence and similarity - Australian English in contrast with Indian English" in: J.A. Edmondson, C. Feagin, P. Mühlhäusler (eds.), Development and diversity: linguistic variation across time and space, S.I.L. Publications. Piatt, John T. - Heidi Weber - Mian L. Ho 1984 The New Englishes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Polenz, Peter von 1987 "Nationale Varianten der deutschen Hochsprache. Podiumsdiskussion auf der 8. Internationalen Deutschlehrertagung in Bern", in: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 15: 101-103. 1988 "'Binnendeutsch' oder plurizentrische Sprachkultur?", in: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 16: 198-218. Pride, John (ed.) 1982 New Englishes. Rowley: Newbury House. Riesel, Elise G. 1962 "Nacionalnye varianty sovremennongo nemeckogo jazyka". [National variants of present-day German], in: Inostrannye jazyki ν skole, 6. Rooij, Jaap de (ed.) 1987 Variatie en Norm in de Standarardtaal [Variation and norm in the standard language], Amsterdam: Publikaties van het P.J. Meertens Instituut. Deel 7. Shveitser, Aleksandr D. 1986 Contemporary sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Shveitser, Aleksandr D. - L.B. Nikolskij 1986 Introduction to sociolinguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Steger, Hugo 1985 "Über das ganze und die Teile. Zur Situation der deutschen Sprache am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts", in: Kolloquium Flensburg. Flensburg: Institut für regionale Forschung und Information, 19-48. Stewart, William 1970 "A Sociolinguistic typology for describing national multilingualism", in: Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Readings in the sociology of language, 531-45. The Hague: Mouton. Strevens, Peter 1980 Teaching English as an international language. Oxford: Pergamon. 1985 "Standards and the Standard Language", in: English Today 2; 5-8. Tajfel, Henri 1981 Human groups and social categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trudgill, Peter - Jean Hannah 1982 International English. London: Edward Arnold. Vervoorn, Aart J. - F.J.V. Wei i.p. Het Nederlands in Suriname. Den Haag: Uitgave Kabinet voor Surinaamse en Nederlands-Antiliaanse Zaken. Wardhaugh, Ronald 1986 An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Pluricentric Languages

9

Wells, John 1982 Accents of English. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willemyns, Roland - Helga Bister 1989 "The language continuum as a pluridimensional concept", in: Ammon (ed.), 541-51.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language Alan N. Baxter

1. Portuguese as a national and international language1 The Portuguese language is spoken by approximately 150 million people. It is the official language of seven countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal (including its last colony, Macau) and Sâo Tomé and Principe. Portuguese has two standard varieties: those of Brazil and Portugal; and, according to some writers (e.g., CastroDuarte - Leiria 1986: xiii), it has a third standard in development Galician, spoken in Spain, and potentially others in Africa. However, for the present, the standard of Portugal predominates distributionally, being official for six of the aforementioned nations. The Brazilian standard is restricted to Brazil. At an international level Portuguese is the official language of PALOP (Países Africanos de Lingua Oficial Portuguesa Officially Portuguese speaking African countries'), an umbrella organization representing joint interests. It is also an official language of the European Economic Community and of the Organization of African Unity. It is represented by six Portuguese language news agencies.2 However, it is not yet an official language or a work language of the United Nations (Seabra 1988).

2. Autonomy and status of the varieties 2.1. Portugal The political autonomy of Portugal dates from the twelfth century when it became a separate kingdom from that of Castile and León (which included Galicia), of which it had been a condado 'county'. With Galicia, Portugal shared the language known as galego-português. By 1249, with the reconquest of southern territories from the Moors, the Portuguese

12 Alan Ν. Baxter national territory was more or less that of today. The seat of the Kingdom was shifted from Guimaräes, in the north, first to Coimbra and then to Lisbon in 1255. While a common literary tradition in galego-português united Galicia and Portugal until the fourteenth century, in the second half of this century the two varieties diverged and Portugal achieved its linguistic autonomy. In this process Coimbra and Lisbon constituted the centre of the Portuguese 'standard', just as they do today. In contrast, Galician at this stage had become reduced almost exclusively to oral use and underwent phonological changes which further differentiated it from Portuguese. Attempts to codify Portuguese began in the sixteenth century. The first grammar appeared in 1536 (Fernäo de Oliveira, Gramática da lingoagem portuguesa) and the first orthography in 1576 (Liäo). These were followed by a steady stream of prescriptive publications of varying quality. However, the first complete monolingual Portuguese dictionary, the Dicionário da lingua portuguesa, prepared by Moráis Silva, did not appear until 1789. This work constituted the beginning of serious lexical codification of Portuguese. Re-edited and supplemented many times, its tenth edition appeared in 1949 and subsequent compact editions are still available (Moráis Silva 1980). Noteworthy dictionaries which appeared in the nineteenth century and were re-edited during the twentieth century include those of Caldas Aulete (1881) and Càndido de Figueiredo (1899). Among normative grammars, all based on the written language, Lobato (1771) was prominent in Portugal and in colonial education (see Section 2.3.) in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the latter part of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth century, among many prescriptive grammars used in education, those of Silva Dias (1870, 1882) are particularly noteworthy, as are, subsequently, the various editions of Figueiredo (1948), and Nunes de Figueiredo and Gomes Ferreira (1974). However, it is only in relatively recent times that normative grammars of a more linguistic orientation, such as that of Cunha and Lindley Cintra (1984) have appeared.3 With the birth of modern philology and linguistics in the late nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century, the codification of Portuguese assumed a more accurate guise. The publication in 1885 of Bases de Ortografia Portuguesa, by the Portuguese phonetician Gonçalves Viana, in conjunction with Vasconcelos Abreu, heralds the serious spelling reforms of this century.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

13

The Academia das Ciências (Lisbon), was founded in 1779 and has played a significant role in spelling reform this century (in 1911, 1931, 1945, 1973, 1975, and 1986) some aspects of these reforms will be considered in Sections 3.4. and 4. However, its activities in language codification and regulation are, in general, more limited than those of its counterparts in countries such as France or Spain. There are no grammars or complete dictionaries published by the Academia. Neither are there dictionaries or grammars sanctioned by it. The Academia has made two, partially successful, attempts to produce a dictionary, the Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa, first in 1793 and, more recently, in 1976. Unfortunately, in both cases only one volume was published, that of the letter A. The 1976 dictionary included details of European Portuguese regional and overseas Portuguese lexicon. Details of the latter were: Brazil (by regions), Africa (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sâo Tomé) and Asia (Portuguese India (Daman, Diu, Goa), Macau, Timor). The dictionary followed, in part, the Luso-Brazilian spelling agreements of 1945 and 1973, since printing had begun in 1971. It is rumoured that further volumes will appear. In principle, the 1976 dictionary of the Academy represents a considerable advance over previous European Portuguese dictionaries for the detail given to other varieties of Portuguese. The dictionary of Moráis (1980) lists European Portuguese regionalisms and Brazilian items, the latter without regional classification, and lists for Africa only items of Cape Verdian origin. The sixth edition of the Porto Editora dictionary (Almeida Costa - Sampaio e Melo 1984), for example, which is perhaps one of the most widely used and accepted European Portuguese dictionaries, lists European Portuguese regionalisms but does not specify terms from Portuguese speaking Africa and lists items from Brazil or Portuguese India without regional classification. It should be noted that European Portuguese dictionaries, on the whole, detail Brazilian items, a tradition begun last century. Caldas Aulete (1881) attempted a regional classification of Brazilian items. In recent years, with the growth of importance of Portuguese in national and international roles, some specialists (who usually cite the example of France) have severely criticized the Academia for not promoting linguistic regulation (Cristóvào 1987: 20-27). There is no official policy with respect to the transfer of items and constructions from other languages. In the wake of the public outcry over the 1986 spelling reform proposed by the Academia (see Castro et. al. 1986), an alternative language planning organization was established by the government, the

14

Alan Ν. Baxter

Comissäo Nacional de Lingua Porguguesa (CNALP). This body has since prepared for the government a report on the 1986 proposals and the Academia is now in the process of re-evaluating the reform. The changes in the status of Portuguese as a national and inter-national language are reflected in the current role of the Lisbon based Instituto de Cultura e Lingua Portuguesa (ICALP), which exports Portuguese language teachers to posts in primary and secondary education (1500 positions), and universities (124 positions), in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Oceania (Cristóvào 1987: 67). At the same time it publishes Portuguese language teaching materials. Both the ICALP and the Fundaçâo Calouste Gulbenkian provide numerous scholarships for foreign students to undertake Portuguese language instruction in Portugal. 2.1.1. The status of European Portuguese Portugal is officially monolingual with a current population of 10 million. However, unofficially, it is multilingual owing to the arrival of speakers of African, Asian, South East Asian languages and Creole Portuguese, after the independence of Portugal's former colonies. Traditionally the standard language is associated with the varieties of Coimbra and Lisbon. However, unlike the situation in Brazil (see comments on the NURC project, Section 2.3.2.1.) there exist no studies on standard or prestige varieties. The status of European Portuguese in other Portuguese speaking countries falls into two categories, that of Brazil and that of Africa. In Brazil, aside from limited contacts at professional levels (for example, among academics), and perhaps slightly more frequent family contacts in migrant families, most people have little awareness of European Portuguese. In fact, it could be said that relatively few Brazilians have ever heard European Portuguese. In general, educated Brazilians have, of course, had some contact with the written European Standard, an awareness that may be growing. 4 In this respect it might be said that EP has a certain cultural prestige. At a popular level, in some parts of Brazil, European Portuguese is stigmatized as a language of migrants,5 although this may be a residue of attitudes current at a time when Portuguese migration was common. In the African countries which are officially Portuguese speaking, European Portuguese has prestige as the official standard and, consequently, is associated with socioeconomic well-being.

Portuguese

as a pluricentric

language

15

2.1.2. The status of Portuguese in foreign language teaching There does not appear to be a general status based preference among foreign learners for either the Portuguese or the Brazilian standard of Portuguese in the sense that one is more authentic or pure than the other. Rather, choice appears to be related more to the profile that either standard has in a particular country or in a particular context (Palma Caetano 1987: 712-713). Such a profile may be related to many factors: geography, economics, politics, migration, academic tradition (for example, in British universities the standard of Portugal predominates, perhaps as a result of a tradition of medieval literature studies). It may relate to associated areas of interest in university studies (for example, a student of Latin American topics will prefer Brazilian Portuguese, a student of the history of colonial expansion will prefer the standard of Portugal). In some countries, such as France and Canada, the extent of Portuguese instruction at school level may be related to the presence of large numbers of Portuguese migrants. However, the feeling that Brazilian Portuguese is easier to acquire is often voiced by students and teachers of either standard for Portuguese. Such comments frequently refer to two areas of the grammar of Brazilian Portuguese which are less complex (in the sense of being more regular) than in the European variety. Firstly, Brazilian Portuguese does not have extensive vowel raising, centralization or reduction rules (see Section 3.1.). These rules can radically alter the syllable structure of a word, for example [pr(ë)'fer(ë)J] (Ρ) 'you prefer'. Secondly, object pronoun placement is considerably less complex in Brazilian Portuguese (see Section 3.2.).

2.2. Portuguese speaking nations of Africa The five new African states of Angola, Cabo verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and Sào Tomé and Principe, first colonized by Portugal in the sixteenth century, achieved independence in 1975. Until that time the Portuguese language used in these countries was directly dependent on that of Portugal. Subsequently, the new nations chose Portuguese as their official language, while at the same time adopting a policy of promoting the long neglected indigenous languages and varieties of Creole Portuguese for national use. It is not easy to gauge the numbers of Portuguese speakers in each of these countries as such numbers are not synonymous with total population. Census figures on language use are available only for Guinea Bissau and Mozambique, however they are at least ten years out of date.

16

Alan Ν. Baxter

Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique are multilingual. In Angola, while Portuguese is the official language, the country is officially multilingual speaking numerous indigenous languages, principally of the Bantu family. Official figures for 1978 gave a total population of 6,768,570 and it has been estimated that one third speaks Portuguese (Correia Mendes 1985: 46), although proportions of first and second language speakers are not known. Guinea Bissau too is multilingual, although unofficially, having Creole Portuguese as a lingua franca and five main indigenous languages: Balanta, Fula, Mandinga, Manjaca and Pepel (Henriques 1985: 235). The 1979 census of Guinea Bissau listed a total population of 789,121, with 87,464 speakers of Portuguese (Ministério da Coordinaçâo Económica e Plano 1981: 154). The majority of these would be second language speakers of Portuguese. The literacy level in Portuguese for Guinea Bissau in 1982 is quoted as 9 per cent (Holm 1989: 276). In 1980, Mozambique had a population of 12.1 million and, according to the census of that year, there were 610,321 (literate and illiterate) speakers of Portuguese, of which 140,000 spoke it as a first language (Albarrán Alves de Carvalho 1987: 2). No statistics for Portuguese speakers are currently available for Cape Verde, which in 1986 had a total population of 330.000, or for Sâo Tomé and Principe, which in 1985 had a total population of 107,000 (World of Information 1988: 60, 190). Both Cape Verde and Sâo Tomé and Príncipe are essentially bilingual, speaking varieties of Creole Portuguese and, to a limited extent, Portuguese. Recent literacy levels in Portuguese are quoted as 37 per cent for Cape Verde and 50 per cent for Sâo Tomé and Príncipe (Holm 1989: 274, 279). In all of these countries, Portuguese is a second language for the greater part of the Portuguese speaking populations. As such, Portuguese mainly constitutes a continuum of second language varieties ranging from very rudimentary knowledge to sophisticated second language competence approaching first language competence. The bulk of Portuguese speakers does not lie in the latter category in any of these countries. Moreover, the distance between the official standard and the local, largely spoken, varieties is vast.6 2.2.1. External support for the promotion of Portuguese in Africa The use of Portuguese in the African nations which were formerly colonies of Portugal is promoted internally through their respective education ministries and through support programs organized principally by Portugal. Brazil has had a minor role in some areas through the Centro de

Portuguese

as a pluricentric

language

17

Cultura Brasileira in Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau. After the independence of Guinea Bissau there was a limited Brazilian presence in the literacy campaign which used the methods of the Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire. In its 1985-1986 program, the Portuguese ICALP gave first priority to the officially Portuguese language African countries. Since then ICALP has provided support in terms of Portuguese language instruction and training of teachers of Portuguese from these countries. The Lisbon based Gulbenkian Foundation also provides support for language instruction, teacher training and preparation of Portuguese language teaching materials. In March 1988 the Ministers of Education from the five African countries of the PALOP group met in Portugal and decided to establish a Comissäo Permanente Técnica de Altos Funcionários (permanent technical commission of higher level administrators) with representatives from each country, to meet every three months to examine the problems of Portuguese language use and teaching. They spoke of the possibility of working together with UNESCO to further their aims and also expressed their interest in the possibility of Brazil participating in future meetings (Noticias 1989: 123-124). In April 1989 the Universidade de Lisboa and the Escola de Formaçâo de Professores do Ensino Secundário in Cape Verde signed an agreement to train Portuguese language teachers and exchange personnel (Noticias 1989: 127). 2.2.2. The status of Portuguese in the African nations of the PALOP group While there is evidence of the development of local characteristics in the Portuguese of these five nations the official standard continues in each case to be that of Portugal. Thus, it is officially the language of public administration, education and the mass media, including television, although in some instances local linguistic traits are becoming apparent in these domains (p.c. Albarrán Alves de Carvalho). All the officially Portuguese speaking African nations possess radio stations of high standard and Portuguese is the main broadcast language, most of the countries broadcasting also in the respective indigenous languages and varieties of Creole Portuguese. Radio is the main mass medium being the most widely diffused. Portuguese language press agencies operate in Angola (ANGOP), Cape Verde (Cabo Press),

18

Alan Ν. Baxter

Mozambique (Agènda de Informaçâo de Mozambique) and Sâo Tomé and Principe (Agência de Noticias de Sâo Tomé e Príncipe) and Portuguese language newspapers are published in all these countries. At the time of writing Guinea Bissau has been without a locally published Portuguese language newspaper for a year. Four of the nations have television - Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique - and Portuguese is the main transmission language. While it must be remembered that in most of these countries television is largely restricted to the urban centres, it is precisely in such areas where the bulk of the Portuguese speakers are located. Programs in both Brazilian and European Portuguese are shown in Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique (see Section 2.3.2.2.). The status of Portuguese used internally in the African nations is high. Because of its position as official language, it is representative of the upper socioeconomic levels of society and hence is seen as a means of improving one's situation. While the question of prestige norms in these African nations is as yet unresearched it is probably not unreasonable to hypothesize that there are two prestige norms. One such norm would be European Portuguese, present in the mass media and used by locally present European Portuguese. The other norm would be that of the educated local elite. However, in some instances Brazilian Portuguese may be making gaining prestige (see Section 2.3.2.2.). While the Portuguese of each country displays certain characteristics, as yet largely unstudied, there does not appear to be a marked sense of popular linguistic nationalism associated with the individual national varieties of Portuguese. However, it does exist and there is plenty of evidence that such a consciousness is growing, as represented in the works of writers such as, for example, Lina Magaia (Mozambique), or in the lyrics of singers such as, for example, Bonga (Angola). At an African international level the question of the status of individual varieties is very difficult to assess, again owing to lack of research. However, speakers of individual African varieties show some ability to identify and characterize other varieties. Thus, for example, Mozambicans will point to the Angolan use of the present participle progressive aspect construction (see Section 3.2.) (p.c. Albarrán Alves de Carvalho). In Portugal, the African varieties are considered Portuguese. At a popular level this is probably related to the fact that the Portuguese speaking African countries were relatively recently colonies. Also, representatives of those countries who have high media profile generally speak and write the European Standard.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

19

Few Portuguese and very few Brazilians have had contact with the literature of the Portuguese speaking countries of Africa. Probably most Brazilians have never heard African Portuguese spoken. 2.3. Brazil The Portuguese began colonizing Brazil in the first half of the sixteenth century. However, the Portuguese language made little inroads in the first two centuries, coexisting with, and undoubtably influenced by, lingua geral, the tupi based lingua franca, and in the coastal areas in contact with the languages of African slaves, which probably included a range of contact induced language varieties (Holm 1987). In 1757-1758, however, the Marques of Pombal decreed the prohibition of the lingua geral and officially promoted the use and teaching of Portuguese by means of the grammar by Lobato (Arte da Gramática da Lingua Portuguesa, Lisboa, 1771) (Cunha 1985: 161-162). By the mid-eighteenth century Portuguese was dominant. The first allusions to features differentiating the Portuguese of Brazil from that of Portugal are to be found in the literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Brazil achieved political independence in 1822, after which Brazilian writers slowly began to move away from the Portuguese norm and incorporate characteristics of spoken Brazilian Portuguese. This development occasioned a considerable polemic generally referred to as a questäo da lingua 'the language question' (see also Section 2.3.2.). Two hallmark works that forced the issue were Iracema (1865), by José de Alencar, and Macunaima (1927), by Mário de Andrade.

2.3.1. Codification of Brazilian Portuguese The Academia Brasileira de Letras was founded in 1896/7 and, like its counterpart in Portugal, its role in language codification has been largely restricted to spelling reform (Sections 3.4. and 4.). Much as in Portugal, there are no grammars produced by the Academia. However, it does edit dictionaries, such as that of Academia Brasileira de Letras (1988) which is based on Nascentes (1961). Aside from the innovations of Brazilian creative writers the formal written language has remained relatively close to that of Portugal. In fact, in the nineteenth century and for a good part of this century the Portuguese standard has been closely followed in education through prescriptive grammars based on a Portuguese model (for example, the

20

Alan Ν. Baxter

many editions of Ribeiro (1888)). It is only in relatively recent times that prescriptive grammars have recognized the reality that Brazilian Portuguese is different from the Portuguese standard. For example, the recognition and general acceptance of the different placement of object pronouns in relation to the verb in the two written standards (see Section 3.2.) is only to be found in grammars of the last three decades, for example, Cunha 1978 (1st edn. 1972): 221-225), although the topic was approached earlier by some prescriptive grammars (for example, Said Ali n.d.). Among the numerous prescriptive grammars and descriptions which have been of significance in the presentation of a written standard are those of Said Ali (n.d.), and especially Said Ali (1930 (1st edn 1921)) with its enlightened discussion of Brazilian object pronoun placement and the existential use of the verb ter (see Section 3.2.), Antenor Nascentes (1926-1929), Souza Lima (1935), Silva Neto (1963), Silveira Bueno (1963) and, in particular, Cunha (e.g., 1977, 1978). However, most of these works have relied on literary sources and the standard as represented in contemporary Brazilian prescriptive grammars is far removed from the reality of spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Some linguists have referred to this standard as 'arbitrarily idealized and imposed' and they stress the fact that Brazil displays a high degree of dialect diversity, socially and geographically, which complicates considerably the concept of a standard (Mattos e Silva 1985: 365, 367). In the area of lexical codification of Brazilian Portuguese significant contributions first began to appear in the 1930s in the wake of frustrated attepts by the Academia Brasileira de Letras to produce a dictionary. The first Brazilian dictionary, Pequeño Dicionário brasileiro da Lingua Portuguesa (Um grupo de filólogos 1938), paid attention to Brazilian Portuguese usage and presented entries in pseudo-etymological and "reformed" spelling. This dictionary was subsequently re-edited several times, with the orientation of the lexicographer Buarque de Hollanda as of the third edition, who subsequently appeared as the editor (Buarque de Hollanda 1960). The latter dictionary, which follows the 1943 spelling convention, pays attention to Brazilian regionalisms and to Portuguese and Portuguese regional usage. However, it does not address African or Asian Portuguese usage. In 1975, Buarque de Hollanda published the first edition of the now widely used Novo dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa. The second edition (Buarque de Hollanda 1986), details Brazilian and Portuguese divergent usages, and Azorean, Madeiran, Luso-African, Luso-Asiatic usages, the latter two without regional detail.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

21

Another significant contribution to lexical codification is the dictionary of Nascentes, appearing first in 1961, sanctioned by the Brazilian Academia de Letras, and recently re-edited as Academia Brasileira de Letras (1988). The latter dictionary lists Brazilian usage, including regionalisms, and Portuguese usage, but it does not give attention to Portuguese regional or African or Asian Portuguese usages. 2.3.2. Status of Brazilian Portuguese Officially monolingual, with a current population approaching 130 million, Brazil is in reality multilingual. It possesses some 170 surviving indigenous languages (Mattos e Silva 1988: 15) and, in addition, several European and Asian languages spoken by significant groups of descendants of immigrants. During the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Brazil witnessed the growth of a linguistic awareness which strove to establish the reality of a Brazilian standard independent from that of Portugal. This awareness, and a sense of linguistic nationalism, at times gave rise to avoidance of the term Portuguese when referring to the official language. In its place there appeared such terms as o idioma nacional 'the national language' (Nascentes 1926-1929), a lingua Brasileira 'the Brazilian language' (Elia 1961) and a lingua nacional 'the national language' (Ribeiro 1921). However, in spite of this movement, few Brazilians today would claim to speak and write anything but Portuguese. 7 This is undoubtedly a reflection of the linguistic and socioeconomic independence of Brazil from Portugal. European Portuguese has no power in Brazil and for most Brazilians it has a very low profile so there is virtually no basis for social comparison of the two varieties.

2.3.2.1. The question of internal prestige standards The varieties of Rio de Janeiro and Säo Paulo, the principal urban centres and economic power bases of the country, have traditionally exerted considerable prestige, and continue to have a high media profile, especially in television. However, variation in the dominant prestige norms is evident. Since the early 1970s a project has been underway to investigate the speech of educated speakers (specifically university graduates) in five Brazilian capitals: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Porto Alegre and Salvador. One of the principal goals of this project (Projecto de Estudo da

22

Alan Ν. Baxter

Norma Urbana Linguistica Culta do Brasil (Projecto NURC) is to define the prestige norms of Brazilian Portuguese (Cunha 1985). A further development has been the recent proposal to produce a grammar of spoken Brazilian Portuguese based on the NURC materials. This project is known as the Programa Integrado de Desenvolvimento Científico da Linguistica Portuguesa (Castilho 1989). 2.3.2.2. The status of Brazilian Portuguese in other Portuguese speaking countries At a popular international level, Brazilian Portuguese has a reasonably high profile owing to the export of Brazilian television soap operas which are shown not only in officially Portuguese speaking countries, but also in countries with a Portuguese-speaking migrant population such as, for example, Australia. In the Portuguese speaking countries Brazilian television programs occupy considerable transmission time and are very popular. For example, in Lisbon, Portugal, in December 1989, Brazilian soap operas occupied some 16 hours per week. Brazilian Portuguese programs are also common in PALOP countries, however it must be remembered that television is very localized in terms of broadcast strength and restricted in its type of audience. In Angola, in December 1989, Brazilian soap operas occupied 2.5 hours per week (30 minutes five days a week), in contrast with their Portuguese counterparts which occupied 1.5 hours per week (at the rate of 20 minutes four days a week). The Brazilian programs command a wider audience than their Portuguese equivalents, being considered "fashionable" and "fun" (p.c. Jolliffe, Vadjon). No figures are available for Mozambique, however a similar situation applies: Brazilian soap operas are common and enjoy a great deal of popularity. In contrast to Angola, Mozambique televises very little European Portuguese material. Moreover, at least in Mozambique, Brazilian Portuguese has popular prestige (p.c. Albarrán Alves de Carvalho). In Lisbon, Portugal, in addition to the presence of Brazilian television programs, there is a radio station broadcasting almost exclusively in Brazilian Portuguese, Radio Cidade, which enjoys considerable popularity among younger listeners. In Portugal, in professional areas there has long been an acceptance of the Brazilian standard and some contact with Brazilian literature. Now, through the media, there is a growing consciousness on the part of the

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

23

general public. 8 Most Portuguese are aware of the reality of Brazilian Portuguese. 9 However, the same could not be said of Brazilians with respect to European Portuguese. Brazil does not have the prominent official policy of promoting the Portuguese language overseas that Portugal does. However, Brazilian Portuguese is present in most universities where Portuguese is taught as a foreign language and it enjoys considerable popularity. As noted earlier, Brazil supports a Centro de Cultura Brasileira in three PALOP countries. The question of the status of Brazilian Portuguese among foreign learners was mentioned in Section 2.1.2.

3. The main linguistic indices of each variety In this section we shall briefly outline some of the main linguistic indices of the two standards while briefly mentioning, where possible, certain characteristics of the African varieties. The severe lack of studies on the latter varieties makes their discussion problematic.

3.1. Phonology The two varieties are clearly distinguished both in their vowel and consonant systems:

Vowels: (i) In Portugal unstressed vowels are raised and considerably reduced, especially the mid front vowels being realized as an optional [ë]. This is not so in Brazil:

a. b. c. d.

falar pedir cidade morar

'to speak' 'to ask' 'city' 'to reside'

Brazil

Portugal

[fa'laR] [pe'cßiR] [si'dad3i] [mo'raR]

[fa'lar] [p(ë)'ôir] [si'ôaô(ë)] [mu'rar]

The African varieties of Portuguese display less raising and appear not to favour reduction.

24

Alan Ν. Baxter

(ii) In Brazil an epenthetic vowel is inserted between a sequence of consonants where the first consonant is occlusive:

capturar

'to capture'

Brazil

Portugal

[kapitu'raR]

[kaptu'rar]

Consonants: (i) In Brazil syllable final /I/ is labialized, [w], whereas in Portugal it is velarized, [Ί]:

'Brazil'

Brazil

Portugal

[bra'ziw]

[brazil]

(ii) In Brazil /t/ and /d/ are palatalized as [tj] and [d3] before mid and high front vowels:

tio 'uncle' de ' o f

Brazil

Portugal

['tjiu] [d3i]

['tiu] [dë]

(iii) In Portugal syllable final sibilants are palatalized, whereas in Brazil they are generally not (except in Rio de Janeiro):

atrás 'behind' paz 'peace'

Brazil

Portugal

[a'tras]10 [paz]

[a'traj] [pa3]

(iv) In Portugal, /b/, /d/ and /g/ may spirantize when not preceded by nasal, lateral or pause, in Brazil they are stops:

cabo 'cape' cidade 'city' logo 'presently'

Brazil

Portugal

['kabu] [si'dadji] ['logu]

['kaßu] [si'ôaô(ë)] ['logu]

Portuguese as a pluricentric language 25 3.2. Morphosyntax Among the various differences at a morphosyntactic level the following are most apparent: (i) In Brazil the verb ter, in addition to the meaning 'to have', has the meaning 'to be, exist' In Portugal ter has only the former meaning: Tem dois livras na mesa. (Brazil) Há dois livras na mesa. (Portugal) 'There are two books on the table '. The existential function of ter is also found in the Portuguese of Angola (Correia Mendes 1985: 142) and Mozambique (Albarrán Alves de Carvalho p.c.) and the Portuguese of the Creole Portuguese speaking countries of Africa. In the latter case it is a feature found also in Creole Portuguese. (ii) In Brazil, the preposition em (and its variants in combination with the articles, for example na (= em + feminine definite article a)) expresses location and direction. In Portugal these functions are expressed by a 'to, at': Vai na praia. (Β) Vai á praia. (Ρ) 'He/she/it goes/is going to the beach'. Isabel está na janela. (Β) Isabel está à janela (Ρ) 'Isabel is at the window' Tendencies similar to the Brazilian use of em are observed for Angola (Correia Mendes 1985: 141) and Mozambique (Gonçalves 1985: 248).11 (iii) In Brazil, progressive aspect is expressed by means of estar (auxiliary verb 'to be') + present participle of main verb: Ί am speaking'. Estou falando. (B) However, in Portugal this aspect is expressed by estar + a (preposition 'to') + infinitive of main verb: Ί am speaking'. Estou a falar. (P) The present participle construction is also found in Angola.

26

Alan Ν. Baxter

(iv) In Brazil, in comparison with Portugal, there is a vast difference in the placement of object pronouns. It is a complicated issue which cannot be dealt with satisfactorily here, hence few examples will be given. For a detailed comparative treatment the reader is referred to Cunha & Lindley Cintra (1984). It may be said, broadly speaking, that European Portuguese is enclitic and proclitic, both in the spoken and written varieties. In contrast, Brazilian Portuguese, is proclitic in the spoken variety (although allowing enclisis when the verb is sentence initial), yet in the written variety it may, according to style, follow the European standard. The rules for object pronoun placement in European Portuguese are complex and not entirely regular. Object pronouns are enclitic except in (i) negations, (ii) questions introduced by WH-pronouns or adverbs, (iii) embedded clauses, (iv) clauses with object fronting, (v) affirmations in which the subject NP contains certain indefinite pronouns or determiners, (vi) affirmations in which certain adverbs occur between the verb and the beginning of the clause. Furthermore, enclitic pronouns also enter into a number of morphophonemic rules, including infixing, for example:12 concertaría 3sg conditional 'fix' 'He would fix it'.

+ a DOfem.

—ι• concertá-la-ia

The following sentences exemplify the main differences in object pronoun placement in affirmative and imperative clauses and clauses containing non-finite verb forms. Elena me viu DO present 'see'

(B)

Elena viu-me 'Elena saw me'.

(P)

Me diga urna coisa! DO 'tell' one thing subjunctive 'Diga-me uma coisa!' 'Tell me something!'

(Β) (P)

A tendency towards preverbal object pronoun placement is also observed in similar cases in the Portuguese of Angola (Correia Mendes 1985: 146; Guerra Marques 1985: 222-223) and Mozambique (Gonçalves 1985: 249).13

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

27

3.3. Lexicon Lexical differences between the Portuguese language of Brazil and Portugal are many, and include the following:

a. b. c. d. e. f. g· h. i. j· k. 1. m. n. o.

Brazil

Portugal

bonde trem 14 ônibus ponto do ônibus AIDS ['aicfcis] cordeiro quitanda mingau banheiro salva-vidas aeromoça torrada anágua cachorro açougue

eléctrico comboio autocarro paragem do autocarro SIDA borrego frutaría papas casa de banho banheiro hospedeira tosta saiote cao talho

'tram' 'train' 'bus' 'bus-stop' 'A.I.D.S.' 'lamb' 'fruitshop' 'porridge' ' w.c. ' 'life-saver' 'air hostess' 'toasted bread 'pettycoat' 'dog' 'butcher'

While both Portugal and Brazil may be said to have drawn on the major lexical areas of the Portuguese speaking world for their lexicon, there are considerable differences. These relate to Portuguese items drawn from different periods (e.g. item m., anágua, is an older word than saiote) and regionalisms (e.g., item f., cordeiro is found in North and Central Portugal), internal formations (e.g. item k.), indigenous languages (e.g. item h., mingau < Tupi), African languages (e.g. item g., quitanda < Bantu), and European languages (e.g. items a. and e., in the Brazilian list and item 1. in the Portuguese list are English derivations; item e. in the Portuguese list is a French derivation).

3.4. Spelling The divergences between the spellings of Brazil and Portugal result from the fact that each country adheres to a different orthographic agreement, respectively that of 1943 and that of 1945 (see Section 4. below for historical points). The principal differences are (Cunha - Lindley Cintra 1984: 65-74 for details):

28

Alan Ν. Baxter

(i) Hyphenation. In Portugal, monosyllabic forms of the verb haver 'to have to' are linked to the preposition de by hyphen: häo-de 'they have to'. In Brazil the hyphen is not used in such cases. (ii) Dierisis. In Brazil, but not in Portugal, a dierisis is used on the u which is pronounced [w] after g or q and followed by i or e: lingüística 'linguistics', agiientar 'to tolerate'. (iii) Accents. Differences between the two standards in the use of written accents correspond largely to differences of pronunciation of tonic vowels: a. In Brazil a tonic a, e or o in penultimate or antepenultimate syllable, when followed by a nasal consonant, is articulated as closed and nasalized. As such, they are marked with a circumflex: certâmen 'contest, test', bònus 'bonus', ànimo 'vitality, soul', académico 'academic'. However, in Portugal, the same vowels in this context can be articulated as closed, or open, according to the word in question. They are therefore marked either with a circumflex or with an acute respectively: certâmen, ànimo, but bònus, académico. b. In Brazil, the tonic vowel of the first person plural of verbs of the first conjugation is closed in both the present and past tenses, which have the same form without a written accent, for example: falamo s 'we speak/ spoke'. However, in Portugal, the tonic vowel in these cases is closed in the present but open in the past. In the latter case an acute accent is used: falámos 'we spoke'. The same rule applies to the first person singular of the verb dar 'to give' in the present subjunctive and the past: in Brazil, demos 'we give (subjunctive)/'we gave' but in Portugal demos 'we give (subjunctive)' and démos 'we gave'. c. In Brazil, but not in Portugal, words ending in the sequence -eia in which the vowel e is mark that vowel with a grave accent, idéia 'idea'. d. In Brazil, but not in Portugal, words ending in -oo have a circumflex on the first vowel, for example vôo 'flight'. (iv) The presentation of 'unpronounced' consonants. The main divergence between the spelling of the two standards concerns etymological consonants in syllable final position. The different representation of these cases has its roots in the 1943 and 1945 spelling conventions. Brazil adheres to the former convention, which abolished unpronounced etymological consonants, whereas Portugal follows the 1945 convention, which opted for their representation after unstressed open a, e or o :

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

'baptism' 'director' 'to adopt'

Brazil

Portugal

batismo diretor adotar

baptismo director adoptar

29

3.5. Pragmatics One of the most salient pragmatic differences between the Portuguese of Brazil and that of Portugal lies in their respective systems of terms of address. This is a complex issue which can only be dealt with superficially here. For a detailed treatment the reader is referred to Cunha and Cintra (1984), and Lindley Cintra (1986). In Portugal the pronoun tu (plural vocês) is used as an intimate form. Traditionally it is used by parents addressing a child, grandparents addressing a grandchild, between brother and sister, friends, spouses, and colleagues of similar age. However, Cunha and Lindley Cintra (1984: 293) note that in recent times the function of tu has expanded and may be used between students, professionals, members of a political party and, in some families, by children addressing parents. In Brazil, in contrast, tu only exists in certain regional dialects and voce functions as the intimate form. In both Portugal and Brazil voce may be used between equals or by a superior addressing someone inferior in age or social class or other hierarchies.15 An additional form used in Portugal at this same level consists of the name (forename or surname, implying respectively greater or lesser intimacy) preceded by the definite article: a. A Maria já terminou o trabalhou? 'Did you (forename; = intimate form of non-intimate) finish the work?' b. O Rodrigues já terminou o trabalho? 'Did you (surname; = only slightly intimate form of non-intimate) finish your work?' General terms of courtesy or respect are similar in both countries. Thus, o senhor 'Sir', a senhora 'Madame' are common, but a menina 'Miss' is used in Portugal whereas Brazil uses a senhorita 'Miss'. However, when the addressee holds a professional title there are marked differences between the two systems. In Portugal there are three forms used. At the most respectful level, o senhor/a senhora 'Sir/Madame' is prefixed to the professional title, for example o senhor doutor '(lit.) Mr. Dr.', o senhor

30

Alan Ν. Baxter

professor '(lit.) Mr. Teacher/Professor'. A less respectful form is the use of the professional title preceded by an article, for example o doutor 'Dr.', of which a slightly intimate variant exists which includes the surname of the addressee, for example o doutor Rodrigues 'Dr. Rodrigues'. These forms are rarely used in Brazil except in the armed forces (O Tenente Leiria 'Lieutenant Leiria'), in diplomatic contexts (O Embaixador Castro 'Ambassador Castro'), or for aristocracy (O Principe (Dom) Joäo Carlos 'Prince Juan Carlos').

4. Pluricentricity and language reform and change The effect of pluricentricity on language reform is strongly evident in the area of spelling. Attempts to reform the Portuguese orthography began at the turn of the century and gained momentum in the first decades. Prior to this movement, Portuguese spelling was etymologically based. The details of the history of Portuguese spelling reform are complex (see Castro et al. 1986 for a detailed discussion); here only some of the main points will be mentioned. In broad terms, spelling reform this century has involved the following points: (i) elimination of etymological or pseudo-etymological spelling, for example filtro instead of philtro 'filter', tio instead of thio 'uncle'; (ii) elimination of double consonants which have no phonemic correspondence, for example prometer instead of prometter 'to promise'; (iii) elimination of 'silent consonants', for example edito instead of edicto 'edict'. (This point is controversial in two ways. Firstly, there are words, such as facto 'fact', in which the segment in question is pronounced in Portugal but not in Brazil. Secondly, as noted above in section 3.4., the 'silent' consonants may the quality of the preceding vowel, for example defectivo 'defective', in European Portuguese is [dëfe'tivo].) (iv) Greater or lesser use of accents to mark stress and vowel quality. In Brazil a movement towards spelling reform was initiated in 1907, when the Academia Brasileira de Letras approved a proposal for an orthography which was partly inspired by the work of the Portuguese phonetician Gonçalves Viana. Subsequently, in Portugal, a reform proposal presented by a government commission in 1911 was officially approved. However, this reform was carried out without consultation with Brazil which rejected it claiming that Portugal was deliberately distancing the two

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

31

countries. Later, in 1912, the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa invited the Academia Brasileira de Leitras to collaborate in spelling reform. As of 1915 the Academia Brasileira de Letras temporarily accepted the 1911 reform, however this was followed by periods of indecision and rejection of the reform. Finally, in 1931, the first Luso-Brazilian spelling agreement was proposed by the Academia Brasileira de Letras and signed by both academies and approved by their governments. In 1940, the Academia de Ciências de Lisboa published Vocabulário Ortográfico da Lingua Portuguesa, based on the 1911 reform, certain modifications introduced in 1920 and the 1931 agreement (Castro et al. 1986: 212). The document differed from the 1931 agreement in that it reintroduced 'silent' consonants. The Academia Brasileira de Letras published its orthography in 1943: Pequeño Vocabulário Ortográfico da Lingua Portuguesa (Castro et al. 1986: 212). A further spelling convention was signed by both governments in 1943 with a view to assuring the defence, prestige and expansion of the Portuguese language and to regulate the spelling system by mutual agreement (Castro et al. 1986: 212). The two governments agreed, henceforth, to consult each other and their respective academies on such matters. Yet a further convention was proposed in 1945, to further unify the orthography. Basically, it proposed abolition of 'silent' consonants only in cases where the letter was not pronounced in either country; accents were to be simplified, the dierisis and the letters k, w, y eliminated and the use of the apostrophe reduced. However, the proposals were poorly received in Brazil where it was felt that the Portuguese had imposed their view on the matter. Although the new proposals were initially approved in both countries, Brazil adhered to the 1943 agreement. In 1947, the Academia de Ciências de Lisboa published the Vocabulário Ortográfico Resumido da Lingua Portuguesa, based on the 1945 convention (Castro et al. 1986: 214). Since 1945, with the exception of some minor modifications by mutual agreement in 1971, and unilaterally by Portugal in 1973, Brazil has followed the 1943 system and Portugal that of 1945. Nevertheless, attempts by the two academies to unify the systems continued and eventually resulted in the agreement of 1986, which also took into account the views of the Portuguese speaking African nations. The agreement was signed in Rio de Janeiro in May 1986 but has not been ratified by the respective governments involved. Contrary to the events of 1945, this time there were strong protests in Portugal, some of which were well

32

Alan Ν. Baxter

founded linguistically and many of which were misguided emotional outcries occasionally directed at Brazil (see Castro et al. 1986). During the meeting for the signing of the spelling agreement, Portugal put forward a proposal that a Conselho Internacional da Lingua Portuguesa 'International Portuguese Language Council' be formed. In broad terms, it could also be said that pluricentricity has had an impact on the more recent development of dictionaries and grammars of Portuguese. It was noted above, in the sections on Brazil and Portugal, that current dictionaries of both standards take into account, to a certain extent, uses of the other standard and, in some cases, uses of African and Asian Portuguese. The recent grammar by Cunha and Cintra (1984), which incorporates a description of both the Portuguese and Brazilian standards and preliminary notes on other varieties, displays this same awareness of the significance of an umbrella of linguistic unity.16 Effectively, in the past two decades, there has been as increase in codification of the standards of both Brazil and Portugal, a fact partly apparent from the bibliography below. This activity is related directly and indirectly to the growth of linguistic description of the varieties and the funding of such research because of its relevance to education and communication, and hence national and international socioeconomic interests. There has been a growth of awareness of the significance of linguistic unity and of the reality of pluricentricity in certain circles, in all of the Portuguese speaking countries. However, it is particularly apparent in the case of Portugal and the new Portuguese speaking African countries. This relates in part to the blossoming of Portugal after the revolution and its subsequent entry into the EEC but also to the new dependence of the Portuguese speaking African countries on Portugal for assistance and their use of Portuguese as a tool of national and international development. However, in a sense it is an extension of a cultural role played by Portugal through its government agencies (for example the ICALP existed formerly as the Instituto de Alta Cultura, founded in 1936) and through Portuguese-based foundations (such as the Fundaçào Calouste Gulbenkian) even before the revolution. Several current and recent language related research projects in Portugal seem particularly relevant to Portugal's role as an EEC country and are indirectly relevant to linguistic unity. Such projects include Portugués Fundamental (Malaca Casteleiro et al. 1984), and other projects of the Centro de Linguistica da Universidade de Lisboa including Terminologia Científica e Tecnològica da Lingua Portuguesa (Macedo Oliveira 1986: 76-77), Dicionário Inverso do Portugués, and Dicionário

Portuguese

as a pluricentric

language

33

Electrónico de Portugués, the latter being part of a Council of Europe Project as is the EUROTRA automatic translation project of the Instituto de Linguistica Teòrica e Computacional in Lisbon. The founding of the Associaçâo das Universidades de Lingua Portuguesa (AULP) in 1986 may also be seen as a product of an international awareness of pluricentricity. The body promotes cooperation in teaching and research between institutes of advanced learning and aims thereby to safeguard the development of the Portuguese language. Its foundation members include all the Portuguese universities, some Brazilian universities, the respective universities of Angola and Mozambique and the Ministries of Education of Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde and Sâo Tomé and Príncipe (Noticias 1989: 121). The AULP publishes the Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa. 4.1. The question of convergence and change Research on individual varieties has not reached a stage that will permit a clear global perspective on change in national varieties. In this respect it is only possible to make some general and partially impressionistic comments on the question of convergence and change. There would appear to be no studies on the degree or direction of convergence in intervarietal contacts. When academics meet at international conferences there is no readily detectable convergence. However, when Brazilians or Portuguese spend longer periods as visitors in each other's country, for example as students or visiting lecturers, the most obvious change is in the direction of the basic vocabulary and the terms of address system of the host country. Brazilians temporarily resident in Portugal also report a degree of shift in pronoun placement. The issue of the attitude of the national varieties of Portuguese towards the borrowing or transfer of foreign items is similarly unstudied. It was noted above that neither Brazil nor Portugal (nor, it would appear, the African nations of the PALOP group) have official policies of linguistic legislation.17 However, impressionistically, it may be said that Portugal is less open to transfer than is Brazil. Foreign academics (Portuguese included) who have had occasion to work in Brazil will comment on the number of English loans and caiques in Brazilian Portuguese, particularly in technical areas. This is a reflection of Brazil's contact with North America. The direction of change in the national varieties is, in broad terms, not affected by other national varieties. In Brazil, research on prestige norms

34

Alan Ν. Baxter

and on change in urban varieties is still very much in progress. And some of the findings at this stage are unclear with respect to the direction of change. Thus, for example, Naro and Lemle (1976) see variable subject and verb agreement in Rio de Janeiro Portuguese as rule loss, while Guy (cited in Holm 1987: 418) sees it as rule acquisition. As noted above, for the bulk of the population the language is far removed from the standard for normative grammars. Such a standard is unlikely to constitute the direction of change. In Portugal, to date there are no variation studies in the urban centres of the standard, Lisbon and Coimbra, which might throw light on change and its direction. Whether or not European Portuguese is subject to influence from the other national varieties of Portuguese is at present unknown. There are no studies of the Portuguese of the retornados 'returned colonists', or of that of refugees from the ex-colonies and the impact of such groups on local varieties of European Portuguese, nor are there any studies on the effects of Brazilian television and radio programs.18 The case of the Portuguese language in the African nations of the PALOP group is also largely unstudied. However, a prime factor in language change and its direction in the African nations is the fact that Portuguese is primarily a second language, existing in a variety of forms and competences and influenced by the local languages, indigenous or creole. The potential for change in the direction of a stabilizing and nativizing second language variety of Portuguese, with traits such as those mentioned in section 3.2., is real and whether it can be mitigated by greater contact with the official Portuguese standard will only be borne out by history. A further factor which could have an impact on the direction of Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau is Cuban Spanish. 19 French may also be of relevance to the direction of Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau.20

5. Conclusion In this paper we have considered a number of points relating to the pluricentric condition of Portuguese, a reflex of Portuguese colonial power. Portuguese exists in two standards, that of Brazil, which predominates in population, and that of Portugal, the historical source of the former,

Portuguese

as a pluricentric

language

35

which is officially the standard of five African nations, also former colonies. The two standards differ from each other in phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, spelling and pragmatics. However, the standard of Brazil is far more removed from the reality and diversity of its spoken language than is the standard of Portugal. And it could be said that there is a growing potential in Brazil for codification to take this factor into account. In the case of the officially Portuguese speaking African nations, although the total of their respective populations approaches 30 million, probably slightly less than one third of this figure are speakers of Portuguese, and the majority of these are second language speakers in bi- or multilingual environments. The latter factors are responsible for some of the divergences noticed in African varieties of Portuguese and, given time, will foster the development of national varieties and norms. However, simultaneously, those same factors are responsible for the fact that none of these ex-colonies has not yet achieved the degree of linguistic nationalism which led to the promotion of a standard in postcolonial Brazil. While Brazilian Portuguese enjoys a high level of exposure at a popular level in most of the Portuguese speaking countries, including Portugal, the exposure of European Portuguese in Brazil is in general minimal. It will be interesting to observe whether or not the cultural and linguistic parallels between the officially Portuguese speaking African countries and Brazil will, in time, influence the development of African varieties of Portuguese similar to that of Brazil.21 However, European Portuguese has an international role which that of Brazil does not.22 Because of its new international status, and perhaps also because it traditionally has taken it history and culture very seriously, an aspect which it has fostered through various national bodies and locally based private foundations, Portugal has increased codification and international promotion of its language on several fronts. While both standards display a growth in profile, although of different nature, recent history has witnessed an increase in awareness among the Portuguese speaking nations of the significance of pluricentricity, sociopolitically, economically and, to some extent, culturally. This tendency manifests itself in a willingness to cooperate on language issues. A degree of linguistic unity is seen as desirable.

36

Alan Ν. Baxter

Notes 1. I would like to thank the following people for providing information used in this paper: Maria José Albarrán Alves de Carvalho (Instituto Superior Pedagógico, Faculdade de Línguas, Maputo), Ivo Castro (Universidade de Lisboa), Jill Jolliffe (The Guardian correspondent, Lisbon), Isabel Leiria (Universidade de Lisboa), Nikola Vadjon (Tanjung correspondent, Luanda), Maria Cariota Rosa (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro). I alone am responsible for the final result. 2. The national agencies for Brazil and Portugal are, respectively, Empresa Brasileira de Noticias (EPN) and Agènda de Noticias LUSA. PALOP agencies are listed in Section 2.2.2. 3. The last two decades have seen the publication of significant descriptive grammars of a theoretical perspective, for example Lopes (1971), Mateus, Brito, Duarte and Faria (1983, 1989). 4. The Portuguese novelist José Saramago was "best seller" in Brazil in 1988. 5. As shown, for example, in the comic books termed 'piada de portugués', which satirize certain aspects of European Portuguese pronunciation (the quality of unstressed vowels, /rr/) and syntax (the present continuous construction consisting of estar + a + V infinitive). Some of these points are discussed in Sections 3.1. and 3.2. 6. Certain characteristics of spoken varieties of Portuguese of the PALOP countries are discussed in Albarrán Alves de Carvalho (1987), Correia Mendes (1985), Guerra Marques (1985), and Machungo (1986). 7. However, in the polemic over the 1986 spelling agreement, sentiments of linguistic nationalism were voiced on at least one occasion (Castro et al. 1986: 267). 8. However, curiously, when the Portuguese press quotes Brazilians, for example in interviews with the singer Gilberto Gil, it translates their statements into European Portuguese. 9. There are, however, some misconceptions in Portugal amongst some conservative elements of the community with respect to Brazilian Portuguese. This can be seen from some of the Portuguese reactions to the 1986 spelling agreement, which saw the Brazilian variety as a separate language or as a debased version of European Portuguese (Castro et al. 1986: 119, 239). 10. In Brazil stressed vowels followed by word final sibilants are widely diphthongized: [a'tra's], [pa'z]. 11. The varieties of Portuguese of Angola, Mozambique and Sào Tomé and Principe are also observed to display preposition absence (Gärtner 1983:295, Gonçalves 1985: 248-9, Correia Mendes 1985: 133-135, Espirito Santo 1985: 258). For example, a feature shared by at least the first two varieties is the omission of the preposition a in the present progressive construction: os músculos comecam φ doer 'the muscles begin to ache' (example from Albarrán Alves de Carvalho 1987: 15). 12. European Portuguese has numerous compound (indirect + direct) object pronouns which in Brazil are not used in the spoken language and very rarely

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

37

appear in the written variety (Cunha & Cintra 1984: 299-30), for example: Joäo deu-lhos (P) past 'give' -IO+DO 'Joäo gave them to you/him/her' Compare: Joâo os deu a você (Β) DO to you Some of these varieties share two additional features with popular Brazilian Portuguese. In Angola and Mozambique it has been noticed that indirect object pronouns are used in place of direct object pronouns (Guerra Marques 1985: 222, Albarrán Alves de Carvalho 1987: 15), for example (from the latter reference) Ihe '3rd pn. sg. indirect object' vou-lhe chamar Ί am going to call him' (instead of the standard vou chamá-lo, with lo '3rd pn. sg. direct object'. Moreover, in both these countries, and in Sâo Tomé and Principe, there is a tendency to use subject pronouns as object pronouns (Albarrán Alves de Carvalho 1987: 15, Espirito Santo 1985: 259) as, for example, quando levamos ele na escola 'when we took him to school' (Correia Mendes 1985: 139), instead of the standard quando o levamos à escola. The word trem is usually given as being of French origin. However, since British companies were involved in building the railways in Brazil it seems likely that the English word train may also have played a role in the derivation. In the African varieties of Portuguese certain shifts in terms of address and accompanying verb forms have been observed but not studied. Thus, for example, in Angola (Gärtner 1983: 295), Sâo Tomé and Príncipe (Espirito Santo 1985: 259) and Mozambique (Gonçalves 1985: 250) note, for example, the use of non-intimate terms of address with the second person singular form of the verb, for example Senhor director, voltaste? 'Mr. Director, did you return' (Albarrán Alves de Carvalho 1987: 17). A further point is that, in Mozambique, the word rapaz 'boy' has been officially abolished because of its despective connotations as a colonial term of address (p.c. Albarrán Alves de Carvalho). Ironically, owing to the divergent orthographies, the grammar had to appear in two editions. However, in 1986, the municipal government of Faro, southern Portugal, passed a law requiring that advertisements in foreign languages be accompanied by a Portuguese translation (Noticiário Geral 1988: 136-7). One obvious new brazilianism is the use of the verb virar, in the sense of transformar-se 'to become transformed', in a slogan appearing on glass recycling deposits distributed by the Lisbon Municipal Council: Vidro velho vira novo 'Old glass turns into new'. At an informal level, university students may be observed using a number of Brazilian expressions, which include, for example, greetings: Tudo bem 'How are things!?', Oi 'Hi!'. The presence of Spanish takes various forms: Cuban military (Angola only), administrators, medical workers, and teachers, or PALOP nationals trained in Cuba in technical areas through the medium of Spanish. Few Cubans learn

38

Alan Ν. Baxter

Portuguese and complaints concerning language problems with Cuban teachers are common (for example Mesa Redonda 1989: 112). If the Cuban influence was rather begrudgingly treated by the average Angolan student, there are two areas where its inroads were easier: in the army, where many young Angolans learned to speak Spanish well, and among children of MPLA cadre who were sent to Cuba for education ;(p.c. Jolliffe). The Cuban withdrawal from Angola should be complete by mid-1991 after a presence of fifteen years. 20. It is reported that there is an increasing tendency for French to be used in administrative circles (p.c. Jolliffe). 21. Aside from the largely unstudied linguistic parallels already existing, some of which were mentioned above, it must be remembered that Brazil is traditionally multilingual. In addition to the presence of indigenous languages, part of its multilingualism was, in the past three centuries, owed to the introduction of some 4 million West Africans of diverse languages groups, many of which correspond to those of the PALOP countries. Moreover, for a good deal of its colonial history, Portuguese was spoken as a second language by significant parts of the population. 22. Brazil does, however, have a growing economic role in the African nations of the PAPOL group. For example, Brazilian firms are currently participating in hydroelectric construction in Angola (the Kapanda dam) and were also involved in port construction (Africaport project) in Cape Verde (p.c. Jolliffe, Vadjon). Angola is also reported to be increasing external trade with Brazil (World of Information 1988: 39).

Abbreviations and symbols (B) (P) DO IO fem. V 3sg.

Brazilian Portuguese European Portuguese direct object indirect object feminine verb third person singular

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

39

References Academia Brasileira de Letras 1988 Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa da Academia Brasileira de Letras. Rio de Janeiro: Bloch. Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa 1793 Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa, Volume I, (A - Azurrar). Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional. 1976 Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa, Volume I (A - Azuverte). Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional - Casa da Moeda. Albarrán Alves de Carvalho, M.J. 1987 Aspectos sintáctico-semánticos dos verbos locativos no portugués oral de Maputo. Dissertaçâo de Mestrado, Universidade de Lisboa. Alencar, J. de 1865 Iracema. (2a ediçâo 1870.) Rio de Janeiro: Garnier. Almeida Costa, J. - Sampaio e Melo, Α. 1984 Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa. 5a ediçâo. Porto: Porto editora Ltda. Andrade, M. de 1927 Macunaima. (5a ediçâo 1969.) Sao Paulo: Martins. Buarque de Hollanda Ferreira, A. 1986 Novo Dicionário Aurélio da Lingua Portuguesa. (2a ediçâo.) Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Buarque de Hollanda Ferreira, A. (ed.) 1960 Pequeño Dicionário Brasileiro da Lingua Portuguesa. 10a ediçâo. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo Brasileira. Caldas Aulete, F.J. 1881 Diccionario Contemporaneo da Lingua Portrugueza. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional. Castilho, A.T. de. 1989 Para urna Gramática do Portugués falado, in: Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 37-48. Castro, I. - I. Duarte, - I. Leiria, (eds.) 1986 A Demanda da Ortografia Portuguesa. Comentário do Acordo Ortográfico de 1986 e subsidios para a compreensäo da Questäo que se Ihe seguiu. Lisboa: Sá da Costa. Correia Mendes, B. 1985 Contributo para o estudo da lingua portuguesa em Angola. Lisboa: Instituto de Linguistica da Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa. Cristoväo, F. 1987 Noticias e problemas da lingua portuguesa. Lisboa: Instituto de Cultura e Lingua Portuguesa. Cunha, C.F. da 1968 Lingua portuguesa e realidade brasileira. 8a ediçâo. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro.

40

Alan Ν. Baxter

1965

Urna política do idioma. (4a ediçâo 1976.) Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro. 1972 Gramática do portugués contemporáneo. (7th edition 1977.) Belo Horizonte: Bernardo Alvares. 1972 Gramática da Lingua Portuguesa. (4th edition 1977.) Rio de Janeiro: FENAME. 1985 "O Projecto NURC e a questäo da norma culta brasileira", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 140-166. Cunha, C. - Lindley Cintra, L.F. 1984 Nova Gramática do Portugués Contemporáneo. Lisboa: Sá da Costa. (Brazilian edition Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fonteira, 1985.) Espirito Santo, C. 1985 "Situaçâo actual da Lingua Portuguesa nas Ilhas de S. Tomé e Príncipe", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 253-260. Elia, S. 1961 O Problema da Lingua Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educaçâo e Cultura. Fanha, D. 1989 '"Ka nhos ben pasia linguajen!' ou falar crioulo e falar portugués em Cabo Verde", Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 11-14. Figueiredo, Candido de 1899 Nôvo Diccionário da Lingua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Livraria Tavares. 1948 Gramática Sintética da Lingua Portuguesa. (5a ediçâo.) Lisboa: A.M. Teixeira. 1949 Dicionário da lingua portuguesa. (10a ediçâo.) Lisboa: Livraria Bertrand. (16a ediçâo. Livraria Bertrand, 1981). Gartner, E. 1983 "Syntaktische Besonderheiten des Portugiesischen in Angola", in: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Gesellschaftsw, R. XXXII (1983) 3: 295-298. Gonçalves, P. 1989 "A Variaçâo do Portugués dentro do Portugués", in: Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 15-20. 1985 "Situaçâo actual da Lingua Portuguesa em Moçambique", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 243-251. Gonçalves Viana, A. R. em colaboraçâo com G. Vasconcelos Abreu 1885 Bases de Ortografia Portugueza. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional. Guerra Marques, I. 1985 "Algumas consideraçôes sobre a problemática linguistica em Angola", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 205-223. Henriques, M.A. 1985 "Situaçâo e perspectivas do Portugués na Guiné-Bissau", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 234-241. Holm, J. 1987 "Creole influence on popular Brazilian Portuguese", in: G. Gilbert (ed.), Pidgin and Creole Languages. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987: 406-429.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language 1989 Leite, Y. 1985

41

Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. II, Reference Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Situaçâo actual e perspectivas da lingua portuguesa no Brasil", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 174-188. Liäo D. Nunez do 1576 Orthographia da Lingoa Portuguesa. Lisboa: Joâo de Barreira. Lindley Cintra, L.F. 1986 Sobre "Formas de tratamento" na Lingua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Horizonte. Lindley Cintra, L.F. (org.) 1985 Congresso sobre a situaçâo actual da lingua portuguesa no mundo. Lisboa - 1983. Actas, Vol. I. Liboa: Instituto de Cultura e Lingua Portuguesa. 1987 Congresso sobre a situaçâo actual da lingua portuguesa no mundo. Lisboa - 1983. Actas, Vol. II. Lisboa: Instituto de Cultura e Lingua Portuguesa. Lobato, A.J. dos Reis 1771 Arte da grammatica da lingua portugueza. Lisboa: Regia Officina Typografica. Lopes, O. 1971 Gramática simbólica do Portugués. Lisboa: Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Centro de Investigaçào Pedagógica. Macedo Oliveira, M.E. 1986 "Noticia sobre a elaboraçâo da Terminologia Científica e Técnica da Lingua Portuguesa", in: Revista ICALP 5: 76-77. Machungo, I. 1986 Síntaxe e semántica dos tempos verbais no portugués falado de Moçambique. Dissertaçâo de Mestrado, Universidade de Lisboa. Malaca Casteleiro, J. (coord.) 1984 Portugués Fundamental. Lisboa: Instituto Nacional de Investigaçào Científica & Centro de Linguistica da Universidade de Lisboa. Mattos e Silva, R.V. 1988 Diversidade e Unidade - A Aventura Lingüística do Portugués, in: Revista ICALP 11: 60-72; 12 and 13: 12-28. 1989 "Diversidade linguistica brasileira e ensino do portugués", Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 28-36. Messner, D. O léxico portugués e a CEE", in: Revista ICALP 12/13: 90-91. Ministério da Coordinaçâo e Plano 1981 Recenseamento Geral da Populaçâo e da Habitaçâo, 16 de Abril de 1979: Resultados Provisorios (Fase II). Bissau: Ministério da Coordinaçâo Econòmica e Plano. Ministério de Educaçâo 1986 Diretrizes para o aperfeicoamento do ensinoìaprendizagem da lingua portuguesa. Comissäo Nacional para o Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino/

42

Alan Ν. Baxter

Aprendizagem da Lingua Materna, Relatório Conclusivo. Rio de Janeiro: Ministério de Educaçâo. Mira Mateus, M.H.(coord.) 1989 "Mesa Redonda - O ensino do portugués em países africanos", Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 106-113. Mira Mateus, M.H. - Brito, M.A. - Duarte, I. - Hub Faria, I. 1989 Gramática da Lingua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Caminho. Moráis Silva, A de. 1980 Novo dicionário compacto de lingua portuguesa. Re-ediçâo da 10a ediçâo. Lisboa: Confluência. Naro, A.J. - Lemle, M. 1976 "Syntactic diffusion", in: - Steever - Walker - Mufwene (eds.), Papers from the parassession on Diachronic Syntax, Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1976: 221-240. Nascentes, A. 1926-27 O Idioma Nacional. (2a ediçâo 1933.) Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Machado e Livraria Alves (Vol. 1, 1926; Vol. 2, 1927; Vol. 3, 1928; Vol. 4, 1929). 1961 Dicionário da Lingua Portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional. Noticiário Gérai 1988 Revista ICALP 12/13: 136-137. Noticias 1989 Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa. 1: 123-127. Nunes de Figueiredo J.M. - Gomes Ferreira, A. 1974 Compêndio de gramática portuguesa. Porto: Porto Editora. Oliveira, Fernâo de 1536 Grammatica da lingoagem portuguesa. (3a ediçâo feita de harmonía com a primeira (1536) sob a direcçâo de Rodrigo de Sá Nogueira.) Lisboa: José Fernandes Júnior. [1933] Palma Caetano, J.A. 1987 "As normas portuguesa e brasileira no ensino do portugués no estrangeiro", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. II: 712-717. Pontífice, J. 1989 "Os meandros da cumplicidade crioula", Revista Internacional de Lingua Portuguesa 1: 52-55. Ramos, B. 1985 "Situaçâo actual da Lingua Portuguesa em Cabo Verde", in: L.F. Lindley Cintra (org.), Actas, Vol. I: 225-232. Ribeiro, J. 1888 Gramática Portuguesa. (2a ediçâo.) Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Clàssica. Ribeiro, J.A. 1921 A lingua nacional. Sao Paulo: Monteiro Lobato. Rocha Lima, e Mattoso Cámara Jr., J. 1953 Curso da Lingua Pàtria. (3a ediçâo.) Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo.

Portuguese as a pluricentric language

43

Said Ali, M. n.d. Gramática secundária. Rio de Janeiro: Melhoramentos. n.d. Gramática Elementar. Rio de Janeiro: Melhoramentos. 1930 Dificuldades da Lingua Portuguesa. (3a ediçào.) (la ediçâo 1921?) Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco Al ves. Seabra, J.A. 1988 "Situaçào da Lingua Portuguesa nos Organismos do Sistema das Naçôes Unidas", in: Revista ICALP 11: 73-77. Silva Dias, A.E. da 1870 Grammatica Practica da Lingua Portugueza. Porto: Jornal do Porto. 1882 Grammatica Portuguesa Elementar. (5th ediçâo.) Lisboa: Livraria Escolar. Silva Neto, S. da 1963 Introduçâo ao estudo da lingua portuguesa no Brasil. (2a ediçâo.) Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro. Silveira Bueno, F. 1963 Gramática Normativa da Lingua Portuguesa. Curso Superior. (6a ediçâo.) Säo Paulo: Melhoramentos. Souza Lima, M.P. de 1935 Gramática Expositiva da Lingua Portuguesa. Sao Paulo: Cia. Ed. Nacional. Teyssier, P. 1984 Historia da Lingua Portuguesa. (2a ediçâo.) Lisboa: Sá da Costa. Um grupo de filólogos 1938 Pequeño dicionário brasileiro da lingua Portuguesa. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizaçâo. Vázquez Cuesta, P. - Mendes da Luz, M.A. 1980 Gramática da lingua portuguesa. Lisboa: Ediçôes 70. World of Information 1988 The Africa Review. Saffron Waldon: World of Information.

Spanish as a pericentric language R.W. Thompson

1. The Spanish - speaking countries Spanish, as a pluricentric language, is spoken in more than twenty countries. The list, with estimated population provided by the Spanish Ministerio de Cultura, is: Argentina (29,627,000), Bolivia (6,082,000), Chile (11,682,000), Colombia (27,500,000), Costa Rica (2,379,000), Cuba (9,880,000), Dominican Republic (5,962,000), Ecuador (8,200,000), El Salvador (5,232,000), Equatorial Guinea (364,000), Guatemala (6,526,000), Honduras (4,092,000), Mexico (73,641,000), Nicaragua (3,058,000), Panama (2,089,000), Paraguay (3,117,000), Peru (18,707,000), Philippines (2,900,000), Puerto Rico (3,350,000), Spain (39,310,000), United States of America (19,500,000), Uruguay (2,968,000), Venezuela (14,940,000). If these figures are anywhere near reliable they give a world total of 301,046,000 Spanish-speakers. As the rate of reproduction in most Spanish-speaking areas is explosive, the probable total in just ten years' time is awesome. Even if we make generous allowance for significant numbers of people who speak little or no Spanish in the Americas, where Amerindian languages are spoken, in the Philippines where Malayan and other types, or in Equatorial Guinea where several West African languages are used, the score is likely to be very high indeed. As we are already living in the global village it is likely that in the twenty-first century Spanish will continue to be the language of education, administration and international communication, and not only of native-speakers. The compatibility of the prestigious forms of such an enormous pluricentric linguistic community will be increasingly important. Each of the twenty-odd Hispanic countries has its own linguistic norms some of which it shares with all the others, some which it shares with some other countries, usually, though not always neighbours, and some which it possesses uniquely. This variation is often clearly evident in the speech of even the highly educated. It is, however, naturally enough in

46

R.W. Thompson

the written forms of the language that such variation become blurred. It is also the case that some countries have more than one standard spoken variety as in Spain itself, where the principal prestigious variety is northern educated speech, whose likely historical base is the dialect of the ancient and prestigious city of Burgos. This variety is similar in function to RP in England which is derived from Southern Midland dialect and until recently was the standard to which educated speakers aspired. In both cases regional upper-class speech tended to become a model for the educated.

1.1. Centres of linguistic prestige in Latin America, by zone The zones into which the dialects of Hispanic America may be divided were devised by Pedro Henriquez Ureña (1921) and are susceptable to and have been subjected to considerable sub-division. They are the following: I.

New Mexico, Mexico and Central America (with considerable influence from Nahuatl). II. The Antilles, Venezuela and the Atlantic coast of Colombia (influenced by Carib and Arawak languages and also, perhaps, by African speech habits). III. Western Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile (influenced by Quechua). IV. Central and southern Chile (influenced by Araucanian). V. Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (influenced by Guarani). One of the most important critics of this scheme is Rona (1963). There are of course others. Even the most casually unobservant traveller in Latin America will notice anomalies in the scheme. In Mendoza, in western Argentina, he will feel the cultural and linguistic pull of Santiago de Chile. In Tarija in Bolivia the pull will be in the direction of Buenos Aires. There are many more. Still, it is a useful general pattern for the purposes of this essay. I. New Mexico, Mexico and Central America (with claimed number of inhabitants): All the countries of Central America tend to accept Mexican usage as their prestige model. The influence of Cuba on Nicaraguan speech has not yet been documented. But at least we should expect to see the mark of Marxist lexicon brought by Cuban publications, broadcasts, films and

Spanish as a Pluricentric language

47

the presence of "Internationalist" teachers, technicians, doctors and nurses. Lipski (1985) says that the 'members of the Sandinista junta, in speeches, often offer a style of diction which evokes popular connotations, and Nicaraguan domestic broadcasting contains the same contrasts found in Cuba. However, the international broadcasts of La Voz de Nicaragua offer a homogenized, chemically-pure Spanish'. In the whole area local standards are nevertheless still set by the Academies, the Press, radio, television and films. In spite of the considerable dialectal variation in Mexico, in particular between basically Mayan Yucatan and the Gulf and Pacific coasts on the one hand and the highlands on the other, the capital exerts a tremendous pull on all parts of the country as the centre of political power, wealth, the press....It is one of the great centres of book publication in the Spanish speaking world and for many decades films have been made here by Mexican producers whose work is universally known. It still remains a cultural centre for the Hispanics who inhabit the territories annexed by the USA from Mexico in the XIX century. In this zone it seems fair to take Mexico City as the linguistic epicentre. As such it can be seen to cooperate with other great cultural centres in fostering the linguistic unity of the language at the highest level throughout the Hispanic world. II. The Antilles, Venezuela and the Atlantic coast of Colombia: This zone includes Cuba and Puerto Rico which were still Spanish colonies a century ago. Some contacts are still made with Spain and much was made some years ago of the news that Fidel Castro on a visit to Spain made it a point to visit an elderly aunt living in Galicia, the region in which his father was born. Puerto Rico welcomed academic refugees from both Franco's Spain and Castro's Cuba and encouraged them to grace its prestigious University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. While in Cuba, regional capitals such as Santiago de Cuba enjoy considerable prestige it is educated speech of the capital Havana which provides the role model for the nation. It has been reported (Lipski, 1985: 223) that "a strange situation has arisen, since in addition to the traditional style of announcer, complete with homogenized s-laden pronunciation, there is a new breed of compañero, whose speech more closely reflects that heard in daily Cuban life. While the international broadcasts of Radio Habana style affect the traditional style, the AM and FM broadcasts aimed at the Cuban populace offer a variety of announcers, many of whom would never be allowed

48

R.W. Thompson

to use such a pronunciation in other Latin American countries, where popular speech contains approximately the same proportion of weakened /s/ as does Cuban Spanish. Perhaps this is part of the egalitarian image of the Cuban Revolution..." Naturally Marxist ideological terms abound but the notion of correct speech is fostered in the schools which boast that they have achieved one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Though separated politically from so many countries, Cuba is by no means completely isolated from foreign Hispanic influences - Castro himself is a close acquaintance of Gabriel García Márquez and is an avid reader of his works. Cuba, therefore has no desire to forsake the concept of the essential unity of Spanish in the Americas and its rulers, intellectuals, educators and journalists remain in the tradition of Bello established a century and a half ago. The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico follow a parallel course and with fewer of the political constraints of their neighbour, enjoy a freer press and easier contacts with foreign media. Venezuela has indeed Caracas, the historic capital of Hispanic American independence, as centre of correct speech. Coastal Colombia, sharing tropical Caribbean phonology with the rest of the countries of the region is subject to two forces, that of the capital, Bogotá, situated in its different highland dialect region, and the colonial cities of Barranquilla, Cartagena de Indias, Santa Marta. Panama has long since looked in the other direction and Islands such as Providencia and San Andrés, basically English or English-creole speaking, are subject to the formal language of the schoolroom and so may be more exposed to the centralist influence of the capital. It is difficult to find an epicentre for this zone. The concept, in any case, is very vague. Perhaps we could situate it in the skies and airwaves above the Caribbean which carry the popular rhythmic Afro-Antillian beat back and forth between all its component regions. III. Western Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Northern Chile: This zone is not nearly as compact as Henríques Ureña's classification would have us believe. Colombia never fell within the Inca realms and only a small area of Quechua speech is to be found in the south, Its extraordinary dialectal variety in Spanish is compensated by the remarkable prestige attached to the speech of Bogotá, often called the Athens of Latin America, and to the universal respect in the Spanish-speaking world for the person and writings of Rufino José Cuervo a hundred years ago and for the activities in the twentieth century of the Instituto Caro y Cuervo just outside that city. As one of the seven great cities whose

Spanish as a Pluricentric language

49

upper-class speech has been carefully studied in recent years it has been presented as a centre where the essential syntax of multinational Spanish is to be found. Gabriel García Márquez rejects its spoken variety in favour of the coastal speech of his youth. Yet tape recordings of him reading passages from his novels betray the stamp of Bogotá pronunciation and usage, reinforced, perhaps, by the experiences of long years spent in Spain, Mexico and Cuba. This is not to say, however, that popular speech in Bogotá is recommended elsewhere any more than is that of Madrid which is itself, even in Madrid, often heard as slang, gitano and suspiciously Andalusian. Abroad, especially in the USA, upper-class Bogotá Spanish is often proposed as a model for Englishspeaking learners alongside the more traditional Burgos/Castilian code. In Ecuador, even though most of the population now live on the coast, the upper-class speech of Quito, that of the tradition land-owners, is greatly respected. Nevertheless, those quiteños who leave the Andes for the coastal lowlands often try to lose their s-coloured rr which is heard on the coast as a crude Indianism and substitute the more general Hispanic trill. Still, writing, taught and used, follows the pattern of Spanish unity in Ecuador too as seen in the best writers and in the press of Quito. Ecuador has a very large Indian population, speaking a variety of languages. The most important of these, Quichua, has replaced earlier indigenous languages with the help of the Catholic Church, especially the Compañía or Society of Jesús. It is said that bilingual Indians speak Spanish very badly. With an improved literacy program they are likely to speak a more formal if stilted variety of the educated type. Within Peru, Lima, the capital, and Cuzco, the old Inca capital and still the capital for many of the Andean Indians, are often at loggerheads. But Lima with its vice-regal history, press, publications, records and writers as distinguished as Ricardo Palma, José María Arguedas and Vargas Llosa, lately turned politician, must inevitably be the centre of recommended speech for the whole country and Peru, for correctness in speech like the other Latin American countries looks to the general Hispanic American upper code and not to the Burgos/Castilian model. Bolivia, mistakenly allying herself with Peru during the War of the Pacific against Chile, lost her corridor to the sea to the latter. Though, no doubt, local Chileans in these days, the inhabitants of this Corridor, share many of the traits and speech of their Bolivian ancestors. The high Andean plains and the warm eastern slopes of the cordillera support large communities of Aymara-speakers round the Bolivian end of Lake Titicaca and La Paz, the de facto capital of the country. Even more Quechua-speakers are

50

R.W. Thompson

found, mainly in the areas surrounding Sucre, Potosí and Cochabamba. In the Beni and Santa Cruz in the hot lowlands, speech is of the coastal River Plate type, with post-syllabic aspirate [h] replacing post-syllabic /-s/ and yeísmo is normal. Tarija, which is Spanish-speaking, looks south in the direction of Argentina. Each large urban centre, historically separated from its neàrest neighbours by vast mountains, plunging ravines, deserts, rivers and swamps has been its own linguistic centre where the greatest linguistic virtue was to avoid speaking like an indio or cholo. Over all, Bolivia stands for the unitary written Latin American model which is faithfully presented by her writers, journalists, radio commentators and is spread amongst the youth in her schools and universities. I do not believe that we can find a linguistic epicentre for Bolivia nor for this zone in general. Yet, at least in the mountain region certain features exist in common such as the preservation of post-vocalic [s] and contrasting [λ] and [y]. IV. Central and Southern Chile: Dialectologists divide Chile into four main regions the northern one belonging properly to Zone number III. The two great urban centres are Santiago and Concepción and it is here that acceptable national norms are. In some cases, the recommended contrast between /λ/ and /y/ does not occur in the area round the capital, so that children who are expected to do so are unable to comply. Naturally their teachers have much the same difficulty as have the upper classes without exception. Those who do make the distinction are heard as provincials either from the north or the south. Post-vocalic aspirated [h] is the realization of /s/, and /x/ is strongly palatalized, [ç] (like German ich, and gleichen), and affricate /c/ becomes fricative [s], in all social classes. The educated classes which have produced such distinguished writers as Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Jorge Edwards, José Donoso and Isabel Allende, use pronunciations which would be frowned on in Mexico or Bogotá. Yet they preserve faithfully the basic structures of general educated Latin American Spanish. Chile has a long and distinguished tradition of research into Spanish grammar, beginning with the Gramática of Bello, a Venezuelan living there, and extending through Hanssen and Lenz to Oroz and Rabanales in our own day. As in other countries in the Cono del Sur (The southern cone e.g. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) the international standard in Chile is the written standard and that standard is acceptable anywhere.

Spanish as a Pluricentric language

51

V. Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay: The Spanish spoken in these three countries has preserved the essential idiomatic unity of the language and in the written language as symbolized by the editorials and feature articles of the two great Argentine "thunderers". La Nación and La Prensa and the authors of outstanding prose such as Sarmiento, Giiiraldes, Borges serve as models anywhere in Spain or Latin America. In rural Argentina and Uruguay the indigenous population has been assimilated or wiped out and the dialects spoken there fit the normal patterns of rustic speech in the Hispanic world. Buenos Aires, as far as the spoken language was concerned, presented a serious problem until recently. This problem stems from the massive immigration of foreigners from Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Millions of these immigrants came from Italy, principally Genoa and Naples and their presence shows up in working-class speech. At one time two kinds of jargon had tremendous importance in the speech of Buenos Aires. One, cocoliche, which never perhaps became stable enough to be considered as a type of creole, was a mixture of Italian and Spanish dialect and had its centre in the suburb of La Boca at the mouth of the Riachuelo. It has now largely died out but something like it could have been heard in the Argentine soapie, Rosa de Lejos, in the conversation of older people purportedly of Italian origin. About twenty-five years ago I was still able to pick up remnants of this lingo at La Boca and in cafés near the centre of Buenos Aires. The other "jargon" which has been considered as a much more serious threat to idiomatic Spanish in the River Plate region is lunfardo. This was originally thieves' cant from the port and drew its vocabulary from many sources, slang, international criminal expressions, English, French and Brazilian terms, caló or Gypsy talk. Its rapid popularity was in part encouraged by its use in the yellow press, (v. Crítica, 1913), the national popular theatre and the poets of the inner suburbs. Above all, the tango brought it to the middle and upper classes and made it known throughout the Spanish-speaking world and beyond. For some it even became a symbol of nationalism, of cultural independence, acceptable to a point even amongst the aristocracy. In this there was a coincidence with the tradition dating from the rejection by Juan María Gutiérrez of the diploma of corresponding member offered him by the Real Academia Española in 1876 and the founding of the Academia de la lengua de la República Argentina. Creatively the growth of lunfardo was admirable but in the Pan-American linguistic scene it was considered, and rightly so, a serious threat to the essential unity of the language.

52

R.W. Thompson

The attack by the Spanish literary critic and philologian, Amérigo Castro, on the "linguistic peculiarity of River Plate Spanish", first published in 1940, had as its target what he saw as the deterioration of speech standard in Buenos Aires under the influence of popular trends which had spread right through society, but Jose Luis Borges, an Argentinian by birth, saw these tendencies as ephemeral, passing fads, and asked whether the standards of contemporary Madrid Spanish could be judged by the street slang, bullfighters' lingo and caló, or gypsy jargon, of that city. The death of lunfardo came almost as suddenly as its dramatic birth and has been attributed to the decadence of the tango and the huge growth of Buenos Aires in recent decades, which obliterated the foci from which it had been disseminated. The centres of crime, prostitution and drug trafficking have moved from the centre and are located in outlying suburbs. The criminal element has less contact with the masses in general and the latter have been enormously increased by the arrival of internal immigrants from the provinces speaking dialects more in line with the traditional tendencies of Spanish. Montevideo, across the river, has shared the experiences of Buenos Aires although it is naturally embarrassing for many Uruguayans to admit it. In Paraguay two languages are in general use, Guaraní and Spanish. Spanish has all the support of the schoolroom and the University as well as the Press and the other media. There are, however, pressures for increased encouragement for Guaraní. After all, it is not a native language of the forests but the spoken tongue of both white people and mestizos throughout the country. The dictator Hugo Stroessner frequently used it in public. Paraguayans look to Argentina for advanced learning and technology and young people go there to train as doctors and nurses and even to go into domestic service. In Asunción the influence of the speech of Buenos Aires is evident at all levels. In the country, on the other hand the conscientiously correct, slightly pedantic language of the schoolroom stands out. In summary, for this zone, the epicentre is the River Plate. 1.2. The United States of America The Spanish-speaking population once felt to be diminishing, continues to rise and is now calculated at around 20,000,000. Once thought of as a sleeping giant this community continues to grow and will probably overtake the black minority by the middle of the present decade. Even now Hispanics make up almost 10 per cent of the entire US population.

Spanish as a Pluricentric language 53 It has even been pointed out that in terms of numbers, after Mexico, Spain and Colombia, the United States would rank as the fourth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world today. Spanish-speakers in the USA represent every country where the language is spoken but the three main groups are: 1) the Chícanos in the southwest; 2) the Puerto Ricans, in New York and Chicago; and 3) Cubans in Miami. It seems likely that the role-models for each of these groups will be drawn increasingly from US stations which broadcast radio and television programs. The Chícanos and Puerto Ricans appear to have built up their broadcasting techniques from scratch and based them on native American English norms. The Cubans, however, were able to draw on announcers and program directors trained before the Castro revolution and later, and arriving in Miami over the last thirty years. These immigrants have ensured some continuity in the Hispanic tradition of Cuban broadcasting in the USA. Cubans in Havana can listen to Radio Marti, only a hundred miles away and with little adjustment to their sets can tune in to television programs in Spanish from the USA. Recently the Cuban Government has shown considerable irritation at the news that the US Senate has been considering the establishment in Miami of a station which would beam television programs to Cuba. If in the past, community members have asked themselves which linguistic standard should be recommended in the schools and in the sound-media, it is now likely that high-level radio and television will provide the model rather as the pronunciation of radio and television programs in Italy, emanating from Rome, have set the style for the new Italian standard: lingua toscana in bocca romana. 1.3. Spain From considering Spanish as the final manifestation of the dialect of Castile which triumphed in a wide sense in most of the Peninsula and in a wider sense in the New World, many Spaniards, have seen Spanish as the key to Empire and differences from the Castilian type were seen as deviations or deformations and are still seen as such by some. These prejudices have been widely endorsed in the English-speaking world and indeed prescriptive grammars written for Anglophones right up until the 1950s usually prescribed Castilian Spanish models although they often included imprecise and often incorrect Latin American variants. Until recently, schools showed a preference for the accents of north or central

54

R.W. Thompson

Spain in their Spanish-teachers. It was thought, as in Spain itself, that the varieties of Spanish most appreciated in Spain enjoyed the same prestige in South and Central America. The truth is that, in the Americas such opinions have been held by a few extremely affected persons; particularly in the theatre. On the other hand, a Spanish accent is sometimes used by stand-up comics, and mockingly, of course. One or two personal anecdotes may reinforce the point. More than thirty years ago in Jamaica a Jamaican colleague, reared in Cuba, and I beamed a weekly broadcast of news and commentary to British Honduras (now Belize) which, amongst several language groups included several thousand Spanishspeakers. From time to time we called for a feedback from our listeners and were interested to hear that my accent (a reasonable Castilian facsimile, I am told) was considerably less acceptable than my colleague's refined Cuban, which approximated more to local speech. Years later in Caracas, the mayor of a small town in Los Llanos remarked that he could not understand how an intelligent and presumably welleducated person like me could talk with the accent of a green-grocer, i.e. with the accent of a humble and probabably illiterate Spanish migrant. In universities in Ireland and Australia I have remonstrated with Spanish academics who warned their students (in English) against speaking 'monkey Spanish', i.e. one of the Spanish American varieties.

2. Codification and codification agencies On a formal level Spain has attempted to achieve and preserve linguistic correctness through the offices of the Real Academia Española, whose motto translates into English as 'Purifies, stabilizes and gives splendor'. The Royal Spanish Academy is undoubtely a very conservative organization like all such organizations but it has published valuable works such a its Diccionario de Autoridades, its Ortografía and its Gramática which are revised from time to time. The Gramática (Grammar) is widely used by secondary school children all over Hispano-America. Up to the time of the wars of independence the norms of the Academy were acceptable all over the colonies but after independence was achieved, for most regions with the exception of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the same Academy became a foreign institution. Even before independence the Literary Society of Buenos Aires had already proposed that decisions about matters of language concerning their

Spanish as a Pluricentric language 55 region should be made by the Society. Other societies were established in the chief cities of Latin America. In 1825 in Bogotá it was decided to set up an Academy of the Latin American Language. This title coincides with the desire to exclude the use of the word "Spanish" for political reasons and the preference shown in some countries for "Castellano" ('Castilian'), properly speaking the predominant speech of Castile in northern Spain. Not only was the name "Spanish" rejected by the intellectuals in the new countries but the nationalism and the romanticism of the times encouraged the rejection of many aspects of Spanish culture and the creation of a new Hispano American literature free of the old imperial ties. This rejection could even include the respected writers of the Spanish Siglo de Oro ('Golden Age'), often represented by the Royal Academy as models of style. Nevertheless at the same time there arose movements to restrain the fragmentation of the language. One was triggered by the publication of the Gramática de la lengua castellana, destinada al uso de los Americanos (Santiago de Chile, 1847), by Andrés Bello, a Venezuelan living in Chile. This work showed what has been called an attitude of moderate respect to the Spanish Academy and was to serve as a greatest common measure for the educated elites of all the Americas. It is very likely that this object was achieved and is still attested in the formal Spanish of Latin America vis-à-vis the rich variety of popular speech in all its regions. The distinguished Peruvian linguist, Alberto Escobar told me in 1975 that he once travelled by plane from his home city, Lima, to Quito, in Ecuador, Bogotá, in Colombia, Caracas, in Venezuela, San Juan, in Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic and one of the great cities in the USA, where Spanish is an important language. In each of these cities he was met by a local Spanishspeaking colleague and entertained by him during his visit. At his departure from the USA on his return trip he told me of his pleasure that Spanish really was one language and that slight differences in phonology, lexicon and syntax were more exciting topics for discussion than barriers to communication. On the return flight he stopped at the same cities but this time without guides and in each he spent his time strolling through the working-class suburbs and the traditional markets, sleeping in modest hotels and eating in popular cafés and restaurants. After this trip, he claimed, it would have been easy to believe that in each of the seven countries a different language was spoken, and each one unintelligible to the inhabitants of the next.

56

R.W. Thompson

Pondering the fate of Spanish in the New World on the analogy of the fragmentation of Latin into Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, etc. so brilliantly documented by the nineteenth-century philologists, Friedrich August Pott asked in 1877: "It is perhaps a miracle that the languages of Europe which have been transplanted to America appear to be more and more unfaithful to the forms of expression of their native soil. Can we believe by any chance that the languages which have their origin in Latin would be able on American soil to separate themselves totally from the destiny accorded them by the general laws of Nature? New conditions beget new ways of thought and expression". Some twenty years later, in 1899, Rufino José Cuervo, a Colombian and the founder of Hispanic philology, all his life a doughty defender of the essential unity of the language was to say "We are now on the eve (and that in the lives of nations can be very long indeed) of being separated from one another, like the daughters of the Roman Empire...." Such a statement, expressed perhaps a fear rather than a conviction. It was taken up and refuted by the distinguished Spanish novelist, Juan Valera, and thereafter an important and revealing debate raged between the two for a season on the literary pages of Spanish and Latin American newspapers, culminating in the article "El castellano en América", published in Bulletin Hispanique, III (1901). At this point the Basque polymath, Miguel de Unamuno, weighed in on the side of Valera's arguments; and views similar to theirs are what largely predominate today. Certainly since Pott's and Cuervo's time, radio, the cinema and television have become available to all, even to those who dwell in the most remote villages or in the most wretched callampas or ciudades miseria. The video tape and the Walkman are widely accessible and through these media the language is disseminated, often in its most elevated forms. But what is important is that listeners are not confined to hearing productions emanating from their own nation or region but are well used to hearing programs put together in any one of twenty-odd countries, with of course Argentina, Mexico and Spain predominating. Film producers no longer cast their films with appropriate accents in mind - Buñuel's work, produced in exile, bears elonquent witness to this development. I have been amused to see the shocked expressions on the faces of Spaniards on hearing the heroes of American adventure soapies, dubbed in Spanish, speak in Argentinian accents. On the other hand I have seen the same Spaniards amused and delighted by the speech of outragiously arrogant quiteño aristocrats. I note here that in the Hispanic world of cinema it is considered less necessary to sub-title

Spanish as a Pluricentric language 57 films whose sound-track is in the local code than it sometimes is for those where the characters speak broad Australian English or Jamaican Creole. As a counterpoint to informal debate on the present and future of the Spanish language in the Americas came the foundation of national academies of the language, all of which were to be associates of the Spanish Academy. Members were to be men of letters and membership was to be based upon literary merit. The Colombian Academy was founded in 1871; that of Mexico in 1875, followed by Ecuador (1875), El Salvador (c. 1880), Venezuela (1881), Chile (1886), Peru (1877), and Guatemala (1888). The Argentine, Juan María Gutiérrez, turned down the diploma of associate member of the Spanish Academy in 1875 as it seemed to him to be improper to associate himself with influences emanating from the erstwhile imperial power. It should also be remembered in this regard that many Latin Americans following the traditions of the "Frenchified" Spanish afrancesados of the eighteenth century looked towards Paris rather than Madrid for cultural inspiration and even in their writing showed a fondness for stylistically French constructions, preferring, for example a la perfección (Fr. à la perfection) to perfectamente or mismo (Fr. même, but also classical and regional) to hasta, the approved form in contemporary Spain. By the beginning of the twentieth century, with the death of their founding fathers, many of the Latin American associate academies had ceased to exist; but as the targets of local nationalism had also been fading away it became possible to consider the establishment of new academies, with the encouragement of the Royal Spanish Academy and regional Latin-American cultural organizations. As a response the academies of Chile (1914), Peru (1918), Ecuador (1923), El Salvador (c. 1923), Guatemala (c. 1930) and Venezuela (c. 1930) were revived. New academies were set up in Bolivia (1920), Costa Rica (1923), Cuba (1926), Panama (1926), The Dominican Republic (1927), Paraguay (1927), Honduras (1948) and Puerto Rico (1952). The Argentine Academy of Letters and the Uruguayan, whilst eschewing affiliation with the Spanish body have working in harmony with it and with other associate academies. They have been officially certified as colaboradores (collaborators), a title which has no demeaning implications in Spanish and guarantees a cordial relationship. An associate academy has existed in the Philippines since 1925 and contacts are maintained with the Ben Zvi Institute and other organizations in Israel. Regular contact between the Royal Spanish Academy and the associate members has led to a liberalization of the criteria for admission of

58

R.W. Thompson

lexical items and syntactical structures to the publications of the Academy, which however, is seen by many to maintain its reputation as a conservative body. Indeed the associate academies of the Americas are seen by many educated people to be 'Cerebuses of the Language' which constrain speech and restrict freedom of expression. With the growth of descriptive linguistics in the twentieth century it has become more and more possible to look dispassionately at the realities of speech throughout the Hispanic world. The Spanish, Costa Rican and Colombian linguistic atlases have greatly expanded our knowledge of the linguistic facts in those three countries but linguistic atlases from Gilliéron onwards have tended to concentrate on the rural scene; even on the exotic. And without complementary monographs of the type of Gilliéron's own study of the rubric ABEILLE, linguistic atlases are not always easy to interpret. Concentration on the rustic scene is largely irrelevant to a study such as this. We must turn rather to recent studies of the cultivated speech of the chief cities of Hispano America and the Iberian Peninsula. In spite of the immense value of the numerous dialect studies and linguistic atlases for our enlightenment on the realities of the speech of the Hispanic world they are rather limited in their use for the determination of prestigious forms. Their authors were more often than not searching for the rustic, the moribund (especially for items which might dovetail with the findings of traditional philology), or even the exotic. They were in fact more interested in divergence and variety than in cultivated norms. The striking vigour of lower-class city speech lacked the romantic attractions of peasant dialects. It was only in the sixties that urban speech, and particularly, educated urban speech became a serious topic for coordinated, cooperative study in Spain and Latin America. In 1964, at the II Symposium of the Inter-American Program for Linguistics and the Teaching of Languages (P. I. L. E. I.) at Bloomington, the Commission for Latin American Linguistics set up a 'Project for the coordinated study of the educated linguistic norm of the principal cities of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula'. At later meetings it was agreed to study, in coordination, the educated speech of the following cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Lima, Caracas, Bogotá, Mexico, Havana, San Juan de Puerto Rico and Madrid. A similar study was to be made in the principal cities of Brazil and Portugal. A common methodology to be adopted by each investigator included the following (v. Lope Blanch, 1966):

Spanish as a Pluricentric language 59 1. The study would concentrate on normal educated speech (usual), with reference to formal attitudes (careful speech) and informal (familiar usage). 2. The study would be essentially descriptive - synchronic - since it will only include diachronic observations which will arise from the conflict between the speech habits of the different generations studied. 3. Information will be collected basically on tape-recordings, supplemented where necessary by materials recorded by ear. 4. Three types of recording will be made: a) Secret recording of spontaneous dialogue; b) Free conversation between two informants; c) Directed conversation between one or two informants and the researchworker; d) Samples of speech used in formal situations (lectures, classes, addresses, etc.) 5. A minimun of 400 hours of conversation will be recorded and the study can be begun with the analysis of the materials contained in 100 of them. 6. Informants will be both men and women in approximately equal numbers. Representatives will be selected from three generations, according to the following system of distribution: a) from 25 to 35 years = 30%; b) from 36 to 55 years = 45%; c) over 55 years = 25%. By 1970 research-workers at the Centre for Hispanic Linguistics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico had completed the 400 hours designated for the study of educated speech in Mexico City and published their working materials in the following year, in Mexico. In the same city in 1977 the Commission published studies on the Spanish spoken in the principal cities of Hispano-America under the editorship of Professor Lope Blanch (Estudios sobre el español hablado en las principales ciudades de America). This volume contains articles on the educated speech of Havana, Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. In 1987 studies of five Spanish-speaking countries, previously published elsewhere, were reprinted by Professor Lope Blanch in Análisis gramatical del discurso, 2nd ed. (UNAM 1987) and the study on Buenos Aires usage is to be printed by the University of Barcelona in its Homenaje (Tribute) to Antonio Vilanova. An article on clause-structure in Bogotá, also by Prof. Lope Blanch (Thesaurus XLIII, 1988), concludes that analyses carried out on the major syntactic structures of LatinAmerican educated city speech reveal a solid linguistic unity throughout the Spanish-speaking world and that Bogotan usage conforms absolutely to the general linguistic norm of the Spanish language.

60

R.W. Thompson

Apart from these studies of urban standard speech in HispanoAmerica, research has been carried out elsewhere on the Spanish used in broadcasting throughout the area. It has been observed (Lipski, 1985) that: Latin America is well on the way towards a mutual accord of what constitutes radio speech. The fact that such speech, while not truly representative of any dialect area, is nonetheless understood and accepted throughout Latin America, suggests that a closer analysis made of the norms of such broadcast speech which, in nearly all cases, have not arisen through a carefully planned effort, but rather as the result of subtle and unwritten societal pressures. The spoken norm in the centre and north of Spain is again the Burgos/ Castilian model. Originating in Burgos, it was sustained in capitals of power and prestige such as Valladolid, and the university cities of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares. Madrid, formerly a village on a creek, was established as an "artificial" capital by Philip II on the Italian Renaissance model, supposedly neutral in regional loyalities, unlike its possible competitors, Barcelona and Lisbon, but unlike them, and Seville, without a seaport. The new capital, like Toledo, still to-day the ecclesiastical capital, belonged geographically to New Castile, a wide zone with intermediary linguistic characteristics, linking Old Castile with Andalusia. To this day Madrid has preserved many of these features at a popular level where Andalusian influence was also strong in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The standard imposed at the court was that of Burgos/Old Castile which is basically that which prevails today in educated speech. Nevertheless sixteenth century Spain was definitely bicentric, linguistically speaking, as it is today. Seville is the centre for the other spoken norm. Antonio de Nebrija, the grammarian, who published his Gramática at the time of the discovery of America, used the formal dialect of this city. Tradition has it that on handing a copy of his grammar to Isabella, the Catholic Queen, he used the words "Here, madam, is the key of Empire". Half a century later Juan de Valdés, in his Diálogo de la lengua, discussing with some young Italian friends the best usage of the great international language of the day, compares his own style with that of Nebrija which he considers to be quite acceptable, although he does note that Nebrija speaks as an Andalusian. The Sevillian model has much in common with those of Hispanic America, notably in the absence of post-syllabic /s/ where [/h/] (or zero) prevails, /j/, in words like calle is said by purists to be in strict contrast to the usage of northern and central Spain where /λ/ is supposed to be de rigueur. In fact, in

Spanish as a Pluricentric

language

61

Madrid it is only to be heard in the most careful speech. The same general tendency is found in other northern cities such as Saragossa, in Aragon. It is possible that this sound only occurs naturally nowadays in areas where it is reinforced by local regional languages, in which it occurs normally. This could also be the explanation of its survival in several New World countries such as Peru, Bolivia and Mexico. Latin Americans frequently comment on its absence from speakers of the Burgos/Castilian mode. The substitution of an aspiration or zero postsyllabic /s/ links Sevillian usage with that of the maritime areas of the Americas. Yet the tendency for such weakening is always there, even in cities like Bogota and Madrid. What Spanish-speaking foreigner hasn't raised his eyebrows at the common pronunciation of the greeting Buena noches, in Spain? The loss of /d/ in the masculine suffix of the past participle, -ado, is widespread in el español correcto of Spain. This usage frequently surprises Latin Americans who hear it as vulgar or low-class.

3. Varieties and their status 3.1. Spain Although lacking the possible African and Amerindian elements so widespread in Hispanic America, Spain exhibits much greater variation in local dialect. Apart from Castilian three other languages are spoken in Spain, Gallego (Galician), which shares a common origin with Portuguese but whose speakers look politically and culturally towards Madrid and not Lisbon (by contrast, the inhabitants of Miranda in Portugal speak a Leonese-Spanish dialect but keep their eyes firmly fixed on Lisbon)., Basque (spoken in seven dialects in the western Pyrenees in Spain and France), Catalan, spoken in Catalonia proper, in Andorra, parts of eastern Aragon, coastal Valencia, the balearic islands and the French region round Perpignan. (An archaic oversea dialect survives in the city of Alguer/Alghero in the island of Sardinia.) When speaking Spanish, these groups tend to accept the Burgos/Castilian-type norm. This applies even to bilingual speakers of Catalan in Barcelona who have no difficulty with exotic phonemes such as /Θ/ or /x/ and habitually use palatal /λ/ which is rare in normal cultivated speech in other central and

62

R.W. Thompson

northern Spanish cities, its place being taken by /j/. On the other hand the "other Catalans", migrants, once mainly from Andalusia, Murcia and Extremadura have tended to prefer the Sevillian model. Their children, however, often become Catalan-speakers in street and playground and hence, adopt the Castilian model for Spanish. In the Balearics, massive tourism both internal and international, reinforces bilingualism in the cities where the Castilian model prevails. In the capital of Valencia, where Spanish has been widely used since the sixteenth century the ideal is Castillian, though the Valencian form of Catalan can be heard in the city and is universally spoken within a broad strip in the coastal region. The written norm of all Spaniards is the Castillian model and there has been a tendency to use the spoken variety of this dialect in radio stations, and even for the speech of rustics in films (particularly soapies) which have a regional background. There is a general feeling in all classes and in all regions that correct, proper Spanish is only spoken in Spain. In 1926 the greatest of Spanish phoneticians, Tomas Navarro and the distinguished dialectologist, Aurelio M. Espinosa were to say: The correct standard Spanish pronunciation as described in our Premier is in its essential features the pronunciation that is heard among the educated people of Old and New Castile, at the court of Alfonso XIII, at the Universidad Central and other centres of Spanish learning and culture, at the theatres, churches, tribunals, etc. of the two Castiles. In a wider sense it is also the pronunication of educated Spaniards of all Spain and many parts of Spanish America.

3.2. The Canary Islands This group of islands, far out in the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa, though politically part of Spain, is linguistically in many ways closer to Latin America. This observation is supported not only by impartial linguistic analysis but also by the impression of Canary speech on the Spanish ear. Manuel Alvarez Nazario, the distinguished Puerto Rican scholar from Mayagüez, has assured me that the similarities between local dialects in the Canaries and those of his own island have never ceased to surprise him. These similarities are in general those which join circum-Caribbean Spanish with the Sevillian code: [s] or [o] for post-syllabic /s/, loss of intervocalic /d/, the merging of final / l / and /r/ in a single phoneme, the survival of initial aspirate /h/, lost in the standard dialects. Two types of speech exist widely in the islands, one the local often very conservative dialects and the other a more formal variety used

Spanish as a Pluricentric language

63

throughout the islands and based on a careful version of the speech of Las Palmas. This is the ideal spoken norm. The written norm is that of standard Burgos/Castilian. There is conflict, of course, between this norm and of the higher received norm of the spoken language in the Canaries. This conflict may be heightened by pressures emanating from groups seeking autonomous status for the islands. 3.3. Latin America There is more uniformity between the dialects of Latin America than between those of the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless there are many factors which contribute to diversity in such a vast area. There are often geographical, occasioned by towering mountain ranges, jungles, swamps, deserts and mighty rivers. There exists also the probable influence of the speech of African immigrant slaves whose descendants are distributed throughout the Continent and particularly in the circum-Caribbean area. In some countries, for example Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, the majority of the inhabitants speak an indigenous languages although increasingly many of them are more or less billingual. Other countries have sizeable communities of speakers of indigenous languages, such as Mexico, Guatemala and other Central American countries. Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Argentina also have considerable groups who speak pre-Colombian languages. Debate has raged for a hundred years over the importance of substratum in the Spanish of America but it certainly operates in the maintenance of archaic pronunciations such as /λ/ in much of the Andean cordillera and even in the phonology and syntax of the higher code of Spanish in important cities such as Cochabamba in Bolivia. A widespread affectation is the use of labio-dental /ν/ which has never been part of Spanish phonology, though taught assiduously for centuries by incompetent grammarians. Many Spaniards (and foreigners) continue to believe that the phonemic contrast /λ/ - /j/ is normal in Spain and not in the Americas. In fact, as we have already pointed out, it is absent from all but the most formal speech in the great cities of Spain and is mainly to be found naturally in the local speech of Old Castile or in Catalonia or Valencia where it is reinforced by the usage of the autochthonos language. In South America, it is usual in city and countryside in the Andes and in highland Mexico. Voseo, or the use of vos as the intimate form of the second person singular of the personal pronoun, is general at all levels of society in the River Plate region. It is also used in Chile but under different conditions.

64

R.W. Thompson

It may be found sporadically all over Hispano America - particularly in Central America and in the southwest of the USA. It had a normal function in Spanish dialogue of the XVI and XVII centuries but is no longer acceptable in Spain. Even in Buenos Aires it may be excluded from formal speech, live or on radio. Leísmo, or the use of lo as the masuline singular accusative pronoun, is general in Hispanic America whereas leísmo or the use of le" (historically a dative) in its place is very common in Spain. This usage occurs occasionally as an affectation in Latin American discourse. Haber had originally the meaning or 'to have, to possess' but this function has been assumed by tener. Haber is used by all Spanish-speakers to form composite tenses, viz. he dicho, I have said. In Spain it is also used in the third personal singular with functions similar to those of there isI are and historically related French il y a. In hispano-America limited conjugation is admissible in all tenses but the present. Thus Hubieron tres pistolazos, three pistol-shots rang out, looks normal to an educated Latin American but exotic, if pardonable, in a Latin American text, to a Spaniard. Only invariable hay is possible in educated usage in the present tense. The plural, hayn, is common in speech but regarded as sub-standard. Habernos, as in habernos siete, there are seven of us, is not acceptable in el español correcto which prefers somos siete, literally the Wordsworthian, 'We are seven.' 3.4. Others Guinea Ecuatorial: Guinea Ecuatorial, is a small country of 300,000 inhabitants, speaking various African languages and both Portuguese and English creole. There are very few native-speakers, if any. There is some transmigration towards Spain. Spanish is the language of international communication. The rolemodel is presumably Burgos/Castilian. Philippines: The Spanish-speaking population is said to be less than 3,000,000. Less than 2% of the population can speak Spanish as opposed to 37% who speak English. According to Whinnom (1954) "A basic and irrefutable fact is that the Philipino people do not, never did, and never will, speak Spanish." There are several Spanish-based creole dialects spoken in the archipelago. These show evidence of the influence of the Sevillian/ Andalusian standard appropriate to the first period of Spanish coloniza-

Spanish as a Pericentric language 65 tion of the Philippines. Up to the main period of independence of the American colonies, Spain showed little interest in its oriental islands which were fare away and provided neither gold nor silver. The second period of colonization covered the nineteenth century until brought to an abrupt end at the occupation of the islands by the USA on defeating Spain in 1898 in the Cuban war. In the second period the role model, imported by administrators, clerics, and officers and the planters of sugar-cane and tobacco was the Burgos/Castilian standard. Hardly anything is published in Spanish editions of the works of the best Filipino writers are seldom available in Manila. The last newspaper, La Voz de Manila, translated its copy from the English-language press, in the fifties. Some families have maintained contact with Spain but Spaniards have considered Filipino Spanish as 'old-fashioned'

4. Judeo-Spanish or Sephardic This variety of Spanish evolved from the speech of Jews from various regions of Spain and Portugal (Safarad), who were permitted by Bajazet II to settle in the Ottoman empire. Jewish-Spanish should properly be classed as a different language from Spanish since has had little formal contact with the other dialects over the last four hundred years and has preserved several archaic features long shed by them such as /z/ in mu er, and izo (general Spanish mujer and hijo, with /x/ and /s/ in brusa, Sabón, lesos (where general Spanish has bruja, jabón, and lejos, also with/x/). It is also notable for many borrowings from Turkish, Greek and other Balkan languages, Italian (Venetian) and French (through the influence of the Parisian Alliance Universelle Israelite in the nineteenth century). Its most prestigious form was spoken in Salónica where there were some 100,000 speakers in 1900. In this period it is said that when Spanish ships called at the port, many of the locals (Jews, Slavs, ethnic Greeks, Turks, etc.) marvelled that Spanish crews spoke jidió (Jewish). After the reincorporation of parts of Macedonia into the modern Greek state and the consequent interference with Jewish-Spanish life and customs in Salónica, many Jews left for Palestine and took part in the modernization of the port of Haifa. At the beginning of the Second World War about 50,000 remained. By its end most of these people were deported by the German occupying authorities and murdered in the death camps. The language is now everywhere in retreat. In Israel, the policy of establishing Modern

66

R.W. Thompson

Hebrew as the language of the State, has obviously not worked in favour of traditional Jewish languages such as Judeo-Spanish (Ladino in its written form) and Yiddish. Nevertheless one or two newspapers in Roman script survive and pop-songs in the language are frequently heard. There is also a Sephardic press in Turkey.

5. Conclusion The unity of the Spanish standard dialects is beyond dispute, although the language is clearly pericentric. Spanish prejudices against New World Spanish linger but are rejected by the educated who look for common ground and are tolerant of the more striking divergences. Hispano-Americans take Spanish good writing seriously but are not at all intimidated by the spoken Burgos/Castilian standard. The growth of pluricentricity will be restrained by the acceptance of the highest standards set by the soundmedia.

References Agüero, Arturo 1960 El español en América. San José de Costa Rica. 1962 El español en América y Costa Rica. San José de Costa Rica. Alonso, Amado 1943 La Argentina y la nivelación del idioma. Buenos Aires: Institución Cultural Española. 1967 Estudios lingüísticos; temas hispanoamericanos, (3rd ed.), Madrid: Gredos. 1968 Castellano, español, idioma nacional; histórica espiritual de tres nombres, (4th ed.), Buenos Aires: Losada. Alonso, Amado - Henríquez Ureña, Pedro 1967 Gramática castellana; manual adaptado a los programas vigentes en la enseñanza secundaria. Buenos Aires: Losada. Alonso, Dámaso 1962 Del Siglo de Oro a este siglo de siglas. Madrid: Gredos. Alvar, Manuel 1959 El español hablado en Tenerife. Madrid: C.S.I.C. 1962 Dialectología española. Cuadernos Bibliográficos 7. Madrid: C.S.I.C.

Spanish as a Pluricentric language

67

Alvar, Manuel (Coord.) 1981 Simposio Internacional de lengua española, {1978), Las Palmas: Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria. Alvar, Manuel - Antonio Quilis 1983 Material de encuestas para el estudio del habla urbana culta de Sevilla. Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla. Alvarez Nazario, Manuel 1972 La herencia lingüística de Canarias en Puerto Rico. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. 1981 "Relaciones histórico-dialectales entre Puerto Rico y Canarias", in: I Simposio Internacional de lengua española. Las Palmas: Excmo. Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 289. Amastae Jon - Lucía Elias Olivares (eds.) 1982 Spanish in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bamach Calbó Martínez, Ernesto 1980 La lengua española en Estados Unidos. Madrid: O.E.I. Bello, Andrés 1981 Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. Borges, José L. - José E. Clemente 1968 El lenguaje de Buenos Aires. Emecé: Buenos Aires. Buesa Oliver, Tomás - Luis, Flórez 1954 El Atlas lingüístico-etnográfico de Colombia. Cuestionario preliminar. Bogota: BICC. 1960 Cuestionario para el Atlas lingüístico-etnográfico de Colombia. Segunda redacción. En experimentación. Bogota: BICC. Canfield, D.L. 1981 Spanish pronunciation in the Americas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Castro, Amérigo 1961 La peculiaridad lingüística rioplatense. (2a. ed.) Madrid: Taurus. Contreras, Lidia - Ambrosio Rabanales 1979 El habla culta de Santiago de Chile. Materiales para su estudio Santiago: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Santiago. Cuervo, Rufino J. 1939 Apuntaciones críticas sobrer el lenguaje bogotano. (7th ed.) Bogota: ICC. 1944 Castellano popular y castellano literario, en Obras Inéditas, Bogota: ICC. 1950 Disquisiciones sobre filología castellana. Bogota: ICC. Elias-Olivares, Lucía (ed.) 1983 Spanish in the U.S. setting, Rosslyn: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Entwistle, William J. 1962 The Spanish language. (2nd. ed.) London: Faber & Faber.

68

R.W. Thompson

Esgueva, Manuel - Margarita, Cantarero (eds.) El habla de la ciudad de Madrid. Materiales para su estudio. Madrid: CSIC. Espinosa, A.M. 1946 Estudios sobre el español de Nuevo Méjico. Méjico: Instituto de Filogía. Flórez, Luis 1951 La pronunciación del español en Bogotá. Bogota: ICC. 1963 "El español hablado en Colombia y su Atlas lingüístico", in: Bogota: Thesaurus, XVIII: 268-356. 1973 Las "Apuntaciones críticas de Cuervo y el español bogotano cien años después: pronunciación y fonética. Bogota: ICC. García de Diego, Vicente 1956 "El sentimiento americano del castellano", in: Homenaje a Bello, Caro y Cuervo. Madrid: Real Academia Española. Guitart, Jorge M. 1976 Markedness and a Cuban dialect of Spanish. Washington: Georgetown University. Guitarte, Guilliermo L. 1959 Cuervo, Henríquez Ureña y la polémica sobre el andalucismo de América. Bogota: BICC. Hammond, Robert M. - Melvyn C., Resnick (eds.) 1988 Studies in Caribbean Spanish Dialectology. Washington: University of Georgetown Press. Hills, E.C. F. Semeleder, C. Carroll Marden, M.G. Revilla, A.R. Nykl, K. Lentzner, C. Gagini, R.J.Y. Cuervo 1938 El español en Méjico, los Estados Unidos y la América Central. Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filología. Lapesa, Rafael 1981 Historia de la lengua española. (9the ed.) Madrid: Gredos. Lenz, Rodolfo 1940 El español en Chile: trabajos de Rodolfo Lenz, Andrés Bello y Rodolfo Oroz. Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filologia. Lope Blanch, Juan M. 1953 Observaciones sobre la sintaxis del español hablado en Méjico. Méjico: Instituto Hispanoamericano de Investigaciones Científicas. 1968 "El proyecto de estudio coordinado de la norma lingüística culta de las principales ciudades de Iberoamérica y de la Península Ibérica", in: Actas del Simposio de Méjico de la Comisión Iberoamericana de Linguistica. Méjico: UNAM. 1972 Hispanic dialectology in Current rrends in Linguistics. The Hague/ Paris. 1977 Estudios sobre el español hablado en las principales ciudades de América - estudios por J.M. Lope Blanch. Méjico: UNAM. 1978 Léxico del habla culta de Méjico. Méjico: UNAM. 1979 Investigaciones sobre dialectología mejicana. Méjico: UNAM.

Spanish as a Pluricentric language 1984

69

"La estructura del habla culta en cuatro ciudades de Hispanoamérica", in: Actas del II Simposio Internacional de lengua española, Las Palmas de Gran Canario: Excmo. Cabildo de gran Canaria. 1986 "El estudio coordinado de las principales ciudades de lengua española", in: Actas del VII Congreso de la ALFAL, Santo Domingo: ALFAL. 1990 "Estudio del habla de Buenos Aires", in: Homenaje a Antonio Vilanova. Barcelona: Universidad de barcelona. López Morales, Humberto 1978 Corrientes actuales en la dialectología del Caribe Hispánico. San Juan: Universidad de Puerto Rico. Malkiel, Yakov 1972 Linguistics and Philology in Latin America. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. Menéndez Pidal, Ramón 1945 Castilla, la tradición, el idioma. Buenos Aires: Austral. Navarro Tomás, Tomás 1948 El español en Puerto Rico. Contribución lingüística hispanoamericana. Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. 1950 Manual de pronunciación española. (6th ed.) Madrid: CSIC. Oroz, Rodolfo 1965 La lengua castellana en Chile. Santiago: Universidad de Chile. Real Academia Espaöla 1977 Esbozo de una nueva gramática española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Resnick, Melvyn C. 1975 Phonological variants and dialect variation in Latin American Spanish, the Hague/Paris: Mouton. Rona, José P. 1963 "El problema de la division del español americano en zonas dialectales", in: Presente y futuro de la lengua española. Madrid: OFINES. Rosenblat, Angel 1954 La población indígena y el mestizaje en América. (2nd ed.) Buenos Aires: Nova. 1962 El castellano de España y el castellano de América. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela. 1977 Sentido mágico de la palabra. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela. 1979 El habla culta de Caracas. Materiales para su estudio, caracas: Instituto de Filología Andrés Bello. Terrell, Tracey D. 1982 Current trends in the investigation of Cuban and Puerto Rican phonology in Spanish in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Torres Martínez, José C. de 1981 El habla de la ciudad de Madrid. Materiales para su estudio. Madrid: CSIC. 1981 Encuestas léxicas del habla culta de Madrid. Madrid: CSIC.

70

R.W. Thompson

Valdés, Juan de 1966 El diálogo de la lengua. Méjico: Porrua. Wagner, Maximilian L. 1930 Caracteres generales del judeo español de Oriente. Madrid: RFE. Whinnom, Keith 1954 "Spanish in the Philippines", in: Journal of Oriental Studies. Hong Kong: Hong Kong U.P. 129-94. Zamora Vicente, Alonso 1967 Dialectología española. Madrid: Gredos.

Is Dutch a pluricentric language? G.

Geerts

1. The Dutch language area The countries with Dutch as an official language are the Netherlands, Belgium and Surinam. The Netherlands has about 15 million users of Dutch, Belgium about 6 million and Surinam has a population of about 360,000, half of them presently living in the Netherlands. It is not clear how many of them are Dutch language users only, Chinese, Hindi and Javanese being used by other inhabitants, but all Surinamese use Sranan, an English-based creole language, as a lingua franca. Dutch is also the official language of the Dutch Antilles. Because this territory still forms part, as an overseas territory, of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and because the lingua franca there is Papiamentu, no separate attention will be devoted here to the language used by these 240,000 Dutch people. A special case is the Republic of South Africa where one of the languages spoken is Afrikaans: this is a language which, to a large degree, can be typified as a continuation of primarily Holland and Zeeland dialects from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

2. Afrikaans: Dutch in Africa? Just as there have been Germaniste - and they are still to be found - who used to want to describe Dutch not as a language but as a (dialectal) form of High German, there have been Netherlandists who have considered Afrikaans a variety of Dutch. However, this opinion is no longer found explicitly these days. It might be an interesting subject for an article to investigate whether, how and to what extent opinions regarding the relationship between Afrikaans and Dutch have changed in connection with political developments in South Africa and assessments of them in Europe. But this is neither the time nor the place for such a project.

72

G. Geerts

Suffice it to say that certain political groupings in Belgium and the Netherlands are still trying to convince people that Afrikaans is a form (indeed a beautiful, attractive and, above all, a pure form) of Dutch. I adopt the position of the Afrikaners themselves: in 1925 they replaced Dutch as one of their two official languages by Afrikaans. By so doing they unambiguously confirmed (not to say proclaimed) the independence of their language. This is much more important than the well known linguistic facts: a) Afrikaans "is easily understood by speakers of Dutch, particularly in its written form" (Donaldson 1983: 3). b) Afrikaans morphology is characterised by strong simplification in comparison with Dutch: ik, jij, hij, ons, jullie, zulle het gelees ik heb, jij hebt, hij heeft, wij, jullie, zij hebben gelezen c) Afrikaans has one gender for nouns (die man, vrouw, kind), Dutch has two (de man, vrouw; het kind). d) Afrikaans has no strong verbs, Dutch does. e) "Of all Germanic (and Indo-European) languages, Afrikaans is the most advanced on the way towards an isolating language" (Wendt 1987: 121). As is well known, conflicting opinions exist as to the significance of such facts for what constitutes linguistic independence. All I can say is that Afrikaans performs all the functions which in the Netherlands are performed by Dutch, and that this fact, coupled with the declaration of independence in 1925, gives sufficient grounds for concluding that Afrikaans cannot (or no longer) be described as a national variety of Dutch.

3. Dutch in Surinam 3.1. Unlike the Dutch in South Africa, the Dutch in Surinam has not, according to the linguistic received opinion, separated itself from the Dutch of Europe. Thus no Surinaams has come into existence alongside Afrikaans (Dutch) in the course of an equally long history; what does exist is Surinamese Dutch (see Van Donselaar 1976; and Koefoed - May 1980).

Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

73

According to Van Donselaar, Surinamese Dutch is a "variety of Dutch with its own systematic characteristics" and "a more or less independent development" (Van Donselaar 1976: 9). Koefoed and May see "Dutch in Surinam" as a "continuum with, as its extremes, 'broad' Surinamese Dutch [...] and 'educated' Surinamese Dutch which is not grammatically different from ABN (Standard Dutch) but which does have some specific lexical and phonological characteristics" (Koefoed - May 1980: 261). They note that "perfectly 'Dutch' Dutch brings out negative reactions in Surinam." The educated variety of Surinamese Dutch is the common language of the upper classes in the coastal region - the language for all sort of formal occasions which are not specifically connected with one culture; it is the language of government and administration, the language of education and science and "the dominant language" of the news media and literature (Koefoed - May 1980: 261). Surinamese Dutch is thus, without any doubt, passively known by just about every Surinamese. It is, however, not known how many of these are native speakers of Surinamese Dutch. Developments since the independence of Surinam (1975) have led, among other things, to substantial emigration to the Netherlands. The language of the Surinamese living in the Netherlands has certainly oriented itself more to the Dutch norm than the Surinamese norm. And the influence it has undergone in the Netherlands is certainly quite different from that in Surinam where there are few or no contacts with Dutch people, but correspondingly more with, inter alia, creóles, of which Sranantongo is the most important. With increasing integration into Dutch society, Surinamese Dutch in the Netherlands will probably lose its characteristic features (virtually) completely within a few generations (cf. what happened earlier with "Indonesian Dutch"). On the other hand, the independence of Surinam could lead to an increasing differentiation between European and Surinamese Dutch so that at a given moment the Surinamese might want to declare the Dutch in Surinam emancipated, just as happened in South Africa. Even then, "Surinaams" will be easily understood by Dutch speakers in Europe. But whether things ever get to that stage is certainly dependent in part on the question whether Dutch will be able to survive long in an independent Surinam. "It is commonly thought that the use of Dutch as the official language makes Surinam's international position difficult. Formal recognition and standardisation of Surinamese Dutch would further increase Surinam's isolation" (Van Donselaar 1976: 12).

74

G. Geerts

3.2. The Dutchification of education in the last decades of the nineteenth century made the most important contribution to the wider spread of Dutch in Surinam. On account of this, the knowledge of Dutch increased. Also, because Dutch was so frequently used by speakers of two or more languages it then began to reveal clearer differences from European Dutch. Until independence in 1975 the education system was to a large degree oriented to the Netherlands. The upper secondary school teachers and teachers in higher education were mostly Dutch. Further study was available only in the Netherlands, which obviously stimulated highly ambitious students to acquire a perfect knowledge of European Dutch. And of course, these graduates had moulded their knowledge of this language into the form common in the Netherlands. Factors like this brought about a constant tension between the spoken language developed in Surinam in which the influence of the mother tongue(s) plays an important role, and the official language which functions mainly as the formal language of school, government and writing. This tension naturally led to pressure on education no longer to ban (certain) speech features from formal Dutch in Surinam. In 1963 a number of language teachers were prepared to admit an unspecified number of these features, "provided ABN (Standard Dutch) remained the ideal" (De Ziel 1964). However, no formal decision was ever made about this so that, as Deprez observes, nothing has officially been changed in the status of Surinamese Dutch. At school the students know intuitively after a short time every year how far they can go with every teacher in their Surinamese Dutch (Deprez 1982: 13). In any case, one should not think that a very great number of words is involved in such considerations. In a reader by Anne de Vries of 1957 there appear to be no more than thirty! That in practice many more words may be involved is apparent from the work of poets and novelists who, certainly in texts set in Surinam, use many Surinamese Dutch colloquialisms. "Still," Van Donselaar observes, "there is also much hesitancy among them. Even when writing for a Surinamese public they put Surinamese Dutch words in inverted commas or add a translation in brackets" (Van Donselaar 1977: 10). On the other hand, an author such as Edgar Cairo, who is able to overcome his hesitancy, seems to go about it so idiosyncratically that his version of Surinamese Dutch literary language meets with great

Is Dutch a pluricentric

language?

75

resistance even among his fellow Surinamese. Cairo himself has said (1980: 47) that he is appreciated more in the Netherlands than in Surinam; but he has also said that only "a handful of people in the Netherlands as well as in Surinam cry 'Aah, I see, you're doing something original. Keep going. Keep at it.'" This, however, he ascribes to jealousy, stupidity, racism or repression (1980: 47). Basically, the controversy seems to rest on the question whether it makes sense to develop a national Surinamese variety of Dutch for everyday social functions if the Surinamese have their own language for these, viz. "Sranan". Cairo may consider his own popular language as the language of the future, but if it is a stumbling block for his own people, then its days are perhaps already numbered. As for an evaluation of Cairo's language in the Netherlands, Deprez notes that the characteristics of Dutch "foreigner talk" can be seen in it ("Me Tarzan, you Jane") (Deprez 1982: 73). And this basically means that it is accorded the status of a primitive means of communication with the charms of naivety and thus unimportance. In this connection, reference must also be made to the fact that even an author such as Van Donselaar, who certainly does not lack sufficient knowledge or understanding of the situation in Surinam, also describes Surinamese Dutch in terms of deviation: "Poor mastery of Dutch means for many Surinamese that they retain their personal idiosyncracies in the use of our language" (1977: 12). Such an approach says a lot about the status of the Surinamese variety. It shows not only that the Dutch consider their own variety not as a variety but as the language which the Surinamese fall short of mastering, but also that the degree of standardisation of the Surinamese variety is very limited. This immediately raises the dilemma of the Surinamese who have (or want) to use Dutch. In order for their language no longer to be described as deviant Dutch they would have to standardise their language use in the direction of European Dutch. But if they do this their variety will eventually cease to exist. Standardisation without convergence to European Dutch would ultimately lead to the same result. Surinamese Dutch would thereby become Surinamese, i.e. an autonomous language. "Abstand" and "Ausbau" would then be fully realised with all the attendant pros and cons (cf. Clyne 1989). Because Belgium faces a similar dilemma in its relationship with the Netherlands, this subject will be dealt with in a somewhat broader context in Section 5.3.

76

G. Geerts

4. Belgium 4.1. It is obvious that a description of the position of Dutch in Belgium in terms of pluricentricity implies an a priori. This approach not only assumes that the Dutch in Belgium is a national variety of Dutch, but at the same time it confirms that Flemish does not exist, or at least is not a (national) language. This is an opinion that by no means everyone - in Belgium or anywhere else - would agree with. Two things must be said in this connection to prevent trivialities from being delivered as a way out of this problem. Firstly, the Belgian constitution (art. 3 b is 1970) specifies that the three official languages of Belgium are French, German and Dutch, but it should be noted that nowhere in the Belgian legislation is this stipulation elaborated with an interpretation of the terms used. Thus it cannot be deduced that Dutch in Belgium should be seen as an autonomous language nor that is should be seen as a national variety of Dutch Dutch. As far as I know, there has been no legal decision over the interpretation of the term in question. What the situation amounts to is this: it is quite certain what the name of the language is, but it has not been determined what content is connected with this name. In other words, the only thing certain is that alongside French and German there is another language (variety?) which is not French or German. The characteristics of this language are not further specified. Secondly, it must be emphasised that, on linguistic grounds, it cannot be determined whether certain groupings of linguistic items (Hudson, 1980: 22) form a variety or a language, nor even if they are the same variety (or language) or not (Hudson 1980: 35-37). Hence, speaking about national varieties or national languages always reflects a number of positions on non-linguistic matters. Even the well known (extra-linguistic) criterion of mutual intelligibility is subjective. This can be nicely illustrated with the description by A.L. Snijders of the situation of the Membe and the Kambati, two adjacent tribes in Nigeria. The Membe say that they speak the same language as the Kambali because, except for the odd word, they can understand them very well. The Kambali say that that may be the case but that they, except for the odd word, cannot understand the Membe at all. And there is no reason, says Snijders, to assume that either is lying. He adds that there is a clear difference in prosperity between the two tribes: "the Kambali are rich, the membe poor"

Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

77

(Snijders, NRC-Handelsblad, 4 January 1989). Thus he suggests - rightly - that it is the motivation of language users which determines whether they form one language community or not. Hudson (1980: 37) observes something similar with regard to the relations between standard language speakers and dialect speakers: "Typically, it is easier for a non-standard speaker to understand a standard speaker than the other way round, partly because the former will have had more experience of the standard variety (notably through the media) than vice versa, and partly because he may be motivated to minimise the cultural differences between himself and the standard speaker ..., while the standard speaker may want to emphasise these differences." Applying this to the situation of Dutch in Belgium means, inter alia, that both Belgians and Dutch could defend the opinion that Dutch in Belgium is a variety of Dutch as well as the view that in Belgium, beside French, there are two Germanic languages: German and Flemish. 4.2. The existence of the name Flemish - in this meaning a loan translation from French: "Flemish" means historically "relating to the county of Flanders", which comprises only a part of Germanic Belgium - makes the postulation of the existence of an autonomous language clearly easier than when no specific name is available for a national language. (On the other hand, the existence of a name can again be interpreted as the expression of, at least, the will to regard one's own linguistic repertoire as an autonomous language.) It would clearly be more difficult to treat German in Belgium, Switzerland or Austria as a language because there does not exist any distinct name for it. Descriptions such as Austrian or Swiss German do not refer to an autonomous entity but assert a unity. The same thing is true of Belgian, Swiss or Canadian French and of American, Australian or Canadian English. For Belgian (or Flemish) Dutch, the term Flemish can be used - if one wants to. One can thereby assert the existence of discontinuity - if that is what one wants - or of autonomy - if one wants to. Moreover, for Anglo-Saxon countries the term "Dutch" is very much associated with Netherlands. In contexts in which the Belgian linguistic situation is written or spoken about, the term "Flemish" - often, indeed, under French influence - is frequently used. Webster defines this term as follows: "The West Germanic language used by the Flemings and made

78

G. Geerts

up of dialects of Dutch", thereby beautifully illustrating how much uncertainty there is about its status. Out of the conviction that a segregationist position would have undesirable consequences for the survival of Dutch in Belgium, Van Haeringen in 1954 coined the term Netherlandic (after the German Niederländisch, the French Néerlandais and, of course, also the Dutch Nederlands) in order to give the Dutch linguistic unity a name in English (Geerts 1979: 59). That not every English speaker shares this view is apparent from the notice board in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool where, alongside an English text and its translation into, inter alia, Spanish, Greek, French, Polish, German and Welsh, there also appears a translation into Dutch and Flemish. (What's more, the "Flemish" translation is in correct Dutch while the "Dutch" text contains a number of typically English mistakes!) But, as said above, there are many Belgian and Dutch people who do not accept this view of national varieties. Consequently there is no reason to get annoyed with the English when they associate the Netherlands with Dutch and Belgium with Flemish. If I speak about "Belgians" then I also mean French speaking Belgians. They regard "le flamand" not so much as a different language from Dutch but as a dialect (or a collection of dialects without an all embracing unifying language). By so doing they want both to represent their own language as a much more appropriate medium for science, administration and culture, and to keep the Flemings out of the Dutch sphere of influence (and thus within the reach of their own) (cf. Sauvageot 1966). More will be said about the view of the Dutch below.

5. Flemish or Dutch? 5.1. Those Flemings who do not accept a pluralistic view of Dutch - it is quite likely that this represents a good majority (see Geerts - Nootens Van den Broek 1978) - have linguistic and nationalistic reasons for it.

¡s Dutch a pluricentric language? 79 5.2. The linguistic characteristics of Dutch in Belgium involve mainly phonetic and lexical elements. One peculiarity of the morphology which is quite frequent in the spoken language, is the use of the dimunitive suffix -ke instead of -je: plaatske versus plaatsje, and the use of den instead of de for masculine nouns which begin with a vowel or a b, d or t. (These features are also considered substandard in Belgium and thus excluded from the written language.) There is no awareness of any difference in syntax: the difference between Dutch and "Flemish" word order in the final verbal group has not the slightest semantic implication (daar iets over moet zeggen versus daar iets moet over zeggen) and is not used as proof of the correctness of the segregationist view. As regards pronunciation of the standard language, it can generally be said that in the Netherlands the characteristics of Holland (the most important Dutch cities Den Haag, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Leiden are in Holland) and in Belgium the characteristics of Brabant (the most important Flemish cities, Brussels, Antwerp and Leuven are in Brabant) are dominant (see Goossens 1979). The most striking difference concerns the pronunciation of recent loan words. "Autonomous" Flemings pronounce French loan words in a less French way and English loan words in a less English way than the Dutch ("dossier": Belgian [dosi.r] versus Dutch [dosje.]; "handicap": Belgian [handikap], Dutch [hendikep]. Both cases are a matter of spelling pronunciation which, basically, is the consequence of purism: when foreign words are not pronounced in a foreign way their origin is camouflaged. This tactic is also being picked up in the spelling of certain words: in Belgium handikap is not unusual while in the Netherlands it is much less common. This purism is also directed against the Dutch: "the Flemish accent," says Knops, "is an aspect of the standard language which positively differentiates Flemings from the Dutch" (Knops 1982: 239). At the same time, the Flemish seem to see their purism as a form of convergence with the Dutch norm: they project their own puristic ideals on to that norm (Knops 1982: 200). By their pronunciation of loanwords the Flemish are trying to be more catholic than the Pope: the norm of the standard language must be "pure", given the great prestige that it enjoys and also the great strength with which it can be used against "the bastardised dialects". From the research of Deprez it also appears that the majority of the Flemish find the pronunciation of the newsreaders on the BRT (Belgian broadcasting corporation) much purer than that of their Dutch counterparts and judge that the differences in this regard should certainly not be reduced (1981: 193).

80

G. Geerts

As regards vocabulary, the same principle is true: the lexicon must be free from foreign influences (see Deprez - Geerts 1977). However, Knops observes that the Flemish are more puristic than Flemish: in other words, they see their puristic ideal only partly realised in the real language (Knops 1982: 236). Thus they use (many) more French words than they think desirable, e.g. lavabo versus wastafel (sink); frigo versus ijskast (fridge); madame versus mevrouw (mistress); camion versus vrachtwagen (truck); autostrade versus autoweg (motorway); gazet versus krant (newspaper); facteur versus postbode (postman); velo versus fiets (bicycle); embrayage versus koppeling (clutch), etc. There are also rather a lot of "personal idiosyncracies" (cf. 3.1.) in their vocabulary - just as with the Surinamese. These are mainly words from the dialects, which the vast majority learnt as their mother tongue. This interference is also judged negatively since, as has just been said, the standard language means for most Flemings above all the replacement of the dialect; it is the "correct language" as opposed to the "low dialect". The Flemish experience it as a shortcoming that they are less competent in the area of vocabulary than they would like, which gives them a feeling of inferiority. The consequence of this is that lexical convergence toward the Dutch norm is not at all opposed. The confidence which the Flemish seem to have acquired in the domain of pronunciation makes it possible for them to move in the area of vocabulary(and also morphology and syntax?) almost without restrictions towards Dutch: their own accent is sufficient guarantee of what they are so clearly striving for: recognisability (see, also, Creten 1982). 5.3. The incompleteness of this convergence can be attributed to nationalistic factors. The fact that in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Dutch in the southern Netherlands, under the Austrian and French administrations, was not displaced by French has given the Flemish the feeling they were the saviours of a culture which, without them, would have been lost. That success was achieved thanks to the inspiring help of "the glorious past", i.e., their pride in the richness of the Middle Ages (Brugge, Gent) and the fifteenth and sixteenth century cities (Antwerp, Brussels) (see Geerts 1979: 62-68). The fact that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Brussels moved from being monolingual French to multilingual is also due to the efforts of the Flemish fighters for their "own language" (see Geerts 1988)

Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

81

If the fight for survival, then for full recognition of the Flemish people's and linguistic community's right to exist, then for cultural autonomy and lastly (finally?) for political autonomy in a federal state had begun not in the 1850's but in the twentieth century, it would have been called the Flemish liberation movement. It is perfectly clear how these developments have led not only to French being driven out of the northern half of Belgium but also to the actual proclamation of the existence of Flanders. From the beginning of the Flemish Movement there have been, it is true, proponents of convergence with the national standard language which had been formed in the Netherlands since the separation of the Netherlands (at the Peace of Münster in 1648), but the struggle for emancipation was, in the main, directed against French. Consequently, the question as to what language should replace French in Flanders as the official language received hardly any attention. For most of the participants in the public debate the existence of Dutch in a standardised form in the Netherlands played no role at all. "As long as French disappears," it was said, and what would replace it would simply become obvious later. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the historical and geographical linguistic research, out of which the great cohesion of the Dutch language area would become apparent, had not yet begun. About two centuries of political, religious and thus also cultural separation had led to alienation and estrangement, and the short period of fifteen years when the northern and the southern Netherlands were reunited in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830) led, besides to the realisation of a common past, also to the experience of all the differences that had evolved. In an independent Belgium the struggle for the recognition of the Flemings' own language as a national language alongside French was thus de facto the confirmation of the existence of Flemish, without thereby explicitly or implicitly excluding the possibility that it was not a language but a national variety of Dutch. In the second half of the twentieth century, when the objectives of the Flemish Movement had been achieved, knowledge of the cultural and linguistic history of Belgium and the Netherlands was being developed, the Belgium -Netherlands-Luxemburg economic union (the Benelux) was founded, and cultural, tourist and telecommunication contacts (especially via TV) were established. All of this raised the question what kind of relationship exists between the language of the Flemish and that of the

82

G. Geerts

Dutch. Flanders, as part of a federal Belgium, now has not only its own flag and anthem ("De Vlaamse Leeuw"), but also its own parliament, government and budget (with, for example, independent powers in the area of education). It is particularly this great political independence which has raised the feeling of independence of the Flemish to national proportions. Since the Flemish are an (almost) independent people and since Flanders is an (almost) independent country, why then should Flemish not only be a language alongside French and German in Belgium, but also a language alongside French, German, English (et cetera) and Dutch?

5.4. In the 1980s the paradox has been that just when French has had to hand over all public functions to "Dutch" (as the official language of the Germanic competitor is called) and when the knowledge and use of "Dutch" and the convergence with the standard language is the Netherlands is greater than ever before, the conviction that Flemish exists has probably become much more explicit than before. Of course it can be said that this conviction has not yet led to political decisions such as, for example, changing the name of the national language in the Constitution, or even to publishing (more or less officially recognised) codifications in the form of dictionaries, grammars or spelling rules. Moreover, there are no bodies, institutions or associations conducting or propagating a language policy directed at official confirmation of the difference. The question can nevertheless be raised whether the absence of an active policy of convergence does not point to lip service to "Dutch". One is certainly inclined to this view when the very text of the Flemish program for government is written is a language which is called by Berode "not Belgian but a non-language" (De Standaard, 16 March, 1989). (By "Belgian" Berode means "a clone of French" - which he also calls Netherfrench - i.e., "Dutch" which is unusually strongly influenced by French, not just because there are many loan words in it, but also because there are many lexical and syntactic elements literally translated from the French.) Finally, may I point out in this connection that you occasionally hear of companies which - just as in Liverpool! - have leaflets, directions for use, etc., translated not only into Dutch but also into Flemish and that "the call for the recognition of Standard Southern Dutch words" has led, for example, to the publication - by a Dutch publisher! - of Nijhoffs

Is Dutch a pericentric

language?

83

Zuidnederlands Woordenboek ('Nijhoff's Dictionary of Southern Dutch') (De Clerck 1981; see also Geerts 1982 a and b). By "Southern Dutch" the existence of national varieties is normally postulated in this context, while the combination of this term with "Algemeen" (Standard) is meant to make it clear that "Southern Dutch" is not a dialect, but standard language. The phrase is often used by philologists to avoid "Flemish" which, in the strict geolinguistic sense, refers only to the provinces of East and West Flanders as the approximate continuation of the former County of Flanders.

6. Integration or segregation? 6.1.

Why is it then that Dutch and not Flemish is one of Belgium's national languages and why can the recognition of a national variety be implied by the term "Dutch" in the Constitution? This is the consequence of the activities of politicians, philologists, teachers and writers who have encouraged the convergence because, in a hierarchically ordered system of values, they find cultural identity more important than national identity. This leads them to think that the existing linguistic (as well as political, religious and social) differences are less striking and less meaningful than what is shared by the Flemish and Dutch, which is the consequence of a partly shared history. And that is also why they fear segregation as a threat to their own future but see integration, by contrast, as the promotion of full development. This sheds light on their fear of isolation and their preference for greater common bonds. The consequences of this vision of linguistic integration are, according to these people, related to the question of strength of numbers. In short, it all amounts to the difference between six million and twenty million, and the difference between small and large scale guidance, criticism, evaluation and appreciation and the consequences for the number of books, plays, institutes and high quality artistic and cultural achievements. Isolation is sometimes a strength, but more often a source of self-righteousness, complexes and frustrations. These integrationists do not believe in cultivating a "national identity", which Max Pam calls the greatest enemy of common sense (NRC-Handelsblad 27 February, 1989), to avoid getting an inferiority complex. Nor do they retreat to what Clyne (1988)

84

G.

Geerts

calls to "cultural cringe", but they seek their cultural salvation in conscious participation in a greater whole of which they describe themselves as full members and to which they think they can and should make a valuable contribution. It should always be kept in mind that there is no objective foundation for this position (cf. 4.1. above). It is a question of vision and experience, just as it is for those who deny or ignore unity. But the linguistic practice based on this attitude leads to language production which reveals differing characteristics. For instance, in the domain of vocabulary, it can be noted that those who are oriented to Standard Dutch more often consciously choose Dutch variants to make their position in the controversy clearer than that those who are oriented to Flemish use Flemish variants to indicate their position. The latter practice is very much spontaneous and self evident rather than the result of a conscious decision.

6.2. "There appears, among educated standard speakers," says Clyne, "to be a tendency to converge towards the national variety of the more (most) powerful nations." (1989: 369). In Belgium this is certainly the case (in fact, as regards French much more so than for Dutch). By means of more or less official organs such as the Council for Language Advice (Raad voor Taaladvies), the Association of Standard Dutch (Vereniging Algemeen Nederlands) and the journal Taalbeheersing in de Praktijk (Language Mastery in Practice) (see Geerts 1979: 69-72), those involved have made use of their education and influence in order to influence language policy and linguistic practice. In the domain of language policy their action has led, inter alia, to the international setting up of the great historical Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal (1864-), common rules for Dutch spelling (see Geerts et al. 1977: 185-200; De Rooij 1988), the establishment of the Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) (see Willemyns 1984) and the publication of the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst (Grammar of Standard Dutch) (Geerts et al. 1984). Since their linguistic behaviour and language use have an influence on a broader spectrum of the population - which they directly reach, in part, via education - the movement towards divergence has in practice become weaker and the movement towards convergence stronger. Creten has also said that his informants indicated certain variants as "typically Dutch", but that this remark was only rarely a reason for calling these variants

Is Dutch a pericentric language?

85

wrong: "There was no connection at all between the number of informants who recognised a variant as 'typically Dutch' and the use that they made of that variant: the word most recognised as 'typically Dutch', viz. 'leuk', had, on the contrary, the highest score" (re. use) (Creten 1982: 855). People's preparedness to adopt Dutch linguistic items is perhaps not as great as their readiness to accept and use them unconsciously. Countless words and expressions have been brought into use in Belgium which the average language user does not know the Dutch origin of and to which he also attributes no exogenous status. There are no problems when the Dutch items are exact equivalents of French or of clearly recognisable dialect words in Belgium. Thus saccoche (handbag) has been forced out of the standard language by handtas; velo (bicycle) by fiets; facteur (postman) by postbode; timber (stamp) by postzegel; naft (petrol) by benzine; crayon (pencil) by potlood; selle (saddle) by zadel, etc. As well, there are no problems in using the Dutch words for all sorts of new things and situations: milieuvervuiling (pollution of the environment); iure regen (acid rain); kleurentelevisie (colour television); tekstverwerker (word processer); kraker (squatter); leefmilieu (environment of living); gipsvlucht ('plaster-flight', i.e., chartered flight for injured wintersportholidayers), etc., are as frequent in Belgium as in the Netherlands and no Belgian alternatives have been found for them. However, difficulties do arise when the Dutch solution clashes with Flemish purism: as much as the Flemish would like to replace the French confiture (jam) by a Dutch word, the fact that the Dutch use jam is only a slight improvement. In that case the Flemish would rather have confiture orthographically naturalised as konfituur. And no matter how great the authority of the Netherlands may be, Flemings who use crèche (day-care centre) in dialect and translate that French word into their standard language as kribbe are almost never prepared to accept that such a loan translation is better abandoned, because crèche is also customary in the Netherlands. Thus, there are also limits to convergence.

86

G. Geerts

7. The Netherlands 7.1. However important the contribution of the (Belgian) southern Netherlands may have been to the realisation of the Dutch standard in the past (see Geerts 1979: 60-62). Dutch is for the Dutch, and certainly for many others in the world also, the national language of the Netherlands. The Netherlands is the only country where Dutch is indisputably the most important language. Officially, the Netherlands is even monolingual because Frisian is not an official language. Since Surinam was until recently a Dutch colony and Flanders is not an independent nation, if Dutch is described as a pluricentric language, then there is obviously an asymmetrical relation between the Dutch, Surinamese and Belgian varieties. This asymmetry reflects, of course, the quantitative proportions from the economic and political viewpoints and also from the angle of population size. There is no basis for saying that the Netherlands is out to use this asymmetry to claim for its own national variety a superior status, let alone a special position. The Dutch are not linguistic or cultural imperialists and they never have been. Quite the contrary (see Geerts 1986). In general, there is in the Netherlands more indifference to the status of the language than interest in it. For the average Dutchman, Dutch in Surinam and Belgium are not national varieties but reasonably (or fully) intelligible related languages which are also "charming" because they are old-fashioned and picturesque. And for many Dutch linguists, writers and teachers, what Clyne suggests in general terms is true: "They will often describe the varieties of other nations in terms of deviations from their own norms" (Clyne 1989: 365). However, for the Dutch that does not normally mean deprecation because mostly they do not bother about what happens on the linguistic level in Surinam and Belgium. But that in no way stops "Flemish" from regularly being portrayed as a dialect of Dutch where, for example in a play, cabaret or novel, an "exotic" but still intelligible passage is necessary. A translator of a play by Dario Fo did just this when he thought he could translate a passage in the Umbrian dialect into Flemish. On top of that he asked an Antwerp actress not to play the role but to teach an Amsterdam colleague how to speak with a Flemish accent (NRC-Handelsblad, March 1989).

Is Dutch a pluricentric language? 87 7.2. The Netherlands does not have a body that can be regarded as the equivalent of the British Council, the Goethe or Herder Institute or the Alliance Française. The fact that there are about seventy foreign universities with a department of "Dutch" is probably as much due to Belgium as the Netherlands. The Netherlands has no difficulty at all in accepting that a number of them are financed (partly) by Belgium - or recently, Flanders. As far as I know, the Dutch have so far never been worried about the sort of Dutch which has been taught by a Belgian-Flemish lecturer. The Netherlands has no official grammar and no official dictionary. It does have an official spelling list which, as was said in 7.2, it shares with Belgium and which was drawn up by a commission of an equal number of Belgian and Dutch representatives. The Netherlands does not have a language policy institute or even an academy (for language and literature) which Flanders has had since 1886. "People are proud," according to a Memorandum on Literature Policy from the Dutch Ministry of Culture, "if a Dutch team wins a game of football against West Germany in a European competition. But if it is a question of national pride in their own culture the Dutch immediately become shy and do not feel entirely at ease. Few European countries suffer from that, but the Dutch seem to have a certain diffidence in this area" (Handelingen de Tweede Kamer 1988-1989, 20928 no. 2: 44). So, if the Netherlands is recognised in Surinam and Belgium as the centre of authority in linguistic matters, that is entirely due to the natural supremacy it has acquired in the course of history and its greater population and the corresponding size of its cultural output, insofar as this is of a linguistic nature. It has never been bent on exploiting that power but has always taken a reticent position. Of course, this attitude also implies a lack of concern as regards the possibility that the Surinamese or Belgian national varieties could have something to offer to Dutch. Occasionally some linguistic items have been taken over (e.g., the terms prietpraat [twaddle] and uitbaten [manage]), but they are hardly worth mentioning. The Belgians, it is sometimes said, do think up some amusing translations for foreign words (such as droogzwierder for centrifuge [spindryer] or betoelagen for subsidiären [subsidize]), but there is never more than an obliging interest in, or good natured appreciation for, them. The linguistic usage of "real" Flemish authors is judged in the same way. It is certainly not an impediment to literary appreciation (as is clear from the great interest in the work of Louis-Paul Boon), but if an

88

G. Geerts

author, according to a critic from the NRC-Handelsblad, claims to contribute something to Dutch literature "that is not a local novel or a droll scene, he should use basic Dutch. The use of typically Flemish expressions and constructions is, as the sociologists say, marked behaviour in Dutch literature and so there must always be a justification for it" (1 February 1985). Or: there are also limits to divergence! 7.3. Thus, the Netherlands acts in accordance with its place in the international pecking order: obviously superior to the Antilles, Surinam and ... Belgium. The reason is that, officially, its southern neighbour is Belgium; Flanders is only the northern part of Belgium. Until very recently, one of the consequences of this was the official Dutch position that the place of Dutch in Flanders relative to French had to be regarded as an internal Belgian affair. And, as is well known, in international political relations, it is not done for one country to interfere in the domestic affairs of another country. Belgian domestic affairs are characterised by "the language dispute"; i.e. the problem of French-Dutch bilingualism. And the Netherlands has kept out of that. Recently, slight changes have taken place in this official position. This has certainly something to do with internal Belgian developments which have seen a strong fédéralisation of the country with the result that the Netherlands can gradually recognise in Flanders an (almost) autonomous interlocutor. But it has more to do with the increasing realisation that the international pecking order has not only a downward dimension but also an upward dimension. In a uniting Europe this might cause the Netherlands more trouble than it would like. And in that perspective some expansion of its own interest, to be achieved through closer cooperation with Flanders, is necessary.

8. Conclusion The term "centre" has the disadvantage of suggesting an exclusively horizontal dimension. And, as is apparent from the attitude of the Netherlands to Flanders and vice versa, that is not the essential thing. In the meaning of "centre" there is above all a "top". The highest top dominates its surroundings. People who live on a hill look down on those down below.

Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

89

And those who live in the surrounding valleys and plains do not have as good a view. If the top position appears to be only relative, because there are higher mountains in sight - for example, German, English and French mountains in Europe - this change influences the standpoint of those who have felt themselves above the rest. And that is how the standpoint of those who have first been put down or - what is perhaps just as bad ignored, will change. Further developments in the Dutch speaking regions will certainly shed more light on the situation.

References Clerk, Walter de 1981 Nijhojfs Zuidnederlands Woordenboek. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Clyne, Michael 1988 "A Tendenzwende in the codification of Austrian German", in: Multilingua, 7, 335-341. Creten, Jos 1982 "Oordelen over woorden", [Judgments about words], in: Taalbeheersing in de Administraite, I: 847-858. Deprez, Freddy 1982 De taal van Edgar Cairo's prozawerk [The Language of Edgar Cairo's prose]. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit (ms). Deprez, Kas 1981 Νaar een eigen identiteit. Resultaten en evaluatie van tien jaar taalsociologisch en sociolinguistisch onderzoek betreffende de standaardtaal in Vlaanderen. Perspektieven voor verder onderzoek. [Towards ones own identity] Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit (unpublished dissertation). Deprez, Kas - Guido Geerts 1977 "Closure to French influence in the Flemisch speech community", Lingua 43, 199-228. Donaldson, Bruce C. 1983 Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Donselaar, Johan van 1976 Woordenboek van Surinaams-Nederlands [Dictionary of Surinam Dutch], Utrecht: Instituut A.W. de Groot. Geerts, Guido 1979 "History as language planner: The Netherlandic language area", Words, 30, 58-75.

90

G. Geerts

1982a

"En opgeblazen taalgids" [A blown-up language guide], in: Kultuurleven, 49, 234-241. "Afwijkingen op lexicografisch gebied gecamoufleerd als innovatie", 1982b [Deviations in the lexicographical field camouflaged as innovation], in: Dietsche Warande en Belfort, 127: 211-223. "De internationale verspreiding van het Nederlands in glorierijke 1986 dagen", [The international spread of Dutch in its glorious days], in: Verslagen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 1986: 132-152. "Language legislation in Belgium and the balance of power in 1988 Walloon-Flemish relationships", in: R. van Hout and U. Knops (eds.), Language Attitudes in the Dutch Language Area. Geerts, Guido - Johan Nootens - Jef Van den Broeck 1977 "Opinies van Vlamingen over dialekt en standaardtaal", [Opinions of Flemings about dialect and standard language], in: Taal en Tongval, 29: 98-141. Geerts, Guido - Jef Van den Broeck - Albert Verdoodt 1977 "Successes and failures in Dutch spelling reform", in: J.A. Fishman (ed.) Advances in the creation and revision of writing systems. Den Haag: Mouton. Geerts, Guido - Walter Haeseryn - Maarten Van den Toorn 1984 Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst [Common Standard Dutch Grammar]. Groningen-Leuven: Wolters. Goossens, Jan 1973 "De Belgische uitspraak van het Nederlands", [The Belgian pronunciation of Dutch], in: De Nieuwe taalgids, 66: 230-240. Hudson, R. 1980 Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knops, Uus 1982 Attitudes van Vlamingen tegenover de Nederlandse standaardtaal [Attitudes of Flemings to Standard Dutch]. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit (unpublished dissertation). Koefoed, Geert A.T. 1987 '"Verzorgd Nederlands', 'Verzorgd Surinaams-Nederlands' of 'zorgvuldige taal'? Een beschouwing over taalnormen naar aanleiding van de gestigmatiseerdheid van geschreven Surinaams-Nederlands", ["Cultivated Dutch", "Cultivated Surinam-Dutch" or "Careful language"?], in: Jaap de Rooij (ed.), Variatie en Norm in de Standaardtaal. 115-125. Amsterdam: Meertens-Instituut. Koefoed, Geert - Ronald May 1980 "Motieven over taalkeuze in Suriname" [Motives of language choice in Surinam], in: Guido Geerts and Antoon Hagen (eds.), Sociolinguistische Studies I: Bijdragen uit het Nederlandse taalgebied. 257-285. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. Rooij, Jaap de - Gerard Verhoeven 1988 "Orthography reform and language planning for Dutch", in: International Journal for the Sociology of Language, 73: 65-84.

Is Dutch a pluricentric language?

91

Sauvageot, Aurelien 1966 "Flamands et Wallons", in: Vie et Langage, 167: 62-66. Vries, Anne de 1957 Ons eigen leesboek [Our own reader]. Zeist: Dijkstra. Wendt, Heinz F. 1987 Fischer Lexicon Sprachen. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. Willemyns, Roland 1984 "A common legal framwork for language unity in the Dutch language area", in: Multilingua, 1984: 215-223. Ziel, Henry F. de 1964 "Over de normering van de Surinaams-Nederlandse idiotismen" [On the standardization of Surinam Dutch idioms], in: Verslag van het congres van taaleraren gehouden op 19 en 20 december 1963 to Paramaribo. Paramaribo: Taalbureau.

Multiple centres of language development the case of Tamil E. Annamalai

1. Agencies of language development Change is a natural property of language until it becomes frozen due to its social dysfunction. Though a strict dichotomy is not possible, structurally motivated changes belong to the realm of historical linguistics and socially motivated and socially manipulated changes belong to the realm of sociolinguistics. This distinction is relevant only for corpus change as status change is caused by the social factors alone. Socially motivated changes are conditioned by changes in the social relation between language users and in the social situations of language use. Socially manipulated changes are the ones generally called language development and they are brought about by individual action through influential users of language called language strategists (Weinstein 1983) like writers, social reformers and political leaders, by mass action through language movements (Annamalai 1986) or by institutional action through governments, academies, etc. Language development through institutional action alone is called planned development and the three aspects giving effect to planned development of language, viz., policy, implementation and evaluation constitute language planning. Thus language planning is one of the three socially manipulated activities to bring about change in language in its form and function. Planning at the policy level assumes a central agency. The central agency is not an inevitable feature of planning, but it is a common feature in the modern centralised polity and bureaucracy. There may not be only one central agency in a nation where the federal government and the provincial governments are engaged in planning the development of the same language, as in the case of Hindi in India, where it is the official language of the Union and of six States. This may be true transnationally when more than one nation plan the development of the

94

E. Annamalai

same language. This paper describes this second situation with regard to Tamil.

2. Spread of the Tamil language Tamil is a Dravidian language with 49 million speakers, ranking seventeenth in the order of languages of the world by their users. It is spoken primarily in India (45 m), Sri Lanka (2.6 m), Malaysia (1 m) and Singapore (.15 m). In these countries it is subjected to planned development. It is one of the 15 languages listed in the Constitution of India and is the official language of the State of Tamilnadu and the Union Territory of Pondicherry in India. It is a national language along with Sinhala and an official language along with Sinhala and English in Sri Lanka. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore and one of the three languages of education in Malaysia. There are Tamil speakers in Mauritius (out of 66,154 ethnic Tamils, according to 1983 Census, 35,646 claim to speak the Tamil language) and South Africa, but any official recognition of Tamil is restricted to its optional teaching in schools and its limited use in the media (radio and television) for entertainment. This cannot be called planned activity for its development. At best it may help the maintenance of Tamil in the home domain, but religion seems to do this better than education and media. The Hindu temples are the places of religious and social gatherings of the Tamils, where they celebrate festivals, perform group singing of Tamil hymns and engage in community welfare activities. The presence of Tamil in Fiji, Guyana and Trinidad, where its speakers had been taken as indentured labourers in the nineteenth century, has almost disappeared except in ethnic music in the media (Moag 1988). The Tamil speakers in industrialized countries like USA, UK, Australia, etc., where they migrated in the present century mostly as professionals, are an insignificant minority. As they are not a political force, there is no planned development of Tamil. Their use of Tamil outside the home is restricted to writing in ethnic magazines, listening to ethnically run radio programmes and watching video films made available by ethnic shops. Tamil in these countries is an ethnic language without governmental intervention for development.

Multiple centres of language development

95

3. Tamil in Sri Lanka The history of Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka goes back to very early times with periodic migration from India, the last one (starting from 1839) being in the colonial period when the Tamils from India went there as plantation labourers. The Tamil speakers constitute 27.2 per cent of the island's population. The contact between the Tamils in India and in Sri Lanka has been continuous and their literary heritage has been undifferentiated for 2000 years. Both contributed to the renaissance of Tamil culture during the colonial period with the discovery of distinct literary, grammatical and philosophical achievements of the Tamil of the past. Both also contributed to the modernization of the Tamil language with the development of new prose and the use of the language in new domains and with new contents. This is at the societal level. At the governmental level, there is no synchronised work regarding language, literature or culture between the two countries. The common cause of Tamil development is thus realised at the non-institutional plane the individuals and the movements in one country, primarily India, influencing the course of development of the language in the other. The governmental agencies in each country function more or less independently.

4. Comparison of Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil Tamil is a diglossie language and the high variety or the written language is more or less uniform (except for style and register differences) in all the countries where it is used, and in all regions and for all social groups in each country. There are many regional variations in the low variety or the spoken language in each country. The difference in the spoken Tamil in India and Sri Lanka is very substantial, though there are some common features between the southern dialect of Tamil in Tamilnadu and the Jaffna dialect of Sri Lanka, which are geographically close. The standard spoken Tamil in these two countries had different processes of evolution and has different norms. There is no effort to replace one by the other or for both to converge. This happens because of the diglossie nature of Tamil with the written Tamil being the unifying factor for the Tamils in different countries. The speakers of one spoken variety are now exposed more to others because of the increasing use of spoken conversations in

96

E.

Annamalai

modem fiction (which sometimes carry explanatory footnotes to unfamiliar words). This increases comprehension of the spoken varieties, but does not affect production to evolve a common standard. The perception that the written Tamil is the same in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka is true of the grammar and to a large extent of the lexicon of the written Tamil. But it may not be true of their semantics, because the socio-political experience has been different in the two countries, particularly in the last two centuries. But this semantic difference is not perceived by the speakers. There is no attempt to compile a dictionary of Sri Lankan Tamil based on Sri Lankan writings, like that of a dictionary of American English or Australian English to claim distinctiveness for the written variety of the Sri Lankan Tamil. The written language in both countries is not identical formally either. There are some minor spelling differences particularly in the adaptation of words from other languages. Words of Sanskrit origin have rules of adaptation codified in the traditional grammars of Tamil dating back to early centuries of BC. In this respect the only difference is the relatively more common use in Sri Lankan Tamil of grantha letters (i.e. letters developed in Tamil to accommodate some uncommon sounds of Sanskrit which are frequently used in borrowings in Tamil). Regarding words from European languages, particularly English, in recent times, alveolar stop is written with the character for alveolar trill in Sri Lankan Tamil and retroflex stop in Indian Tamil. A minor script reform introduced by the Government of Tamilnadu in India in 1978 has not been accepted in Sri Lanka. The impact of purism to eschew loan words from Tamil (Annamalai 1979), which is one of the characteristics of modern Tamil in Tamilnadu, is less pronounced in Sri Lanka. This is reflected in the creation of modern technical terms in the administrative fields and academic disciplines. The divergence in modern technical terms is true also of coinages from native sources. The technical terms are coined by expert committees in both countries under the patronage of their governments. There is, however, no coordination between them, as mentioned earlier, regarding evolution of common principles for the creation of technical terms that can be used in both countries. It is likely that the written language of science and administration will have distinguishing characteristics in Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil and this register of the language will diverge.

Multiple centres of language development

97

In the field of literature, distinctiveness in writings in the two countries is a characteristic of only the modern period. It is possible to talk about Sri Lankan Tamil literature with reference to modern literature not in the geographical sense alone as in the past, but in the sense of having distinct literary perceptions and ethos. This is not to say that there is no mutual influence between Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka in their modern literature or shared literary characteristics. But distinct literary identity is perceived, and even promoted, by the intelligenstia of Sri Lanka as opposed to the popular perception of the relation between Tamilnadu Tamil and Jaffna Tamil as that of mother and daughter.

5. Political dimensions of linguistic identity Development of this distinctiveness into separateness in the literary domain and its extension to the linguistic domain will be influenced by political developments in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Tamils at present have an advantage of a common language with Tamilnadu in order to have linguistic solidarity with a populous group and to have political uses of it in the context of Sinhalese dominance. It also avoids the problem of needing to evolve a homogenous language acceptable to all three groups of Tamils in Sri Lanka, viz. Jaffna Tamils (11.1 per cent), Muslim Tamils (6.7 per cent) and Plantation Tamils (9.1 per cent) with their conflicting political pulls. The present written Tamil is common to and acceptable to each group and the maintenance of social equilibrium between the groups is a desideratum. However, as pointed out earlier, commonness between Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil in the high variety has been fostered by the activities at individual and societal levels. When governmental activity b e c o m e s predominant in planning language development, political considerations are likely to have a greater play. It is difficult to predict at this point whether the planned development of Tamil in Sri Lanka in future will be towards divergence or convergence with Indian Tamil.

98

E.

Annamalai

6. Tamil in Malaysia and Singapore Malaysia and Singapore follow the policies of Tamilnadu in India with regard to the corpus of the language. This is so in spite of the fact that there are Tamils of Sri Lankan origin in both these countries. To illustrate this point about Tamil policy in Malaysia and Singapore, one can see the acceptance of a minor reform of the Tamil script mentioned earlier, the acceptance of the technical terms coined in Tamilnadu and the acceptance of lexical purism eschewing Sanskrit and other foreign words from modern Tamil, particularly in school text books. There is, however, some difference in the manner of acceptance in Singapore and Malaysia. The acceptance is almost automatic and immediate in Singapore, (the script reform was accepted in 1984), but it is after deliberation and delay in Malaysia (the script reform is to be accepted soon). The acceptance of the linguistic norms of Tamilnadu, however, is not total in both countries. Responding to their multiethnic social and political environment, these two countries have a liberal policy about the use of grantha letters to write foreign words. They also have a liberal policy about the use of consonant clusters and word-initial and word-final consonants, which are not found in the native Tamil words. The Malay and Chinese names to be written in the Tamil script particularly require the grantha letters and new consonant clusters, initial and final consonants (Thinnappan 1988) and the rules of Tamilization to transcribe foreign words such as use of only traditional Tamil characters, of epenthetic and enunciative vowels after consonants are not strictly adhered to. There are two reasons for the general acceptance of Tamilnadu's policy regarding corpus norms of Tamil in Malaysia and Singapore. One is the recent occurrence of migration of the Tamils to these countries during the colonial period and the emotional tie of the Tamil speakers with Tamilnadu relating to the political and cultural life there. The other is the small percentage of the Tamils in these countries and the sense of linguistic security they get from being part of a major linguistic group elsewhere. The centres of planned development of Tamil in these two countries may be called satellite centres drawing their ideology and norms from another dominant centre i.e. Tamilnadu. Their independent activity is in the area of implementation such as preparation of educational materials for the use of Tamil in schools, which reflect the national aspirations and the ecological backdrop of these countries.

Multiple centres of language development

99

7. Determining variables in pluricentric development The above brief description of planned development of Tamil in four countries shows that in the case of Tamil there is one dominant centre in India. Its d o m i n a n c e is due to population size of the speakers of the language and to antecedence of its historical origin. It is not due to its e c o n o m i c status or p o w e r . ( T h e per capita i n c o m e in M a l a y s i a , f o r example, is almost seven times m o r e than in India). T h e nature and direction of the development of the same language in different countries are conditioned by the political strength of the c o m m u n i t y speaking the language in each country, by the political and cultural needs of the community in each country and by the historical relations between them.

References Annamalai, E. 1979 "Linguistic purism: The case of Tamil", in: E. Annamalai (ed.) Language Movements in India. Mysore, CIIL. 1986 "A typology of language movements and their relation to language planning", in: E. Annamalai - Bjorn Jernudd - Joan Rubin (eds.). Language Planning: Proceedings of an Institute. Mysore, CIIL. Moag, Rodney 1988 "The history and problems of the Dravidian diaspora", in: International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics. Vol. XVII, No. 1, 14-40. Thinnappan, SP. 1988 "cinkapuuril tamilppaaTanuul uruvaakkappaNi: cila iTarppaaTukaL" [Preparation of Tamil text Books in Singapore: Some problems], in: Pulamai 14: 1, 1-38. Weinstein, Brian 1983 The Civic Tongue: The political Consequences of Language choice. New York: Longman.

Swedish as a pluricentric language Mikael

Reuter

Swedish is the only official language of Sweden and one of the two official languages of Finland. It is the mother tongue of between 8 and 8.5 million people - a little less than 8 million in Sweden, 300,000 in Finland and maybe one or two hundred thousand in other countries, particularly in the USA and Canada and in the other Scandinavian countries. Until the Second World War, also the coastal regions of Estonia had a Swedish population of about eight thousand people, dating back at least to the thirteenth century. In this article, I shall concentrate on the two national varieties of Swedish, that in Sweden and that in Finland. Both of the national varieties include several more or less distinct regional varieties and a great number of dialects, some of which diverge very much from standard Swedish. As Swedish is the only official language in Sweden and its status in that country is therefore unquestionable, the article will be biased towards describing the situation and status of Swedish in Finland and the ways in which the Swedish of Finland differs from that of Sweden. I shall call the two national varieties Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish in line with the Swedish terms sverigesvenska and finlandssvenska. We have to bear in mind, however, that neither of these exists in reality as a single homogenous language form.

1. Historical background Large parts of what is now Sweden have been Swedish only for about three and a half centuries. Until the mid seventeenth century, the southern parts belonged to Denmark and many of the western parts were part of Norway. The dialects of these regions still show resemblances to Danish and Norwegian respectively. The pronunciation of southern standard Swedish differs so much from that of central Sweden that a person from

102

Mikael

Reuter

Stockholm can have difficulties in understanding some of his countrymen from Malmö. The written language, however, is homogenous and well standardised. Finland, on the other hand, was part of the Kingdom of Sweden for about five hundred years until the Russian conquest in 1808 - 1809. The country's position as an autonomous Grand Duchy under the Russian Empire lasted until 1917, when Finland declared and achieved independence. The first considerable Swedish settlement in Finland took place in the thirteenth century during and after the so called Swedish crusades, and this colonisation was followed by other popular movements from Sweden to Finland during the following centuries. By and large, the colonisation seems to have been peaceful, and the two language groups of Finland have lived side by side without much hostility. Originally no attempts were made by the government to enforce the use of Swedish instead of Finnish among the general population, but many of the higher officials came from Sweden and Swedish was the main language of administration and formal education. Especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the office-holding class was strongly swedified, giving birth to a Swedish-speaking elite in Finland. The Swedish language therefore held its dominant position in official life not only during the Swedish reign but also after Finland became a Grand Duchy under Russia. But the elite in the centre always remained a small minority of the Finland-Swedes, compared to the farmers, workers and fishermen in the periphery (Allardt - Miemois 1979, 1981). Only in the mid-nineteenth century, with the growth of national consciousness all over Europe, was the need to give the Finnish language a stronger official position acknowledged, and by the end of the century the two languages were placed on equal footing. When Finland became independent in 1917, attempts were made in certain quarters to establish Finnish as the only official language, but the Constitution of 1919 and the Language Act of 1922 granted to Swedish the position of a national language, in principle on equal terms with Finnish. Periods of animosity between the language groups, especially in the 1930's, did not change the basic status of Swedish. The Swedish speaking population in Finland is concentrated in two coastal regions: the west coast of Ostrobothnia and the south-western archipelago and south coast from the Âland Islands in the west to approximately a hundred kilometers east of the capital Helsinki (in Swedish Helsingfors). In some of the rural areas the Swedes form a clear

Swedish as a pluricentric language

103

majority, but in the urban areas they are mostly reduced to a minority of between six and thirty per cent. The social structure of the Swedishspeaking population is very close to that of the the population in general, although there is a moderate overrepresentation of middle class people and workers in service industry. - The Aland Islands are unilingually Swedish and enjoy an internationally guaranteed autonomy, the basis of which is the right to preserve the Swedish language and the Swedish culture within the province.

2. Present status of Swedish in Finland The Constitution regulates the use of language on both the national and the municipal level, and guarantees fundamental rights for the citizens to use their language in contacts with the authorities. The cultural and economic needs of the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations are to be "satisfied on the basis of equality". The citizens have a right "in court or before administrative authorities to use their mother tongue, Finnish or Swedish, in their own cases". All laws and ordinances are written with parallel Finnish and Swedish texts. The official status of Swedish in Finland has important implications on the language itself as the domain of Swedish is not reduced to the private sphere. M a y b e the most important consequence of official bilingualism is that education in Swedish is available on all levels, from kindergarten to university, although there are several fields of higher education where instruction is given only in Finnish. The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation has a Swedish programme unit producing programmes in Swedish for both radio and television, and the national Lutheran church has a Swedish diocese. The Swedish language press in Finland comprises more than twenty daily or weekly newspapers. Even military instruction is given in Swedish, although the command language is Finnish. Today the 300,000 Swedish speakers in Finland are about six per cent of the total population of almost 5 million. The historical background, but also the proximity to Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, explain why Swedish has managed to retain the position it still has in education, administration and cultural life. The history of the Swedish population in Finland and the long independent development of an autonomous Finland-Swedish culture with close contacts to both Finnish

104

Mikael

Reuter

and Swedish culture also explain why the Finland-Swedes mostly have a very clear identity of their own: Swedish (or sometimes bilingual) in language, but Finnish in nationality. One of the effects of formal bilingualism is a large amount of official translation, in public as well as private life, covering a field from legislation to advertisements. In certain respects these official translations have a stabilizing effect on language and terminology, but at the same time there is always the risk for what is sometimes called translationese in this case a noticeable influence from Finnish on the Swedish in Finland. Although the Swedish of legislation is mostly satisfactory, many lower authorities produce documents with very poor Swedish. Differences in legislation, public administration and social organization between the two countries also naturally affect the vocabulary of FinlandSwedish.

3. Regional varieties of Swedish Although there is considerable regional variation in the spoken language within Sweden and Finland respectively, there are certain, mainly phonological, features which make it easy to conclude whether a speaker comes from Sweden or from Finland. The main clue is intonation, but also vowel and consonant quality, apocope in certain types of words, the use of quantity and certain pragmatic features are markers that will serve to locate a speaker as coming from Finland. Differences in vocabulary and idiomatic expressions will also sooner or later identify a FinlandSwede, although it should be stressed that those who live in Ostrobothnia and Âland, with closer contacts with Sweden, use a language which is fairly close to the Swedish of Sweden. As to the written language, very few regional differences are to be found within Sweden. It is true that some local or regional words and expressions can be used e.g. in the local press, but as a whole it would usually not be possible to tell from the language used whether a newspaper is published in Umeâ, Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö. Swedish texts in Finland generally have more or less marked traces of regionalisms, especially in vocabulary but sometimes also in syntax. But it is by no means unusual to find texts with a language that differs very little from neutral standard Swedish.

Swedish as a pluricentric language

105

3.1. Attitudes towards the varieties In Swedish broadcasting media, the standard spoken language of central Sweden has traditionally dominated. Only in recent years have announcers and newscasters with other regional accents been accepted on radio and TV. Even though the general attitude towards regional varieties is nowadays more tolerant, there is hardly any doubt that the central Swedish accent (although not necessarily the Stockholm accent) is the most prestigious variety (Molde 1983). It is very difficult to state the attitudes in Sweden toward FinlandSwedish in general and Finland-Swedish accent in particular. Most Swedes know nothing or very little about the Swedish of Finland. Others associate it with Finnish immigrants in Sweden, and therefore tend to give it a low status. However, a fairly common view, especially among educated people, seems to be that standard F i n l a n d - S w e d i s h is a charming and even a respectable and beautiful, though slightly oldfashioned, variety of Swedish. For instance theatre companies from Finland p e r f o r m i n g in Sweden have gained much praise for their language. As a rule, those who speak standard Finland-Swedish have no difficulties in making themselves understood in Sweden - and in the rest of Scandinavia. Yet it is quite exceptional for a person with a distinct Finland-Swedish accent to be accepted, for instance, as an announcer or newscaster on radio or TV in Sweden. In Finland, on the other hand, the central Swedish accent has a fairly high status, although some people consider the Swedish of Sweden too "modern" and "careless". But Finland-Swedes do not regard central Swedish as their standard for pronunciation, and nobody would try to imitate it. Attempts to do so would be considered ridiculous, as the whole basis for Finland-Swedish pronunciation (especially the intonation) differs greatly from that of central Swedish - and from Swedish in Sweden as a whole. Only certain features of Sweden-Swedish pronunciation, such as the general rules for phonetic quantity, are often followed in formal speech. With one or two exceptions, there are no radio and TV journalists in Finland with a Sweden-Swedish accent, but correspondents to the Swedish radio and TV frequently report also to the Swedish language news broadcasts in Finland, and TV programmes made in Sweden (including children's programmes) are often broadcast by the Swedish unit of Finnish Television.

106

Mikael

Reuter

The situation in written language is slightly more complex. In general, the standard Swedish norm is accepted also in Finland, although deliberate differences occur especially in vocabulary. But in reality written Swedish in Finland often differs more from standard Swedish than the writers are aware of.

4. Swedish as a second language In the Finnish-language schools in Finland, Swedish is studied as a compulsory subject, usually from the seventh grade up (most pupils start with English in the third grade). The curriculum presupposes that, in the first place, the pupils learn to use a Finland-Swedish pronunciation, but they are also expected to be able to comprehend different varieties of Sweden-Swedish. The texts in the textbooks are supposed to be written in standard Swedish without noticeable Finland-Swedish features, except for special terms and expressions related to Finnish society in texts about Finland. Most of the teachers, too, use the Finland-Swedish pronunciation, which has much more in common with Finnish phonology than does the Swedish of Sweden. In recent years, however, quite a few young teachers of Swedish have learnt the central Swedish accent either through studies in Sweden or because their university teachers have been visiting lecturers from Sweden. In the long run this will certainly have an effect also on the pupils at school, but the effect will probably be marginal, because most pupils never reach such a sophisticated level of pronunciation that it really makes any difference whether their aim is central Swedish or Finland-Swedish. While Finland-Swedish is predominant in the schools, it seems that many adults who study Swedish on a more advanced level are eager to learn the variety of Swedish used in Sweden. This is particularly true with businessmen who want to carry on business with companies in Sweden and feel that they have to master the modem way of expressing oneself in Sweden today, and among young people who are interested in working in Sweden. Immigrants and other foreigners who learn Swedish in Sweden often learn the regional variety of standard Swedish used in the place where they live, but central Swedish predominates on the tapes that come with the textbooks. The same textbooks and tapes are used for foreign students of Swedish in Finland, who in this way get used to the different varieties

Swedish as a pluricentric language

107

from the beginning. A few university teachers of Swedish outside Scandinavia come from Finland, which naturally affects their teaching a little. For instance they probably pay very little attention to the complicated rules for word accent in Sweden-Swedish.

5. Linguistic differences The degree of difference between Finland-Swedish on the one hand and the standard varieties of Sweden-Swedish on the other hand depends on what forms and levels of language one wants to study. The greatest differences are to be found between varieties of informal spoken language, and the smallest between formal written language in Sweden and Finland. 5.1. Phonology The most fundamental systematic differences have to do with phonology, although these differences do not usually lead to difficulties in understanding each other (people in northern and central Sweden often understanding standard Finland-Swedish better than standard southern Swedish). Finland-Swedish pronunciation is characterized by two factors: it is in general more archaic than the Swedish of Sweden, and it is influenced by Finnish pronunciation. In many cases these two factors coincide. A striking characteristic of standard Swedish pronunciation is the word level pitch accent, or the opposition between acute and grave word accent (sometimes called tonemes). The accents are manifested differently in different regional varieties of Swedish, but the typical pattern in central Swedish is that words with acute accent have one pitch peak while words with grave accent have two. Thus for instance anden is pronounced with acute accent when it is the definite form of and 'duck', and with grave accent when it is the definite form of ande 'spirit'. Finland-Swedish, with the exception of a few local dialects, does not have tonemes. This may well be a result of Finnish influence, but it can also be a peripheral phenomenon. The tonemes are typical of central Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway). In Danish, the corresponding opposition is manifested non-tonally as a presence or absence of sttpd, a kind of

108

Mikael Reuter

glottal stop. Icelandic and Faeroese have only one kind of word accent, and so do some of the dialects of northern Norway and Sweden. Another way in which Finland-Swedish differs from Sweden-Swedish is the use of phonetic quantity. Whereas stressed syllables in standard Swedish always contain either a long vowel or a short vowel followed by a long consonant, there are a number of words and word types in FinlandSwedish where a short vowel in a stressed syllable can be followed by a short consonant (in polysyllabic words). For instance, in Finland-Swedish (like in Finnish), the word kamera is usually pronounced with the same quantity pattern as the English "camera", whereas in Sweden the a of the first syllable is long. In the Swedish dialects of Finland the use of short stressed syllables is much more frequent than in standard FinlandSwedish, and the quantity system resembles that of Old Swedish, where all combinations of long and short vowels and consonants were possible in stressed syllables. Thus the exceptional quantity pattern of FinlandSwedish of partly an archaic feature, but probably it is even more a result of influence from Finnish, a language which makes full use of quantity in practically speaking all positions and sound combinations. In formal speech, the quantity rules of standard Swedish are often followed also in Finland, at least to a certain extent. Quantity in Finland-Swedish, as in Finnish, is manifested almost purely as differences in duration, both in vowels and in consonants. In present day Sweden-Swedish, the strongest cues are often vowel quality or a diphthongization of phonologically long vowels. The result is therefore also that there are considerable differences in vowel quality between central Swedish and Finland-Swedish, particularly in long vowels. Phonetically the vowels in Finland-Swedish show similarities with the vowels of Finnish and German. In many respects they represent an older stage in the Swedish vowel system. With respect to consonant quality, the borderline between FinlandSwedish and Sweden-Swedish is less clear, as there is considerable variation within each national variety. A typical feature of FinlandSwedish, however, is that voiceless stops are almost totally unaspirated, which is exceptional for a Germanic language but characteristic of Finnish with its lack of a true opposition between voiced and voiceless stops. Noticeable differences are to be found in the phonetic realization of some sibilants and affricates. Worth mentioning is also that an /r/ followed by a dental are pronounced as separate sounds in most varieties of Finland-Swedish, whereas in Central Swedish they merge into a supradental. The latter feature contributes to the impression that the

Swedish as a pluricentric

language

109

phonetic system is somewhat less complicated in Finland-Swedish than in Sweden-Swedish, again probably a result of the contacts with Finnish, which has a fairly simple and clear phoneme system. A typical feature of spoken Finland-Swedish is the use of apocope in certain words and word-types. Thus the words inte 'not', mäste 'must' and skulle 'should' are normally shortened to int, mást and sku. The conclusion is that Finland-Swedish sounds quite different from Sweden-Swedish, although both the national varieties also include regional sub-varieties that can differ very much from each other. E.g., in the Helsinki region, the Swedish prosody and partly also vowel and consonant quality are so similar to the corresponding Finnish features, that it can be difficult to judge whether a person is talking Swedish or Finnish unless you can distinguish the words. This is not a unique phenomenon: the same is true with other pairs of languages in bilingual regions, e.g., Welsh and English in Wales. 5.2. Morphology, syntax and pragmatics Unlike the differences in pronunciation, the systematic syntactic and morphological differences between Finland-Swedish and SwedenSwedish are relatively small, especially in written language and formal speech. The deviation is almost completely one-sided, i.e., SwedenSwedish morphology and syntax seldom appear unfamiliar to a FinlandSwede, while some syntactic structures and morphological features which are frequent in Finland-Swedish are unknown in Sweden. Typical examples are the use of certain prepositions and the inflection of a number of verbs and nouns. The differences in idiomatic phrases can better be classified as lexical or pragmatic. On the syntactic level, an increasing influence from Finnish on the Swedish of Finland can be observed. It usually starts with what can first be considered translation errors, e.g. in word order - particularly the position of adverbial phrases - or the use of the s-genitive according to Finnish syntax. Sooner or later the features also appear in texts written directly in Swedish. These deviations from normal Swedish syntax are generally not accepted as correct, however. In oral discourse, especially in the urban region round Helsinki, the influence of Finnish is particularly strong on word order and phrasing. Also a deviating use of prepositions with certain verbs in Finland-Swedish is often a result of influence from Finnish. For instance, in Finnish you buy things "from" a shop and find something "from" a place. In standard Swedish one would

110

Mikael

Reuter

here use the preposition / 'in', but in Finland-Swedish it is not uncommon to use frán 'from'. Interference from Finnish is also considerable on the pragmatic level. The use of modality markers, discourse particles and certain types of idiomatic phrases often follows the same pattern in Finnish and FinlandSwedish, while the pattern is different in Sweden-Swedish (Saari 1989). A pragmatic feature typical to modern Sweden-Swedish is the strong tendency to use euphemisms like gravt synskadad 'severely visually handicapped' instead of blind and handikappad or rörelsehindrad instead of invalid, 'disabled person'. This tendency has so far reached FinlandSwedish only marginally. 5.3. Spelling and vocabulary The differences in pronunciation do not affect the rules for spelling, which are identical in the two varieties. The word-list of the Swedish Academy (Svenska Akademiens ordlista) is considered as a norm for spelling as well as inflection in both countries. Whereas differences in pronunciation, and principally also in pragmatics, affect only spoken language, differences in vocabulary are to be found both in spoken and in written language. And while most of the phonological differences are stable and systematic, lexical differences are very much dependent on the speech situation or the type and purpose of the text. A leading article in a Swedish newspaper in Finland, the Swedish version of the annual report of a large Finnish company or a formal speech by an educated Finland-Swede can show practically no traces of specifically Finland-Swedish words, while informal texts and particularly everyday conversation, especially in areas where Finnish dominates, can be unintelligible for a person from Sweden because of the frequent unfamiliar words - in spoken language often a result of more or less accidental lexical borrowing from Finnish. Words that are used somewhat regularly in Finland-Swedish but not in Sweden-Swedish are referred to as "finlandisms". It must be stressed that these have a very varying background and status. Many of them were common Swedish words which are now obsolete in Sweden, some are borrowed from the dialects into standard Finland-Swedish, many words are either translation loans or direct loans from Finnish, and a few are loans from Russian or German. In many cases, the difference is semantic rather than lexical: the words are the same as in Sweden-Swedish, but they are used differently. For

Swedish as a pluricentric language

111

instance a serrila in Sweden is a sweet bun filled with whipped cream and almond paste, whereas in Finland it is a roll, often eaten with cheese or ham. Again, it is often a question of interference: the semantic range of a word in Finland-Swedish is the same as that of a corresponding Finnish word. The interference can affect whole groups of semantically related words. There is a core of several hundred finlandisms that can be considered as well established even in formal Finland-Swedish; many of them are official in the sense that they are used in legislation and administration. A ministry is called ministerium in Finland and département in Sweden, share dividends are called dividend in Finland and utdelning in Sweden, and brännolja ('burning oil') in Finland corresponds to eldningsolja ('heating oil') in Sweden. The established finlandisms form what could be called a closed system or an uncodified norm: they are recognized by practically all Finland-Swedes and they can be used also in formal texts or situations. The words reflect a society that is not identical with the Swedish society. Other finlandisms belong to an open system, which means that their use depends on the speaker/writer, the listener/reader, the degree of formality, etc. This is particularly true with lexical borrowing from Finnish, and, naturally, with incidental code-switching (which is fairly rare and generally seems to have the form of quotation; Saari 1989). Of course, there is no clear borderline between the "closed" and the "open" system. The great bulk of the finlandisms are, however, based on purely Swedish morphemes; particularly the recent ones are mostly translation loans from Finnish. Words that are exclusively Sweden-Swedish are much fewer, but they exist. Most of them are neologisms, usually either everyday words or words related to the Swedish society.When some words become obsolete in Sweden-Swedish and new words are introduced, Finland-Swedish naturally does not always keep up with the development.

6. Is Finland-Swedish a separate language? The generally accepted view among linguists as well as laymen in Sweden and Finland is that Finland-Swedish is a variety of standard Swedish. This view is based on the fact that Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish have practically the same morphology, that differences

112

Mikael

Reuter

in syntax are usually fairly marginal and often can be seen as a result of translation errors, that more than 95 per cent of the vocabulary are identical and that the spelling is the same. Speakers of Swedish in Sweden and Finland share the same literature, traditional songs etc., although some of the modern Swedish novels in Finland are sometimes difficult to understand in Sweden if they describe everyday life in urban society. Recently a couple of linguists, however, have maintained in newspaper articles that Finland-Swedish should be regarded as a separate language with norms of its own, which ought to be codified. The basis for this view is the differences in vocabulary on the one hand and phonology on the other. After all, there are hundreds of frequent words in FinlandSwedish that are not used or used differently in Sweden-Swedish, which of course can be taken as a proof that there is a different - though not codified - norm for Finland-Swedish. Maybe the most important argument for regarding Finland-Swedish as the same language as Sweden-Swedish is that the vast majority of the Finland-Swedes themselves would never hesitate to think of their language as Swedish. They do indeed demand a certain amount of freedom from the Sweden-Swedish norm, especially in relation to vocabulary, but by and large they accept it and try to follow its rules in formal situations. After all, it is a question of semantics and terminology: how do we want to define words like language and norm?

7. Codification and planning Swedish spelling has been standardized and codified since the latter half of the nineteenth century in a word list or glossary published by the Swedish Academy, Svenska Akademiens ordlista. The last three editions have been published in 1950, 1973 and 1986. The word list is regarded as a norm also in Finland, and the latest edition includes more than a hundred words marked fini., which means they are used exclusively or almost exclusively in Finland. The choice of finlandisms has been criticized in Finland, as it includes many words which are not well established in the speech community, but fails to give most of the official Finland-Swedish terms used in administration and legislation. This is not the result of a conscious policy, however, and hopefully the choice

Swedish as a pericentric language 113 for the next edition will be done in cooperation with linguists from Finland. The main Swedish agency for language planning and language cultivation is not the Swedish Academy but the Swedish Language Council (Svenska sprâknâmnden). It publishes dictionaries, rules for style (punctuation etc.), a quarterly journal and books on language questions, and provides a telephone service with advice to the public in matter of usage. A special field of interest has been the language used by the authorities, and remarkable results have been achieved in introducing plain Swedish in legislation and administration. In matters related to technical language, the responsible agency is the Swedish Centre for Technical Terminology (Tekniska nomenklaturcentralen). In Finland, the official language planning agency is the Finnish Research Centre for Domestic Languages, which includes a Swedish Language Division (byrán för svenska sprâket) and a Swedish Language Committee (Svenska sprâknâmnden i Finland). Like its counterpart in Sweden, The Swedish Language Division provides advice and recommendations in matters relating to Swedish usage and publishes a quarterly journal. It also assists in terminological work, provides lecturers for courses on Swedish usage, sends circular letters to journalists and keeps in touch particularly with translators and authorities responsible for the official Swedish texts in Finland. A considerable part of the Swedish language planning and language cultivation in Finland is related to translation problems. A special Swedish language committee appointed by the Finnish government (Statsrâdets svenska sprâknàmnd) gives instructions for the use of Swedish in legislation and public administration, and has published a handbook for translators and others responsible for the Swedish texts. It works in close cooperation with the Swedish Language Division, as well as with the language experts employed by the Cabinet Office in Sweden. In Finland, as well as in Sweden, there is a Centre for Technical Terminology, which also gives advice on Swedish terminology. The Swedish Language Council in Sweden and the Swedish Language Division in Finland cooperate within the Nordic Language Secretariat, but they also consult each other frequently on an informal basis over the telephone. Naturally, the questions usually come from Finland and the answers from Sweden. It has always been an explicit policy of Finland-Swedish language planners to avoid a development that brings the two national varieties of Swedish apart. Ever since Hugo Bergroths book on Finland-Swedish in

114

Mikael

Reuter

1917, unnecessary finlandisms have been combatted. A considerable deviation of Finland-Swedish from the Swedish used in Sweden could endanger the whole status of Swedish in Finland and of Finland-Swedish in Scandinavia. So far, there is no codified norm stating for instance which FinlandSwedish words are recommended for use and which are not. Such a norm would certainly be extremely difficult to set up and even more difficult to follow. A handbook with that aim is, however, being planned within the Swedish Language Committee in Finland.

8. Prospects for the future It is difficult to predict the future development of Swedish in Sweden and Finland, because language planning after all has a very marginal effect on language development. It is possible that the Swedish of Sweden will be more and more influenced by English, while Finland-Swedish partly avoids the strong English influence but is heavily influenced by Finnish. Sweden-Swedish will probably develop more quickly also in other respects, while Finland-Swedish tends to be more conservative. On the other hand, the contacts between the two countries are probably closer than ever, and Swedish TV can nowadays be seen in most parts of Finland with a Swedish-speaking population. (In the Helsinki region this has been the case since November 1988.) Even now, linguists have noted that, for instance, slang words from Sweden and typically Swedish colloquial expressions are used in Finland-Swedish more frequently than before (Cantell et al. 1989). In the future, if the Finland-Swedes get more used to watching Swedish TV, the influence may well be stronger. Much also depends on the Swedish schools in Finland and the attitudes of the teachers of Swedish as a mother tongue. The chance for a corresponding influence from Finland-Swedish on Sweden-Swedish is minimal, although Finland-Swedish TV-programmes can be seen over large parts of Sweden. However, a handful of FinlandSwedish words have been exported to Sweden, mainly by authors and journalists, and a continued export of a few selected words is possible also in the future. In relation to official texts like legislation, active co-operation, mutual consultation and concious planning are more likely to be successful. It is quite possible that legal and administrative terminology in Sweden and

Swedish as a pluricentric language

115

Finland will be better coordinated in the future than in the past. With increasing European integration, there will also be a need for cooperation in the translation of official documents into Swedish. But texts like that have very little influence on everyday language.

References Allardt, Erik - Karl Johan Miemois 1979 Roots both in the centre and in the periphery: the Swedish speaking population in Finland. Research Group for Comparative Sociology, University of Helsinki, Research report no 24. 1981 The Swedish speaking minority in Finland. Research Group for Comparative Sociology, University of Helsinki, Research report no 26. Allardt, Erik - Christian Starck 1981 Spräkgränser och samhällsstruktur. Finlandssvenskarna i ett jämförande perspektiv [Language barriers and social structure. The Finland-Swedes in a comparative perspective]. Stockholm: AWE/ GEBERS. Bergroth, Hugo 1917 Finlandssvenska. Handledning till undvikande av provinsialismer i tal och skrift [Finland-Swedish. A manual for avoiding provincialisms in speech and writing], Helsingfors: Holger Schiidts Förlag. Cantell, Ilse - Hanna Lehti-Eklund - Leif Nyholm - Jouni Salokivi 1989 Helsingforsslang nu - en skolenkät 1988 [Swedish slang in Helsinki today - a school survey 1988]. Meddelanden frân Institutionen för nordiska sprâk och nordisk litteratur vid Helsingfors universitet, B: 12.

Molde, Bertil 1983 "Svenska sprâket" [The Swedish language], in: Sprâkene i Norden [The languages of Scandinavia], Nordisk sprâksekretariat, Cappelen (Norway), Gyldendal (Denmark), Esselte Studium (Sweden). Reuter, Mikael 1979 "Swedish in Finland - minority language and regional variety", in: Word, Volume 30, No. 1-2, April-August: National language planning and treatment. 1981 "The status of Swedish in Finland in theory and practice", in: Einar Haugen et al.. Minority Languages Today, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1983 "Svenskan i Finland" [Swedish in Finland], in: Sprâkene i Norden (above). 1987 "Vad är Finlandssvenska?" [What is Finland-Swedish?], in: Sprâkbruk 1/1987, Helsingfors.

116

Mikael Reuter

Saari, Mirja 1989 "Helsingfors - en tvâsprâkig huvudstad" [Helsinki - a bilingual capital], in: Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek, Jaargang 10, nummer 12, Scandinavisch Instituut, Rijks-universiteit Groningen. Svenska Akademiens ordlista [The word-list of the Swedish Academy] 1986 Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag. Svenskt lagsprâk i Finland [Swedish legal language in Finland] 1990 Helsingfors: Statsrâdets svenska sprâknâmnd & Statens tryckericentral.

German as a pericentric language1 Michael

Clyne

1. National varieties Due to recent political events, the situation of German as a pericentric language is in a state of flux. German has national or official status in six countries - Germany (78 million users, up to 1990 with 61.3 million in the Federal Republic and 16.7 million in the German Democratic Republic), Austria (7.5 million), Switzerland (4.2), Luxembourg (330,000), Liechtenstein (15,000), Belgium (150,000) and Italy (200,000). German enjoys only regional status in the eastern border areas of Belgium and South Tyrol respectively. (I will not deal with the three last-mentioned countries here because of the non-national status of German in Belgium and Italy and because, as Ammon (1990) points out, the tiny principality of Liechtenstein does not engage in any codification of its own). The nations using German as an official language form one contiguous region of Europe. In this chapter, I shall attempt to describe each standard national variety, the language situation out of which it has arisen, and its status. There are also German-speaking minorities both in European countries such as Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and France (Alsace-Lorraine), in Namibia (the former German South West Africa), and in immigration countries such as the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and Brazil. They cannot be regarded as using distinct national varieties of the standard language. At least up to late 1989, the Germanlanguage newspapers of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Rumania employed a mixture of the Austrian variety (because of common historical traditions) and the Standard German of the GDR (with which they shared a social and political order) with some influences from the Federal Republic (through scientific and technological progress). (Cf. Roche's (1973) analysis of a Prague German paper.) German retains much of its importance as a lingua franca in Central and Eastern Europe, something that declined in the west in the postwar

118

Michael Clyne

years. It is probable that with German unity and developments towards European unity involving eastern and central European countries, the status of German within Europe will improve again. Through the language, people belong to both a regional and an international community; through the national variety which they use, they express their national identity. The written German standard language gave impetus to nineteenth century nation-building. Yet, each of the German-speaking countries today has some kind of problem concerning nationhood or ethnicity which is at least partly language-related. The development of autonomous national varieties was strengthened by the events of 1938-45. In fact, immediately after the war, "German" appeared on Austrian school report forms not as Deutsch but as Unterrichtssprache ('language of instruction'). There are two forms of pluricentricity of Standard German - the historically older one "German, Austrian, Swiss and Luxembourgian", and the newer (post-Second World War) more controversial one "East and West German" which recent events are likely to render superfluous. The di- or triglossia and multilingualism of two German-language countries, Switzerland and Luxembourg, adds a unique perspective to the pluricentricity of German. German has been the language of a country or countries with a totalitarian régime (fascist or Stalinist) while other German-speaking countries have continued outside that political system. Not only these régimes but also the termination of their power is therefore associated with the question of pluricentricity. In the case of the former GDR, the controversy surrounding nationhood and the East/West German distinction (see below, 1.2) prompts us to raise the questions - Does a national variety need to be legitimized by a long history? And how long can it continue when the motivation for its existence disappears and its practical usefulness declines? 1.1. German in the context of diglossia and regionalism Switzerland has four official languages, distributed on the territorial principle, with German being used by 74% of Swiss citizens. In Switzerland, Standard German stands in a diglossie relationship with Swiss German dialects, the varieties of everyday communication throughout the German-language cantons, which are developing new functions within H domains such as TV and radio, church and school (cf. Ferguson 1959; Ris 1979; Clyne 1984; Löffler 1986; Sieber und Sitta 1986). In Luxembourg there is triglossia between the three official languages, Letzebuergesch,

German as a pluricentric languange

119

the mother tongue and language of everyday communication (based on Mosel-Franconian dialects), Standard German, and French, with the entire population employing the three according to rules taking into account domain, social distance and social class (cf. Hoffmann 1982; Clyne 1984). There is increasing overlap in the interchange of language domains, e.g. the use of Standard German in some subjects formerly taught in French and the more frequent use of Letzebuergesch instead of German in business correspondence (Scheidweiler 1988). A survey conducted in 1986 (Ministère de l'Éducation, 1986) showed that 10 percent of a representative sample of the Luxembourg population conducted their private correspondence solely in Letzebuergesch and 25 per cent partly in it. Also, some street signs are now bilingual, in French and Letzebuergesch. School primers as well as comics are now appearing in Letzebuergesch as well as in Standard German. The development of Letzebuergesch as an official language, a status that was declared in 1984, and its codification have detracted from the importance of Standard German in Luxembourg (Hoffmann 1988). In Switzerland and, even more so in Luxembourg, Standard German is a "superposed variety" (Ferguson 1959) or "distance variety" (Polenz 1988: 209), which is learned mainly at school and used only in domains of the written language. In both these countries, the people do not identify it completely as their own. The real vernaculars are Swiss-German and Letzebuergesch respectively. (But note that the Swiss-Germans have a loyalty to the German literary tradition, Sieber und Sitta 1986: 31-32) The notion of Standard German as a "close foreign language" (e.g., in Boesch 1968) is challenged by Watts (1988) who shows that Standard German is not only the written language but also a spoken one which is passed on to children through TV from a very early age. A fluid type of diglossia (Pauwels 1986) between dialect and standard exists in large areas of Southern Germany and Austria. Due to the late unification of the modern German nation-state and the multicultural nature of pre-First World War Austria-Hungary, there is much regional variation (See, e.g., König 1989; Eichhoff 1977-1978). This is based on earlier regional standardization (e.g. Bavarian, Swabian) and later subsumed under larger centralized units. The regional variation, as well as historical ambiguity of the word "Germany", has contributed to difficulties with the acceptance of a pluricentric model of the German language.

120

Michael Clyne

1.2. Acceptance of pluricentricity The existence of autonomous German, Austrian and Swiss national varieties has been reasonably widely accepted because of the longstanding independent Austrian and Swiss nations (see below) and because of specific linguistic indices of the varieties (see below, 2). The question is more what the relative status of the varieties is. There is, for instance, confusion between (regional) dialects and national varieties, as will be illustrated below. It is only four decades since the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR were established. The different social and political systems, opposing political and economic alignments, and separate cultural developments were reflected in language. The existence of two German German national varieties was partly dependent on the recognition of two nations, something that was promoted in the GDR (Schmidt 1972) up to the collapse of the Stalinist régime in 1989, but not in the Federal Republic despite lively discussions of the issue. The different political conceptions of the division of Germany led to differing attitudes on national varieties (Hellmann 1989c). Up to the mid-60s, West Germans emphasized the emerging differences and warned that these could lead to a communication breakdown between east and west that could damage "German unity" (e.g., Moser 1961: 21). Apart from early criticisms of American linguistic "imperialism" in the Federal Republic in the mid1950's, the GDR had ignored the question of emerging language differences. From the late 60s, the West German research literature has tended to play down contrasts and stress the common linguistic bond of the two Germanies. During this period, East German scholars, who have been more ready than West Germans until recently to accept the Austrian and Swiss national varieties as equal to their own, have emphasized the characteristics distinguishing the two German German national varieties in a similar way (e.g. Lerchner 1974: 265). This position diminished as from the early 1980s (e.g., Fleischer 1983, 1987) with increased contact (including academic and business contact) between the two Germanies and, more recently, widespread movement of people from East to West. Hellmann (1989c), writing during the declining months of the GDR, saw the possibility of a full circle where the GDR might be more ready than the Federal Republic to accept the existence of two German national varieties. The possible existence of a GDR national variety was given recognition by linguists through the more widespread discussion of the pluricentricity model (see below, 5). At the time of writing, however,

German as a pluricentric languange

121

attitudes recognizing two national varieties tend to be seen as questioning German unity which has been established in institutional terms. Variation between the Austrian and German national varieties of Standard German results from separate cultural and sociopolitical development, especially following the establishment of an absolutist bureaucratized Austrian state in the late eighteenth century and the dissolution of the old empire in 1806. In the late nineteenth century Germany, unified under Prussia, codified North and Central German forms as standard while Vienna, the centre of a multilingual, multicultural empire, regarded its own usage as its "norm". The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 led to tension between pan-German and proindependence forces in Austrian society. Autonomous development was resumed in 1955 following the 1938-1945 period as part of Nazi Germany and ten years divided between allied occupation powers. The consciousness of national identity was strengthened during Kreisky's period as Bundeskanzler (1970-1983). Throughout the last two centuries of its history, Austria has continually lived in the dilemma of whether there is a distinctive Austrian nation (as opposed to a state) or whether it is part of a German nation (Bruckmüller 1984; Erdmann 1987). This is reflected in a pendulum swing between language planning for national identity and an acceptance of standardized German norms. The majority of the population sees Austria as a separate nation. Polenz (1988) points to historical confusion between the political and cultural concepts of "nation" (Staatsnation, Kulturnation) exacerbated by the pan-German movement of the nineteenth century and Nazism. The Swiss identify as citizens of a particular local entity (e.g., Zürich, Basel, St. Gallen). The nation practises a grassroots democracy deriving from the survival of feudal and early capitalist structures into contemporary society. Thus it is Swiss-German dialects that are the primary linguistic markers of identity. Competence in the Swiss national variety of German identifies people socially. Many German-speaking Swiss resent Standard German because of difficulties encountered with it at school or because it is the symbol of negative aspects of school (Personal communication, Christian Mühlethaler; see Sieber and Sitta 1986). It is the diglossia between Swiss Standard German and a Swiss-German dialect that identifies people as Swiss nationals with German as their standard language. In contrast to Germans and Austrians, Germanspeaking Swiss have no intermediate variety between Dialect and Standard comparable to German German Umgangssprache, although the

122

Michael Clyne

compromise dialects of Basel, Bern and Zürich are increasing their geographical spread. In Luxembourg, even more than in Switzerland, Standard German is basically not a spoken language. While German Standard German is formally regarded as the norm and taught in schools, this norm is deliberately - not adhered to. Because of the treatment of Luxembourgians under Nazi occupation, there is a reaction against Standard German, which is not used for anything related to national and personal identification, e.g. street signs, letterheads, public notices, tombstones (Hoffmann 1979: 59). Similarly there is a divergence from German Standard German in actual usage, where phonology, lexicon and syntax are influenced by Letzebuergesch and French. Polenz (1988: 200) attributes the fact that the Swiss have not gone quite as far as the Luxemburgers to replace German by their Ausbausprache (cf. Kloss 1978) to the reluctance of the Swiss to unify and standardize their dialects, thereby giving up something of their federal structure, and to the loyalty of Swiss authors and academics to Standard German as a written medium. Another important factor is the unwillingness of French-speaking Swiss to learn a Swiss-German dialect for inter-ethnic communication (Kolde 1986, Steger 1987, Watts 1988). Thus, for this purpose, the Swiss-Germans must opt for either a language which is a "foreign variety" but part of their culture or one that is "Swiss" but alien to their culture.

2. Linguistic indices The existence of pluricentricity is, of course, determined not only by sociopolitical considerations, and disagreement on its reality is often due to the relative weighting of grammatical, phonological, lexical, semantic and pragmatic criteria. The Austrian, Swiss and Luxembourgian national varieties differ from the two German ones in lexicon and phonology as well as, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax, pragmatics and semantics. The East and West German varieties have been differentiated mainly in lexicon, semantics and pragmatics, and hardly at all in morphology, syntax and phonology. The historical grouping of dialects in each German-language nation has been somewhat different, with Upper Saxon predominating in the GDR, Bavarian in Austria, Alemannic in Switzerland, Franconian in

German as a pluricentric languange

123

Luxembourg, and a combination of Lower Saxon, Franconian, Bavarian and Alemannic in the Federal Republic (with the North German varieties most dominant). Much of the confusion over the status of some national varieties is due to the extensive regional variation of German in Western Germany, especially South German regional varieties centered in cities such as Munich and Stuttgart. This coloured some West Germans' thinking on national variation (See 5, below). Whereas some of the distinctive features of national varieties (e.g., sein/haben as auxiliary, words for "horse", "butcher" and "rubbish-tin") are regional in origin, with the north/south division transcending national boundaries, other features demonstrate the significance of these national boundaries in lexical variation (see Eichhoff 1977-78), e.g., Schluckauf (FRG), Schlucken (GDR), Schnackerl (Austria), Gluggsi or Higgsi (dialect forms, Switzerland) 'hiccough'; das Plastik (FRG, Austria), Plast(e) (GDR), der Plastik (Switzerland); Blue Jeans (FRG/Switzerland), Niethose (GDR) 2, Blue Jean (Austria) (Eichhoff 1978: Maps 5, 77, 86). Of the 121 maps in Eichhoff's atlas of colloquial German, 12 are marked by national variation between Switzerland and West Germany and 21 between Switzerland and Austria (Cf. Beersmans 1987).3 2.1. "East" and "West" German Although there is a good deal of regional variation in Western Germany, especially the southern part, there is a standard written variety used in books and newspapers and a standard spoken one employed by radio announcers. Phonological rules formulated in the late nineteenth century constitute conscious language planning, following the establishment of the new unified nation-state, for inter-regional formal and cultural ("stage") communication. They form the basis for a com-promise standard between north and south. These rules include: final /ç/ in words like: fertig, fertigt, fertigte. Igl in words like: fertigen. long vowels in words such as: Art, Städte, Behörde, werden. /ç/ in: China, Chemiker. There are practically no phonological and syntactic differences between Standard German in East and West Germany. Minor exceptions were the frequent occurrence of genitives in the GDR public register (Hellmann 1978: 27; Clyne 1984: 30) and transitivization of some previously intransitive verbs in the Federal Republic but not in the GDR

124

Michael

Clyne

(Carstensen 1965: 80; Clyne 1984: 98). However, there were lexicosemantic and pragmatic differences which will not be maintained with German unification. The differences were due to: (a) The creation of new vocabulary to express technological, social, economic and political change (especially in the GDR) and new ideological directions and to name new institutions (e.g. GDR beauflagen - to produce a compulsory quota per factory or other unit; Funktionseinheit section, e.g. of hospital or polyclinic; Erweiterte Oberschule - 'extended upper school' - upper secondary school. FRG Gastarbeiter guest worker; Mitbestimmung - workers' participation; Gesamtschule - comprehensive school; Vergangenheitsbewältigung - overcoming the past, i.e. the Hitler Era, Alternativbewegung - alternative movement; Polenz 1988). (b) the nature of "outside influence" - Russian or English - see below. (c) Semantic shift, e.g. Flüchtling 'refugee' which, in the Federal Republic, was used generically and has referred particularly to a 'refugee from eastern to western Europe' and in the GDR meant a 'refugee from west to east'. There Republikflüchtiger ('republic (i.e., GDR) fugitive') was coined to denote those fleeing from the GDR to the FRG. The use of this word has declined recently, and Neues Deutschland (the official daily newspaper of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei of the GDR) used DDRFlüchtlinge and "Flüchtlinge" to describe the 1989 refugees to the west {Neues Deutschland 5 September 1989). In the Federal Republic, they were designated as Übersiedler (internal migrant), which later became the general term also in the GDR. (d) The dropping of vocabulary considered obsolete in the GDR, especially words relating to middle-class capitalist or Christian value systems, e.g. Arbeitgeber (employer, literally 'work giver', gutbürgerlich (homely; literally 'good bourgeois'), vor Christus and nach Christus (B.C. and A.D. replaced by vor unserer Zeitrechnung 'before our era' and unsere Zeitrechnung) and euphemisms for death - hinscheiden (pass on), heimgehen (go home). (e) Language planning, especially in the GDR where, under the title of Sprachkultur, prescritivism and stricter codification was officially justified by the need to equip all citizens with the linguistic apparatus ostensibly to participate in the decision-making. Some communication patterns have differed. For instance, a request for an article in a shop was realized by - "Ich hätte gem.." or "Geben Sie mir bitte." ( Ί would like..'/'Please give me..') in the FRG and by "Haben Sie..?" ('Do you have..?') in the GDR (the latter originally due to scarcity

German as a pluricentric

languange

125

of goods). Other differences are to be found in the communication routines for renting a flat, starting bank accounts, and resolving work problems. (Hellmann 1989b). In the work situation, communication tended to be more direct in the GDR than in the Federal Republic (Hellmann 1989d). Forms of address varied, Du being used more between colleagues in the Federal Republic than in the GDR, which had not experienced the social upheavals of the late 1960s and 70s, Du did tend to be used, in the GDR, between fellow students and between members of a particular party or political movement. This has, of course, been affected by the post-1989 political situation. Härtung et al. (1974: 541) view the two Germanies as two communication communities and perhaps a single speech community. Schlosser (1987) points out that official (party) register penetrated into everyday domains in the GDR so that people needed to code-switch between "official" and "unofficial" registers. GDR academic papers for local and East European consumption tended to add, at the beginning or sometimes at the end, a short section stressing the relevance of the topic for Marxism (Clyne 1987: 214). Both German national varieties were characterized by rather direct speech acts in oral discourse (House and Kasper 1982) and hedging in written academic texts (Clyne 1987). 2.2. Austrian Standard German (ASG) In Austria as in Germany, there is a continuum of varieties with Umgangssprache (colloquial language) as a medium range based on dialects but gravitating towards Standard. The German used by the highest ranking personalities in government, academe and the public service is distinctly Austrian, as Muhr (1987a) has demonstrated from spoken texts. In phonology, ASG is characterized by the following: Slightly nasalized diphthong [ee] for /al/ as in [kreede] Kreide·, diphthongs [oo] and [ooe] as in [froo] Frau and [frooede] Freude. (Wodak-Leodolter and Dressier 1978: 35) In some diphthongs, [o] corresponds to GSG [ο], e.g., [fo:adan] fordern, [o] also corresponds to GSG [a], e.g. fast. Voiced-voiceless oppositions tend to be replaced by fortislenis. (Muhr 1987a) some vowels are short before /r/, ill or /t/, e.g. Behörde, Geburt, Nische, Städte.4 In loanwords, initial [st] corresponds to GSG [jt], e.g., Stil, Status, /v/ is realized as voiceless, e.g., [novemba], and initial [k] to SGS [ç], e.g., Chemie, China. There is no glottal stop (cf. GSG, especially in the north), e.g., [erlnan] erinnern, [tjarta] Teater.5

126

Michael Clyne

Stylistic variation occurs between final [Ik] and [Ic] in words spelt -ig, e.g., [ru:Ik] ruhig6 in informal Austrian Standard register, [x] after [r] and some front vowels (cf. [ç] in (GSG), e.g., [kisxn], [durx] Kirche, durch. The sequence [r)k] is found in such words as [ai]kst] Angst, [laqksam] langsam (Wodak-Leodolter and Dressier 1978). /e/ is [a] in numbers such as vierzehn, fünfzehn. Some words of foreign origin are stressed on the final syllable while there is a tendency towards initial stress in other words, which results in differences with GSG, e.g., Mo'tor, 'unmöglich, 'unsterblich (cf. Lipoid 1988). At the lexical level, there are many characteristically Austrian items, especially in the fields of food, the home, and institutions, e.g., Schwamm ('mushroom', GSG 'Pilz'), Zuckerl ('sweet', GSG 'Bonbon'), Kasten ('cupboard', GSG Schrank), Sessel ('chair', GSG Stuhl), Matura ('matriculation exam', GSG Abitur), Turnsaal ('Gymnasium', GSG Turnhalle), Flugpost ('airmail', GSG Luftpost)', also rückwärts ('in the back', GSG hinten). Some morphemes are very productive in ASG word-formation, e.g. -1er, -s, φ, e(r)l as in: Kräutler ('greengrocer'), Postler ('postal employee'), Ausnahmsfall ('exception', GSG -e), Zugskarte ('train ticket'), GSG φ). Toiletttisch ('dressing table'; no -en), Schnackerl ('hiccoughs'). (Rizzo-Baur 1962: 92-98) Some words have different genders in ASG and GSG, e.g. Austrian: der Gehalt ('salary'; GSG das), or are single-gendered in ASG while the GSG item is marked by variation, e.g. der Sakko ('jacket', with stress on second syllable, GSG der/das, with stress on first syllable) or offers a choice where the GSG takes one article, e.g., die/das Ersparnis ('savings', GSG die), derldas Monat (GSG 'der'). There are differences between ASG and GSG in the use of prepositions, e.g., ein Kind in der Schulelauf der Schule lassen- ('to leave a child at school') (Muhr 1987a: 81). ASG employs the auxiliary sein (GSG haben), with liegen (lie), sitzen (sit), and stehen ('stand'). 7 Consequently its use sometimes signals a register switch (to a literary register) although it is fully acceptable in ASG. ASG is characterized by somewhat archaic honorific patterns (e.g. mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung to end letters; direct requests with downgraders; ironical formulae, Clyne 1984: 121). There are major differences between ASG and GSG in the use of modal particles, e.g. etwa is not used in Austria, GSG eben and mal sound impolite and insistent in Austria. ASG employs halt and vielleicht (Muhr 1987b)

German as a pericentric languange

127

2.3. Switzerland Among the phonological features of Swiss Standard German (SGS) are final [Ik] in adjectives written as -ig, the use of double consonants, e.g. [bella] Bälle, [gassa] Gasse (GSG, ASG [bela], [gasa]), and short vowels in words with two following consonants, e.g. Arzt, Krebs, Obst, Pferd, Städte, and in Liter, Fabrik, and Notiz (a parallel with AGS) There are long vowels in brachte, Gedächtnis, Hochzeit, Rache, and Rost (cf. short in ASG and GSG), and a differentiation between close [ε] and open [ε], e.g. in Esche ('ash tree y )/Wäsche ('washing'), Held ('hero')/hält ('holds'), which is not made in other Standard Germans. Primary stress falls on the initial syllable of lexical transfers from French, e.g. ' B ü f f e t , 'Filet, 'Glace ('ice cream'). There is no glottal stop, and final consonants may be voiced, e.g. [brav] (GSG [bra:f| ('good'). (See Moulton 1962, Keller 1978) In the lexicon there are: words specific to the Swiss national variety, e.g. Nachtessen ('dinner'), sturm ('confused, dizzy'); words with a meaning different to that in other national varieties, e.g. Base ('aunt' as well as 'cousin'), abdanken ('bury, give funeral eulogy' as well as 'abdicate'); word forms specific to the Swiss national variety, e.g. Altjahr ('New Year's Even'), Freikonzert ('open-air concert'), Wegleitung ('instruction'), Betreffnis ('sum due to someone'); word formation devices employed differently in SGS than in other varieties, e.g. no -s (cf. GSG and especially ASG and Luxembourg SG), as in Auslandgast ('foreign guest'), Kuckuckuhr ('cuckoo-clock'). (Kaiser 1969; Russ 1987) In grammar, Geschwister (GSG, ASG 'brothers and sisters, siblings') may be used in the plural and Architekt and nouns ending in -st take -en only in the plural (Also in oblique cases in the singular, GSG and ASG). Among instances of specifically Swiss gender assignment are: der Bank ('seat', GSG/ASG die), die Foto ('photo; GSG/ASG das), die Koffer ('suitcase', GSG/ASG der), das Efeu ('ivy', der). (Kaiser 1969; Russ 1987) 2.4. Luxembourg Luxembourg Standard German (LSG) is spoken with a French type intonation; there is lenisization (e.g. /t/ —» /d/; /J/ for /ç/, and an absence of aspiration (e.g. [apbaU] for [aphhbaU], [mittallan] for [mithtallan].

128

Michael Clyne

Distinctive features in the lexicon are to be found mainly in the fields of administration, politics, education, entertainment and commerce, e.g., Theatercoup ('unexpected event'), Konferenzler ('conference delegate'), Camionneur ('truck-driver'), Weißkäse ('cottage-cheese', GSG Quark, ASG Topfen). The dominant national feature of word formation is the infixed -s morpheme (used even more than in ASG), e.g. Nachtstisch ('bedsidetable'), Sonntagsnacht ('Sunday night'). The analytical comparative with mehr {mehr interessant, cf. interessanter) is often preferred. Some nouns transferred from French frequently keep their original genders (e.g., der Jury, Programm, die Pedale; die/das/das respectively in other national varieties). Discontinuous constituents are sometimes brought closer together (e.g., Du hättest sollen deinen Freund anrufen: GSG, ASG, SGS Du hättest deinen Freund anrufen sollen-, 'you should have telephoned your friend'). (Magenau 1964; Hoffmann 1969).

3. Transference from other languages One of the major differences between the various national varieties is their current relative susceptibility to transference from other languages. The Federal Republic has been very open to English (especially American) influence, particularly in the lexicon (see, e.g., Carstensen 1965, Viereck 1980). This is largely a reaction to the restrictions on the use of "foreign words" during the Nazi period and before. The main domains of English transference are sport, technology and information science, tourism, advertising, journalism, economics, politics, the armed forces, cosmetics, entertainment, and medicine (e.g. Comeback, knowhow, Charter, Image, Layout, Splitting, Establishment, checken, Song, By-Pass). Apart from lexical transfers, semantic transfers occur, i.e., English meanings are transferred to existing G e r m a n words, e.g., Drogenszene ('drug scene'), feuern ('to fire - from job'), das Beste aus etwas machen ('to make the best of something). Some sections of the community (e.g., the elderly, less educated) are thus disadvantaged because of their limited knowledge of English (cf. Clyne 1973). The media and the advertising profession as well as the younger generation are agents of transference, while dictionaries exercise a relatively cautious influence.

German as a pluricentric languange

129

On the whole, the English influence on ASG is similar but less intense (Viereck et al 1975) as there was less purism to react to, the lexicon of ASG owing a substantial debt to the surrounding languages within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Also, post-1945, Austria has been lkess open to western international influence. There has been long-standing French influence on SSG, e.g., Bahnhofbüffet ('station restaurant', GSG Bahnhofgaststätte), Occasion ('bargain sale', GSG Ausverkauf), präsidieren ('to chair', GSG den Vorsitz nehmen), Retourbillet ('return ticket', GSG Rückfahrkarte), Velo ('bicycle', GSG Fahrrad). In addition, there has been a recent English influence on SSG, and some English lexical transfers are replacing French ones, e.g., Show {Revue), Boom {Hausse), Baby {Bébé) (Dalcher 1966: 18; Charleston 1959: 272). The Swiss tend to reject puristic neologisms, which are identified with GSG. Many French lexical transfers were dropped from GSG through language planning in the early 1870s. Standard German in Luxembourg draws heavily on French for lexical and idiomatic innovation (See above, 2.4). However, this influence is declining and there is an increase in transference from Standard German in Letzebuergesch partly due to the influence of German TV (Scheidweiler 1988). Many English transfers have come via French (e.g., Dancing (dance-hall), Folklore, Meeting, Weekend). Luxembourg's exposure to English through European Community officials, international banks and Radio Luxembourg has increased English transference in the fields of economics, politics, and entertainment. There was relatively little lexical transference (from either Russian or English) in the Standard German of the GDR. However, there were many semantic transfers from Russian, where Russian meanings were transferred to German words. They occurred especially in the areas of institutional and political life, e.g. Akademiker (member of the Academy of Sciences), Brigade (small collective involved in competition with other small groups for commendational awards), Plansoll (production target for a particular group and product within a plan). English transfers, which have been on the increase in the younger generation over the past few years in East Germeny (Oschlies 1988), tended to be lexical, referring to the west or to new developments in technology, pop-music, fashion or sport, e.g., Boß, Trust, Computer, Stereo, Diskjockey, Coach (reinforced by the western media). Some lexical transfers came via Russian and were not employed in the Federal Republic. They include Broiler 'roast chicken'; Dispatcher 'person responsible for keeping abreast of the state of production in an industry' (Kristensson 1977). After the overthrow of

130

Michael Clyne

the Stalinist régime in November 1989, GDR newspapers adopted the use of far more lexical transfers from English.

4. Codification Spelling is codified uniformly in the German-language countries. Phonology is codified in Germany and, to a lesser extent, in Switzerland. There was also some separate codification of grammar in the two Germanies and of the lexicon in the GDR, the Federal Republic, and Austria. 4.1. "East" and "West" German The standard word-list and spelling guide of the German language Duden-Rechtschreibung has appeared separately in Mannheim (FRG) and Leipzig (GDR). Apart from their spelling function, the books are used to check if a word - colloquial, "loanword" or neologism - is officially recognized, how a "loanword" is pronounced in German and what it means. In all these matters, the two Duden-Rechtschreibungs, the eastern and the western one, have diverged. There being no standard dictionary of German, the widely recognized and used dictionaries (e.g., Wahrig, Duden Universal-Wörterbuch, FRG; Klappenbach and Steinitz, GDR) also diverged. There have also been separate standard grammars, the Mannheim and Leipzig editions of the Duden-Grammatik. Pronunciation has been codified separately in the GDR and the Federal Republic Krech, GDR; Siebs (more conservative), Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch (more progressive and realistic), FRG. The German planning agencies are likely to be amalgamated as a result of unification. 4.2. Swiss The Swiss follow the (Mannheim) Duden as the norm of the written language (Müller and Marzohl 1961: 98) with some differences in the lexicon recognized by convention. There is also a Schülerduden for late primary and early secondary classes, which adapts more to written Swiss Standard German usage (Schläpfer 1979). Boesch et al. (1957) devised norms for SSG aimed at a correct German that still "sounds Swiss" (Moulton 1962: 137) These norms diverge considerably from GSG ones. This publication is now out of print and has not been reprinted. The

German as a pluricentric languange

131

Swiss guidelines include a rejection of [Iç] for final -ig and the acceptance of double consonants. (See above, 2.3). 4.3. Austria The Österreichisches Wörterbuch, the official listing of the lexicon of Standard German in Austria, is published under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and the Arts. While earlier editions attempted to give an inventory of standard "common German language", the 35th edition (1979) was "neu konzipiert" (ÖWB 1979: 9), and, accentuating Austrian distinctiveness, exercised a solidarizing and separatist function (Dressier and Wodak 1982). At least one third of the items in the dictionary did not appear in previous editions - neologisms and characteristically Austrian items; some of them dialect expressions employed in Standard German Austrian literature (marked mda "dialectal" or Idsch "regional"). 120 items are asterisked as "als bundesdeutsch empfunden" ('felt to be West German'). Examples of these are Müll ('rubbish', ASG Abfall, Kehricht), Sahne ('cream', ASG Obers), and Tomate ('tomato', ASG Paradeiser). That such words are designated as "bundesdeutsch" when many of them were also standard in the German Democratic Republic and/or Switzerland may result from a feeling of outrage for the status of "dialectal" or "regional" that ASG words had been given in dictionaries produced in the Federal Republic and a lack of understanding of the historically evolved difference between Austrian and German standard varieties in the nineteenth century, especially after 1871. The latter was designated by Austrians as "reichsdeutsch". The flexibility of gender usage in ASG is reflected in the 35th edition of the ÖWB - e.g., Brezel (formerly given as die) is listed as das or die, and Monat ('month') (formerly der) is given as taking der or das. Wegen ('because o f ) and statt ('instead o f ) are shown taking the dative or genitive. The Dudens give only the genitive option although there is an increased use with the dative throughout the German-speaking area. In its solidarizing and separatist functions, the 36th Edition of the ÖWB (1985) retreats from some of the planning reforms of its predecessor. This is in part a response to criticisms of the 35th Edition from both linguists and members of the public - it had allegedly lowered standards by accepting non-standard forms, was damaging the international unity of the language, and was Vienna-centric, having ignored the varieties used in the west of Austria. Much of this was part of a general return to Conservativism (Clyne 1988) and regionalism. The practice of leaving

132

Michael Clyne

ASG forms unmarked, and of asterisking distinctively GSG items was continued. Thus, words such as Aprikose ('apricot', Aus. Marille), Quark ('cottage cheese', Aus. Topfen), and Tüte ('bag', Aus. Papiersackerl) are still marked. Others, such as Müll ('rubbish', Aus. Abfall), and Tomate (Aus. Paradeiser), and Zoo (Aus. Tiergarten) have lost their asterisks. The 36th Edition had taken up for the first time Blumenkohl ('cauliflower', Aus. Karfiol), which it asterisks. More attention is paid to stylistic levels. Some distinctively Austrian items which were unmarked in the 1979 Edition are now designated Ugs. (Colloquial). Some others have been marked as Idsch. The multiple gender assignment is retained in Monat, Joghurt (das, die, der) and Meter {der, das) but, as distinct from GS, Brezel is marked as das only.The criticism of Vienna-centricity is answered by the addition of w to Viennese forms and the adoption of some lexical items from the Alemannic-speaking western state of Vorarlberg (marked v). Grammatical rules show a return to the more conservative account given in the Duden-Grammatik. The dative government of statt and wegen are now described as ugs as is the Austrian contraction of auf dem to am. However, the ÖWB continues to list sein as the only auxiliary of liegen, sitzen and stehen.The Duden (1973) marks this usage as regional (süddeutsch). There is no codification of ASG grammar, apart from the indications in the ÖWB. According to Wodak-Leodolter and Dressier (1978: 30) "Standard High German" as described in Siebs (1969) and the Dudens is "not used in everyday speech at all and rarely in schools in Vienna". Some distinctive features of ASG (See 2, above) are included - as deviations from GSG - in the Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch.

4.4. Luxembourg Although there are differences between Standard German in Luxembourg and in other countries (see above, 2.3), the former has not been codified. These have usually been described as deviations or even errors (Magenau 1964, Hoffmann 1969).

German as a pluricentric languange

133

5. Status As will be gauged from the statistics at the beginning of this chapter, the numerically strongest German-language countries by far have been the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. They were the economic giants of the west and east bloc respectively, as well as important but by no means dominant political forces within these groups of nations. Austria and Switzerland, both neutral nations, carry little weight by comparison. However, during the period (1970-83) under Bundeskanzler Kreisky mentioned under 1 above, a high level of economic prosperity and a policy of "active neutrality" (even-handed intervention) in international relations gave Austrians great confidence in their nation, something which was reflected in the temporary status planning of the national variety (see above, 4.2), Multilingualism and di-/ or triglossia works against Switzerland and Luxembourg projecting their Standard German national varieties abroad. Both nations and, to a lesser extent Austria, have experienced a feeling of inferiority concerning their German national variety (Boesch 1968, Hoffmann 1979, Muhr 1987a) in much the same way as speakers of "New Englishes" have, in relation to their national varieties of English (Piatt, Weber and Ho 1984: Chap. 10). The economic, political and demographic position of the two Germanies was reflected in the status of their national varieties in relation to the others. Most major German-language publishers have their headquarters in Germany (e.g., Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Leipzig, Berlin). The united Germany offers the bulk of the market. This means that Austrian or Swiss writers need to submit their works to German editors and perhaps adapt to their norms. The Duden grammar and dictionaries and other influential dictionaries have been produced in West and/or East Germany. The Mannheim Duden does have Austrian and Swiss commissions. However, the Dudens and Wahrig list Austrian and Swiss Standard German forms along with German regional ones. All this has the result of downgrading the status of Austrian and Swiss Standard German even in the educational institutions of these countries (Cf. Muhr 1989). The two main research centres for the German language are in Mannheim (Institut für deutsche Sprache) and Berlin (Zentrales Institut für Sprachwissenschaft of the Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR). At the time of writing, future plans for these centres are not yet complete. However, the Institut für deutsche Sprache has Austrian and Swiss representation on its council and committees. The model for foreigners

134

Michael Clyne

learning German has generally been provided by the Goethe Institute (Federal Republic) and before 1990, also the Herder Institute (GDR). In addition, each of these countries provided Lektoren (native speaker language instructors) for foreign universities. The Austrian Ministry of Education has, in recent years, tried to redress this situation by establishing about a hundred Lektorate at foreign universities, including forty in Hungary (personal communication, Rudolf Muhr). But, on the whole, the agencies of planning of German as an international language are clearly based in Germany. Traditionally, West German scholars have projected their variety as the "norm" and the others as "deviant" objects of investigation. This applied to the West German treatment of "East German" in the early to mid 1960's (See Hellmann 1978: 17). It applied even more to Standard German in Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. These varieties were described in terms of their special features (i.e., those deviant from the German of the Federal Republic) in the same way as were the German used in the United States, Canada or Brazil (e.g., in the Duden Beiträge series). However, Standard German in the Federal Republic was not seen as having special features. The term binnendeutsch ('internal German') as used by many West German linguists implies the centrality of GSG. Polenz (1988) refers to German imperialistic hegemony thinking when he criticizes a model of contemporary German in which German German is described as the main form (and West German German as the main variant of it), while Austrian and Swiss Standard German are designated as regional variants beside Letzebuergesch, Belgian German and ethnic minority varieties throughout the world. (But cf. Hellmann 1989a, who attempts to clarify the issue by distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative criteria of binnendeutsch and structural and functional criteria of "variant"). Previously, Austrian and Swiss Standard German had often been described along with German regional varieties (See, e.g., Seibicke 1972). The extent of a possible "cultural cringe" among Austrian and Swiss linguists in relation to their Standard German may be gauged by the use of binnendeutsch in the works of Ebner (1969); Kaiser (1969-70); Rohrer (1973); Schläpfer (1979); and others. Where a low status has been afforded by Germans to the Austrian and Swiss national varieties, this is not only an expression of cultural imperialism or of historical factors. It is also the result of confusion between linguistic and sociolinguistic considerations. National varieties are determined on the basis of sociolinguistic/sociopolitical criteria. The fact that features of South German regional varieties and Austrian and

German as a pericentric languange

135

Swiss national varieties may overlap does not make Austrian and Swiss Standard Germans dialects of a German Standard German. The important fact is that Jänner ('January', GSG Januar) and Feber ('February', GSG Februar) may be regional and not completely Standard in South Germany but they are Standard in Austria and that ist is the Standard auxiliary for liegen, sitzen and stehen ('lie', 'sit', and 'stand') in Austria and Switzerland (haben in GSG despite South German regional sein). These are the forms used in newspapers and in radio and TV news broadcasts in Austria and Switzerland but not in Germany. Phonetically the German of news readers and announcers on South German radio stations is (much) the same as that of their northern and eastern counterparts, but Austrian and Swiss announcers and news readers "sound quite different". The claim that national variation between Standard German in the Federal Republic and the GDR was due only to differences in official political register (see Hellmann 1978: 17) disregarded semantic variation and the importance of pragmatic rules for linguistic behaviour in the different societies. The claim will be tested by the new political situation with unification and largescale migration to the west (and some to the east), for all these will entail conscious convergence and adaptation if there ever was a GDR national variety. As unification entailed the dissolution of the GDR and its incorporation into the Federal Republic, the linguistic convergence has been primarily towards the "West German" standard. A marked change in thinking on national varieties has occurred over the past decade. There have been series of panel discussions (Marburg 1982, published in Reiffenstein et al 1983, Bern 1986) between scholars from different German-language countries which have implied or even declared explicitly the equivalence of the national varieties. The pericentric model is playing an important role in sociolinguistic discussion in and between the German-language countries which had become increasingly possible since there had been closer links between the two Germanies (Polenz 1988; Hellmann 1984, 1989). At the International German Teachers conference in Bern (1986), the East and West German panel members, Wolfdietrich Härtung and Peter von Polenz, agreed on the validity of defining German as a pluricentric language "... mit der These des Plurizentrismus bin ich völlig einverstanden", ( Ί am fully in agreement with the pluricentricity hypothesis') declared Härtung in response to Polenz's advocacy of the pluricentricity of the German language (Bern 1986: 66). However, as Domaschnew (1989) has pointed out, this agreement did not necessarily entail supporting the notion of a GDR national variety.

136

Michael Clyne

Contemporary criticism of the "pluricentric" model partly arises from historical considerations. Besch (1990) argues that while there is national variation in spoken (rather than written) German, the national differences may be ephemeral, that the linguistic differences are not very significant, and that some of the Austrian and Swiss distinctive features are also represented in South Germany. In the Introduction to this volume, I refer to Wardhaugh's dichotomy "flavor" vs. "substance" and I believe that this is the crux of the difficulties in defining the status of German national varieties. The question of regional South German forms overlapping with Standard Austrian and Swiss forms has been addressed above under 2.2 and 2.3. Within Austria, the attitude to Austrian Standard German and codification efforts as well as the decline in such efforts (see above, 4.3) were influenced by a pendulum swing in national consciousness and selfconfidence. They were also influenced by the social stratification of Austria, which is still far more rigid that of the Federal Republic of Germany, and has led to concern about the loss of the prescriptive function of the ÖWB and a possible egalitarian hidden agenda. As Muhr (1987a) has demonstrated, it is not quite certain what the Austrian Standard is. The inherent 'cultural cringe' in much of the debate on the ÖWB is related to the intermittent pan-German tradition in Austria which denies the existence of the Austrian nation. The political complexity is expressed by Reiffenstein (1983: 19) who draws attention to two contradictory tendencies in the ÖWB (1979) - a "reactionary, anachronistic" nationalist one and a "progressive" social one. The two trends tended to merge in Austria during the Kreisky era, with Nationalism increasingly defined as a positive participatory allegiance to a newly developing democratic Austrian society (Cf. also Fishman 1972). The slowing-down in the codification and the ambivalence in the status of Austrian Standard German reflected the political scene following the departure of Kreisky, the appearance of the 'Waldheim problem', a shift to political conservativism and a decline in Austria's international standing connected with economic decline, its growing dependence on the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as pan-German thinking interpreted particularly by the older generation as part of the "ethnic/regional revival". A fear of German domination appears to be leading to renewed Austrian national consciousness in 1991. For the opposing Austrian viewpoints, see Wiesinger (1988) and Muhr (1987a, 1989). Attitudes to ASG elicited as part of a project on varieties and norms in ASG (Moosmüller and Dressier 1989) were predominantly positive.

German as a pluricentric

languange

137

Each national variety of Standard German gives the nation using it a symbolic marker of independent identity. In the Federal Republic and the GDR, the national variety indicated membership of a particular kind of society. In Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg, it represents a distancing from Germany, upholding past traditions (Austria), independent (Switzerland) or buffer (Luxembourg) status. In Luxembourg, Standard German is being increasingly displaced by Letzebuergesch. However, being the international language closest to Letzebuergesch, it is the language of primary education and, in turn, the main language of the press and of non-fiction literature. The same applies to a lesser degree to the German-language part of Switzerland which has, in the national variety, a neutral (inter-regional) H language, an international language but also a variety that expresses some distance from the Germans, past and present.

6. Convergence between varieties Very little is known about the nature of adaptation in the many contact situations between the national varieties. Apart from convergence due to German unification, these include permanent migration to another German-speaking country, temporary residence for work, study or recreational purposes, and contact in non-German-speaking countries of immigration. At the official level, contacts will increase if and when Austria joins the European Community, there being no codified supranational variety of German. The impact of West German TV as well as personal visits and correspondence between the two Germanies have been common opportunities for convergence prior to 1989. Preliminary findings of pilot testing among East Germans who had migrated to West Germany before unification (Manfred Hellmann, personal communication) suggest that they replace the names of East German institutions by West German ones very rapidly, even when they are talking about the ex-GDR, e.g., Gymnasium for EOS (Erweiterte Oberschule). The following remarks are based mainly on a discussion held with members of staff of the Austrian, GDR and Swiss Embassies in Bonn in late 1988.8 As Standard German is not a spoken language in Switzerland, GermanSwiss are less likely to experience conflict with German German varieties

138

Michael Clyne

than do Austrians. Switzerland has never been a great political power. On the other hand, there is likely to be more convergence to a German national variety among Swiss than among Austrians as Swiss identity is more likely to be expressed through the dialect. For Austrians, one of the reasons for convergence with GSG is the need for modernization. Often the distinctively Austrian forms are considered archaic and overhierarchial in Germany (e.g. der herabgelangte Erlaß, 'the decree passed down'; mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung 'with excellent respect', used at the end of a letter; cf. above, 2.2). As has been pointed out by both Moser (1985: 1680) and Polenz (1988: 212), West German Standard German is usually the basis of renewal in the German language. This Polenz attributes to the political and economic power position of the Federal Republic. And yet, there is a feeling that people need to project their "Austrianness" or "Swissness" to the host country through their language. For instance, the sign outside the Austrian Embassy in Bonn gives times of office hours (GS Amtsstunden, Öffnungszeiten) under the heading Parteienverkehr (literally "client traffic"). Such national identification through language is to be found in the Standard German of Austrian, Swiss and German radio announcers. Austrians and Swiss will often converge towards West German Standard German by overusing the preterite or by transferring certain words from that variety, whose Austrian or Swiss equivalents might not be comprehensible to West Germans. The most prominent examples are those in the culinary field used in the tourist trade, e.g., Pfifferlinge ('mushrooms', ASG Eierschwammerln). This convergence among Austrians does not usually extend to employing haben as an auxiliary for liegen, sitzen and stellen, even when they are resident in the Federal Republic. GDR representatives in the Federal Republic have, where possible, avoided the use of GDR-specific economic and political vocabulary, such as Kapazitätserweiterung ('economic rationalization and expansion') and Planerfüllung ('fulfilment of (five year) plan'). This was probably part of a new policy already in force at the time to play down the East-West linguistic differences (See 1, above), and to make official language use as easy as possible for the average citizen to comprehend. Austrian authors publishing in the Federal Republic will not make, or be required to make adjustments to their language largely because of the attractiveness of a definable Austrian literature in the German book market over the past two decades. Convergence or divergence among immigrants from other German-speaking nations and convergence of German in Eastern Germany towards that of the West are areas of

German as a pluricentric

languange

139

linguistic research which will be of increasing theoretical and practical significance. The Swiss tend to be suspicious of Germans and Austrians addressing them in Swiss-German dialect because it sounds 'phoney' and because of the symbolic importance of dialect to them. There was general agreement between my conversation partners from the Diplomatic Service that Germans will make much less effort to converge when they are in other German-speaking countries than they themselves require of other German speakers. West Germans' attitude to the other national varieties tends to be one of romantic affection for the exotic. Certain words and expressions from GSG are transferred as "prestige forms" in Austria, e.g., Mädchen ('girl', ASG Mädel), nachhause ("home", ASG heim), Guten Tag\ (ASG Grüß Gott!).9 The satellite TV station 3-SAT is shared - on an unequal basisbetween the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, the österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) and the Schweizerische Rundfunkgesellschaft. The dominant variety used is the German one, as the ZDF produces 55% of the total output, the ORF 35% and the SRG 10%. There is no policy, and apparently little sensitivity concerning questions of pluricentricity. Moser (1985: 1689) expresses the opinion that 3-SAT could strengthen the position of Standard German in Switzerland. Incidentally, where SwissGerman is used, e.g. in interviews, Standard German sub-titles are provided. A similar example of a combined satellite program is EinsPlus, shared by the German ARD and the Swiss SBC. English films shown in Switzerland are generally synchronized in Germany, and only Swiss commercials are added. (Personal communication, Hugo Steger)

7. Co-operation in language planning We have already referred to recent co-operation between the Germanspeaking countries in satellite TV, a co-operation that is not completely proportionate. There is one major co-operative language planning undertaking whose frustrations symbolize the problems of "reforming" a pluricentric language. Since 1954, there have been efforts to reform German spelling, and especially to introduce "moderate minisculation". (At present, German uses capitals for nouns but, due to idiomatic expressions based on nouns, rules are complex.) The 1954 Wiesbaden Recommendations were accepted by the spelling commissions of the Federal Republic (14: 3) and of the GDR. The Austrian commission

140

Michael Clyne

deadlocked (1961) and the Swiss orthographical commission (1963) voted against them (31: 1). Switzerland had previously "gone it alone" on the replacement of β by ss. The attitude to spelling reform has largely depended on the composition of national commissions and has varied over time. In the early 1970's, there were radical spelling reform groups, especially in the Federal Republic, which already started implementing changes in publication and school policy. There has been a substantial liberalization in the position of the Austrian and Swiss commissions. Over the past few years the Federal Republic has moved to a more conservative stance, partly through the activities of groups promoting "modified capitalization". The discussion on spelling reform has continued at the international level, but it is mainly between the various national working groups, which have held regular conferences. In October 1988 a committee presented a set of five modest recommendations on spelling and punctuation changes (but not on minisculization) to the Federal German government as a first step towards gaining international governmental agreement. (Nerius and Scharnhorst 1977; Mentrup 1985; Mannheimer Morgen 18 October 1988, Neuregelung 1989) So success in language reform may well be promoted by pluricentric initiation of change. Polenz (1988: 216) draws attention to a relaxation of pronunciation in the conservative West German Siebs due to the influence of the corresponding East German handbook, Krech et al.

8. Concluding remarks German is an interesting object of investigation owing to the potential dual nature of its pluricentricity (German, Austrian, Swiss, Luxembourgian/ East, West German). Unification could test the saliency of national varieties developed over a short period. (The GDR national variety could become regionalized and a historical and generational phenomenon though continuing negative attitudes in West Germany to East German migrants could result in ghettoization and a residual East German sociolect in the west.) Much will be learned about the two (former) German national varieties in the convergence process. Renewed Central European links covering the peoples of the old Danube Monarchy and the possible entry of Austria into the European Community could again raise the status of the Austrian national variety within a German language with increased significance in a uniting Europe. In Luxembourg and, to some

German as a pluricentric languange

141

extent in Switzerland, the increasing importance and development of the "dialect" will reduce the significance of the standard national variety.

Notes 1. My thanks are due to Werner Besch, Leslie Bodi, Rudolf Muhr and Hugo Steger for very useful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. 2. Except that Blue Jeans has been used as a youth protest marker in the GDR (CF. Plenzdorf 1973). 3. Note that in Switzerland, colloquial language is dialect. 4. Also in regional South German, including in the reading of world-lists by some educated speakers, König (1989). 5. Also in regional South German, as above. 6. Also in regional South German, as above. 7. Also in regional South German. 8. I thank Otto Brandstädter, Christian Miihlethaler, and especially Erika Sauer for making this possible. 9. This may be partly to avoid the religious connotations in what is to some a conservative (vs. socialist) usage.

References Althaus, Hans-Peter - Helmut Henne - Herbert Ernst Wiegand (ed.) 1980 Lexikon der germanistischen Linguistik. (2nd edition.) Tübingen: Niemeyer. Andersson, Sven G. 1983 "Deutsche Standardsprache - drei oder Vier Varianten?", in: Muttersprache 5/6: 259-283. Beersmans, Frans 1987 "Variatie en Norm in het Duitse taalgebied" [Variation and norm in the German language area], in: Jaap de Rooij (ed.), Variatie en Norm in de Standaardtaal. [Variation and norm in Standard language] Amsterdam: P.J. Meertens Instituut. Bern 1986 "Nationale Varianten der deutschen Hochsprache", in: Ziele und Wege des Unterrichts in Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Tagungsbericht. Bern, 4. -8. August 1986. Zürich: Eurocentres.

142

Michael Clyne

Besch, Werner 1990 "Schrifteinheit - Sprechvielfalt. Zur Diskussion um die nationalen Varianten der deutschen Standardsprache", in: German Life and Letters 43 (=Special Number for R.E. Keller): 91-102. Bruckmüller, Ernst 1984 Nation Österreich. Vienna: Böhlau. Boesch, Bruno 1957 Die Aussprache des Hochdeutschen in der Schweiz. Zürich: Schweizer-Spiegel-Verlag. Boesch, Bruno 1968 "Sprachpflege in der Schweiz", in: H. Moser, Hans Eggers, Johannes Erben and Hans Neumann (eds.), Sprachnorm, Sprachpflege, Sprachkritik. Düsseldorf: Schwann: 222-35. Carstensen, Broder 1965 Englische Einflüsse in der deutschen Sprache nach 1945. Heidelberg: Winter. Charleston, Brigitte H. 1959 "The English linguistic invasion of Switzerland", in: English Studies 40: 291-82. Clyne, Michael G. 1973 "Kommunikation und kommunikationsbarriere bei englischen entlehnungen im heutigen deutsch", in: Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 1: 163-77. 1984 Language and Society in the German-speaking Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987 "Cultural differences in the organization of academic discourse: English and German", in: Journal of Pragmatics 11: 211-47. 1988 "A tendenzwende in the codification of Austrian German?", in: Multilingua 7: 335-41. Dalcher, Peter 1966 "Der Einfluß des Englischen auf die Umgangssprache der deutschen Schweiz", in: Schweizerisches Wörterbuch Bericht des Jahr 1966. in: Zürich: Schweizerisches Wörterbuch: 11-12. Domaschnew, Anatoli 1989 "Noch einmal über die nationalen Sprachvarianten im Deutschen", in: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 17: 342-355. Dressler, Wolfgang - Ruth Wodak 1982 "Soziolinguistische Überlegungen zum 'österreischischen Wörterbuch'", in Maurizio Dardano, Wolfgang Dressler and Gudrun Held (eds.), Parallela (=Akten des 2. österreischischen-italienischen Linguistentreffens). Tübingen: Narr, 247-260. Duden 1959 Grammatik. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. 1962 Aussprachewörterbuch. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. 1972 Rechtschreibung. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. 1973 Rechtschreibung. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut.

German as a pluricentric languange

143

Ebner, Jakob 1969 Wie sagt man in Österreich? Mannheim: Bibliographischer Verlag. Eichoff, Jürgen 1977-78 Wortatlas der deutschen Umgangssprachen. 2 vols. Marburg: Elwert. Erdmann, Karl-Dietrich 1987 "Die Spur Österreichs in der deutschen Geschichte", in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 10: 597-626. Ferguson, Charles A. 1959 "Diglossia", in: Word 15: 325-44. Fishman, Joshua A. 1967 "Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism", in: Journal of Social Issues 23: 29-38. 1972 Language and Nationalism. Rowley: Newbury House. Fleischer, Wolfgang 1983 Die deutsche Sprache in der DDR. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. Fleischer, Wolfgang (ed.) 1987 Wortschatz der deutschen Sprache in der DDR. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. Härtung, Wolfdietrich et al. (eds.) 1974 Sprachliche Kommunikation und Gesellschaft. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Hellmann, Manfred 1978 "Sprache zwischen Ost und West - Überlegungen zur Wortschatzdifferenzierung zwischen BRD und DDR und ihre Folgen", in: Wolfgang Kühlwein und Günther Radden (eds.), Sprache und Kultur: Studien zu Diglossie, Gastarbeiterproblematik und Kultureller Integration. Tübingen: Narr, 15-54. 1989a '"Binnendeutsch' und 'Hauptvariante Bundesdeutsch"', in:" Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 17 (1): 84-93. 1989b "Berichte: Alltagskommunikation in der DDR - Ein Thema für Linguisten", in: Muttersprache 99: 77-82. 1989c "Die doppelte Wende - Zur Verbindung von Sprache, Sprachwissenschaft und zeitgebundener politischer Bewertung am Beispiel deutsch-deutscher Sprachdifferenzierung", in: Josef Klein (ed.), Politische Semantik. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag; 297-322. 1989d "Zwei Gesellschaften - Zwei Sprachkulturen?", in: Forum für interdisziplinäre Forschung 2: 27-38. Hellmann, Manfred (ed.) 1984 Ost-West-Wortschatzunterschiede. Tübingen: Narr. Hoffmann, Fernand 1969 Das Luxemburgische im Unterricht. Luxembourg: Institut Grandducal. 1979 Sprachen in Luxemburg. Wiesbaden: Steiner. 1988 "Letzeburgisch: Mundart und Nationalsprache", in: Brücher - Franke (eds.), Problem von Grenzregionen. Saarbrücken: Philosophische Fakultät, Universität des Saarlandes.

144

Michael Clyne

House, Juliane - Gabriele Kasper 1981 "Politeness markers in English and German", in: Florian Coulmas (ed.), Conversational Routine. The Hague: Mouton, 157-86. Kaiser, Stefan 1969-70 Die Besonderheiten der deutschen Schriftsprache in der Schweiz. 2 vols. (Duden-Beiträge) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Keller, Rudolf E. 1973 "Diglossia in German-speaking Switzerland", in: Manchester Library Bulletin 56 (1). Kloss, Heinz 1978 Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kultursprachen seit 1800. (2nd [1952[ edition.) Düsseldorf: Schwann. Kolde, Gottfried 1986 "Des Schweizers Deutsch - das Deutsch der Schweizer", in: Heinrich Löffler (ed.), 131-50. König, Werner 1989 Atlas zur Aussprache des Schriftdeutschen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. (2 vols.) Ismaning: Hueber. Krech, Eva-Maria - Eduard Kurka - Helmut Stelzig - Eberhard Stock - Ursula Stötzer - Rudi Teske (eds.) 1964 Wörterbuch der deutschen Aussprache. Leipzig: EnzyklopädieVerlag. Kristensson, Göran 1977 Angloamerikanische Einflüsse in DDR-Zeitungstexten. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wikseil. Kühn, Peter 1980 "Deutsche Sprache in der Schweiz", in: Hans-Peter Althaus, Helmut Henne and Herbert Ernst Wiegand (eds.), 531-36. Lerchner, Gotthard 1974 "Zur Spezifik der Gebrauchsweise der deutschen Sprache in der DDR und ihrer gesellschaftlichen Determination", in: Deutsch als Fremdsprache 1: 259-65. Lipoid, Günter 1988 "Die österreichische Variante der deutschen Standardaussprache", in: Peter Wiesinger (ed.), Das österreichische Deutsch. Vienna: Böhlau; 31-54. Löffler, Heinrich (ed.) 1986 Das Deutsch der Schweizer. Aarau: Sauerländer. Magenau, Doris 1964 Die Besonderheiten der deutschen Schriftsprache in Luxemburg und in den deutschsprachigen Teilen Belgiens. (Duden-Beiträge) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Mentrup, Wolfgang 1980 "Deutsche Sprache in Österreich", in: Hans-Peter Althaus, Helmut Henne and Herbert Ernst Wiegand, 527-31. 1985 "Zur Viel-Schichtigkeit der Diskussion einer Rechtschreibereform", in: Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik 16 (2); 98-126.

German as a pluricentric

languange

145

Ministère de l'Éducation 1986 Enquêtes sur les habitudes et besoins langagiers du Grand-Duche de Luxembourg. Luxembourg: Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale. Moosmüller, Sylvia - Wolfgang Dressler 1989 "Hochlautung und soziophonologische Variation in Österreich", in: Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik 20: 82-90. Moser, Hugo 1961 Deutsche Sprachgeschichte. Stuttgart: Schwab. (4th edition.) (ed.) 1985 "Die Entwicklung der deutschen Sprache seit 1945", in: Werner Besch - Oskar Reichmann - Stefan Sonderegger (eds.), Sprachgeschichte. 2 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1678-1707. Moser, Hugo (ed.) 1979 Studien zu Raum- und Sozialformen der deutschen Sprache in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Berlin: Schmidt. Moulton, William G. 1962 "What Standard for diglossia? The case of German Switzerland", lin: Georgetown University Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics 15, 133-44. Muhr, Rudolf 1987a "Deutsch in Österreich - Österreichisch: zur Begriffsbestimmung der Standardsprache in Österreich", in: Grazer Arbeiten zu Deutsch als Fremdsprache und Deutsch in Osterreich 1: 1-18. 1987b "Regionale Unterschiede im Gebrauch von Beziehungsindikatoren zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Österreich und ihre Auswirkungen in Deutsch als Fremdsprache - dargestellt am Beispiel der Modalpartikel", in: L. Götze (ed.), Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Situation eines Faches. Bonn, 144-56. 1989 "Deutsch und Österreich (isch): Gespaltene Sprache Gespaltenes Bewußtsein- Gespaltene Identität, in: Informationen zur Deutschdidaktik 2/89. Klagenfurt. Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Deutschdidaktik am Institut für Germanistik an der Universität für Bildungswissenschaft, 74-87. Müller-Marzohl, Alfons 1961 "Das schweizerische Wortgut im Jubiläumsduden", in: Sprachspiegel 17 (4): 97-113. Nerius, Dieter - Jürgen Scharnhorst 1977 "Sprachwissenschaftliche Grundlagen einer reform einer deutschen Rechtschreibung", in: Erika Ising (ed.), Sprachkultur warm-wozul, 156-94. Oschlies, Wolf 1988 "Hat der Dispatcher die Broiler abgecheckt?", in: Muttersprache 98: 193-204. 1989 Würgende und wirkende Wörter: Deutschsprechen in der DDR. Berlin: Holzapfel. ÖWB 1979 Österreichisches Wörterbuch. (35. Auflage.) Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag/ Jugend und Volk.

146

Michael Clyne

1985

Österreichisches Wörterbuch. (36. Auflage.) Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag/ Jugend und Volk. Pauwels, Anne 1986 Immigrant dialects and language maintenance. Dordrecht: Foris. Platt, John T. - Heidi Weber - Mian L. Ho (eds.) 1984 The New Englishes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Plenzdorf, Ulrich 1973 Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. Frankfurt a. Main: Suhrkamp. Polenz, Peter von 1988 '"Binnendeutsch' oder plurizentrische Sprachkultur?", in: Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 16: 198-218. Reiffenstein, Ingo 1983 "Deutsch in Österreich", in: Ingo Reiffenstein et al., 15-27. Reiffenstein, Ingo - Heinz Rupp - Peter von Polenz - G. Korlén 1983 Tendenzen, Formen und Strukturen der deutschen Standardsprache nach 1945. Marburg: El wert. Ris, Roland 1979 "Dialekte und Einheitssprache in der deutschen Schweiz", in: International Journal of the Sociology of Language 21: 41-62. Rittenhauer, G. 1980 "Österreichische Lektoren in aller Welt tätig", in: Rot Weiß Rot 28: 22.

Rizzo-Baur, Hildegard 1962 Die Besonderheiten der deutschen Schriftsprache in Österreich und Südtirol. (= Duden-Beiträge) Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Roche, Reinhard 1973 "Sprachliche Beobachtung bei der Lektüre bei der Lektüre der 'Prager Volkszeitung'", in: Manfred Hellmann (ed.), Zum öffentlichen Sprachgebrauch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR. Düsseldorf: Schwann, 293-330. Rohrer, Carl 1973 Der Konjunktiv im gesprochenen Schweizer Hochdeutschen. Frauenfeld: Huber. Russ, Charles V.J. 1987 "Language and Society in German Switzerland", in: Charles Russ and Claudia Volkmar (eds.), Sprache und Gesellschaft in deutschsprachigen Ländern. York: Goethe Institut, 94-121. Scheidweiler, Gaston 1988 "Glanz und Elend des Luxemburgischen", in: Muttersprache 98: 226254. Schläpfer, Robert 1979 "Schweizerhochdeutsch und Binnendeutsch. Zur Problematik der Abgrenzung und Berücksichtigung schweizerischen und binnendeutschen Sprachgebrauchs in einem Wörterbuch für Schweizer Schüler", in: Heinrich Löffler, Karl Pestalozzi and Martin Stern (eds.), Standard und Dialekt. Festschrift für Heinz Rupp. Bern: Rancke, 151-61.

German as a pericentric

languange

147

Schlosser, Horst-Dieter 1987 "Überlegungen und Beobachtungen zur Alltaglssprache in der DDR", in: Deutsche Studien 25: 31-42. Schmidt, Wilhelm 1972 "Thesen zu dem Thema 'Sprache und Nation'", in: Seitschrift für Phonetik, allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 25: 448-50. Seibicke, Wilfried 1972 Wie spricht man anderswo? Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut. Sieber, Peter - Horst Sitta 1986 Mundart und Standardsprache als Problem der Schule. Aarau: Sauerländer. Siebs, Theador 1969 Deutsche Aussprache. Helmut de Boor, Hugo Moser and Christian Winkler (eds.). Berlin: de Gruyter. Scheidweiler, Gaston 1988 "Glanz und Elend des Luxemburgischen", in: Muttersprache 98: 22654. Steger, Hugo 1985 "Über das Ganze und die Teile. Zur Situation der deutschen Sprache am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts", in: Kolloquium. Flensburg: Institut für regionale Forschung und Information, 19-48. 1986 "Deutsche Sprache und Literatur in der Schweiz: Innensicht und Außenwirkung", in: Heinrich Löffler (ed.), 175-92. Viereck, Wolfgang et al. 1975 "Wie Englisch ist unsere Pressesprache?", in: Grazer Linguistische Studien 2: 205-26. Viereck, Wolfgang (ed.) 1980 Studien zum Einfluß der englischen Sprache auf das Deutsche. Tübingen: Narr. Watts, Richard J. 1988 "Language, dialect and national identity in Switzerland", in: Multilingua 7: 313-34. Wiesinger, Peter 1988 "Die deutsche Sprache in Österreich", in: Peter Wiesinger (ed.), Das österreichische Deutsch. Vienna: Böhlau, 9-30. Wodak-Leodolter Ruth - Wolfgang Dressler 1978 "Phonological variation in colloquial Viennese", in: Germanic Studies 4: 30-66.

French as a pericentric language1 Georges Liidi

1. Outline It is not obvious to think of French as a pericentric language. Despite its geographic dispersion, French indeed passes as one of the most homogeneous and focussed languages of the world. According to a common stereotype, one and the same standard variety is written and spoken by educated French speakers all over the world and taught at school from Lausanne to Nouméa and from Strasbourg to Montpellier. However, an analysis of the linguistic facts (the high amount of diatopic variation of French), of the political reality (the existence of several autonomous French-speaking nations with different educational systems) and of the language representations (a growing recognition/acceptance of diatopic variants by relevant parts of the populations and decision-makers) refutes such statements. In the following survey, we will first consider where French is spoken (Francophonie), then consider the specific form of normative awareness that characterizes French speakers (bon usage). We will then try to show how the varieties of French that are spoken in different parts of the world have been traditionally treated (as regionalisms). Our third aim will be to reveal where and how a new awareness of the autonomy and dignity of various national and regional varieties is emerging. In this light, we will take a glance at possible forms of compromise between centralism and pluralism regarding norm-setting and standardization in Francophonie.

2. French as a world language: La Francophonie Although commonly identified with the national language of France, French is widely spoken in many parts of the world (and is far from being the only idiom spoken in France; see Vermes ed. 1988). The conglomera-

150

Georges Liidi

tion of wholly or partly French-speaking states even has a separate name and is called Francophonie. The term Francophonie (from franco- 'French' and Greek phone 'sound, voice') is assumed to have been introduced by the French geographer Onésime Reclus in the late nineteenth century in order to describe those parts of the world where French is spoken without considering political or ethnic boundaries (Deniau 1983: 7). The term achieved official recognition in the 1960s when writers and political leaders like Leopold Senghor revived it (Bostock 1986: 1; Hagège 1987: 211). "La Francophonie" is generally divided into three subcategories: 1. In the inner circle we find those territories where French is the first language (or one of several first languages) of a significant part of the population: France (including the overseas departments Guadaloupe, Martinique, French Guyana, Reunion and French Polynesia), Monaco, Wallonia (Belgium), the western part of Switzerland, the Valley of Aosta (Italy), parts of the Channel Islands, parts of Canada (mainly Quebec, but also larger or smaller minorities in Ontario, New-Brunswick and other regions of Canada) and of the United States (New England and Louisiana) and Luxemburg. 2 A further subdivision can be made into territories where French is also an official language (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, Monaco, Luxemburg) and territories where this is not the case (Valdman 1983: 682). 3 2. The second circle comprises those countries where French is the official language (or one of several official languages) without generally being among the languages of the first socialization of the population, which reaches a variable level of competence in French (see Chaudenson 1989: 44ff. for a critical discussion of the often too optimistic corresponding figures): in the so-called French-speaking Black Africa (Benin, Burundi, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Zaire), the Indian Ocean (Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Mauritius), the Caribbean (Haiti) and the Pacific (New Caledonia, Vanuatu). 3. For a third group of countries, French is a frequently spoken vehicular language and usually the first foreign language as is the case for the three countries of the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) and for Lebanon. 4 Estimates of the total number of French-speaking persons by first socialization and by education world wide are around 90 million (for a discussion see Bostock 1986: 10). With more than 50 million citizens,

e ce O 3 3 Ph ω

e

'δ 00 M ω > S c o

υ α Τ3

e

Χ> Ό Ο ο 3

Ό

Ο U* &

ω α;

VD

00

σ\

Μ

Ο ο ΕΛ Ο C O

152

Georges Liidi

France of course plays an important role in Francophonie. As Léger (1987: 43) puts it: "... through its political and intellectual effulgence in the world, through its economy and cultural and scientific activity, France has a greater importance in the French-speaking countries than all other countries combined." Does France take undue advantage of this lack of equilibrium? La Francophonie was not a French invention. The Agency of Cultural and Technical Cooperation, founded in 1969 and grouping most of the francophone territories listed above (except Switzerland, Algeria, Madagascar, Louisiana and the Valley of Aosta), for example, resulted from an initiative by the presidents of Tunisia (Bourguiba), Niger (Diori) and Senegal (Senghor). Moreover French intellectuals know that France is compelled to share its language with other francophone countries if it wants to secure the future of French as an international language: "... the fine career which may await the French language in the world of tomorrow is bound to an egalitarian idea of patrimony which it represents, jointly managed by all of the participants without any of them flattering themselves to appear to be the central governor" (Hagège 1987: 213). But sharing is not easy for those who believe they will be dispossessed of their rightful possession. It is not easy to admit that one is not the exclusive owner of a language whose birth and development have been played out in the country where one is born oneself. Are the French prepared for it? Are they in a position to think of their language as a more international arena than their army, that a large number of them do not wish to see themselves included in a integrated defence policy? In consenting to thinking of themselves as agents of French and not as its owners, the French would render an important service to their language. (Hagège 1987: 215) To understand this difficulty, we must briefly consider the specific relations speakers of French maintain to their language.

3. The concept of «bon usage» as a symbol of a monocentric view of French The unity of European languages, resulting from historical development and political decisions, is the object of somewhat mythical representations. As Goebl (1989: 162ff.) puts it, the question of the unity of European languages has an ideological, almost religious dimension,

French as a pluricentric language

153

which in fact goes back to Greek philosophy (Bronckart 1988: 122). Monoglossic unilingualism has indeed often been seen not only as warranty for the unity of the nation, but also for the cultural and moral salvation of its citizens. And French is not an exception to this attitude but rather a forerunner and model. Thus the former French Prime Minister Raymond Barre could state, in 1980: "The foremost of the fundamental values of our civilization is the correct usage of our language. There is a moral and civic virtue in the loyal practice of French by the young people" (see Bronckart 1988: 126). During the Middle Ages (from the ninth to the thirteenth century), various dialects spoken in the northern half of Gaul formed what is today called Old French. Of these dialects, Francien, spoken in Paris and the Ile-de-France, became dominant in the later thirteenth century, in keeping with the geographical location of Paris, its increasing commercial preponderance, its university and its political and cultural importance as the seat of the royal administration and of the law courts. As Francien developed into French, the other regional varieties decayed into dialects and patois. Paris continued to dominate throughout the Middle French period (fourteenth to sixteenth century). In the same period the important part that linguistic unity might play in the constitution of national unity was first recognized and the use of French in the south enforced by the ordinance of Villers-Cotterets (1539), which made French obligatory for all legal purposes in the Kingdom. Conscious attitudes towards language arose, the contrast between the supposed stability and well-ordered regularity of the classical languages as reflected in a closed body of written texts and the shifting and motley character of the vernacular aroused attention, and the success of the Italians in stabilizing their own tongue incited emulation (cf. Geofroi Tory, Louis Meigret, Henri Estienne). As the use of French began to spread out throughout France, regional variants emerged which aroused immediately negative attitudes in the ruling Parisian society, the diatopic variation being converted into a diastratic one. It is significant that provincialisms are condemned by almost all the sixteenth century grammarians, and for all, except Palsgrave, it is the speech of Paris that is the norm. However, this period was also characterized by the absence as yet of formalism. This changes with the beginning of the modern period of French in the seventeenth century. As von Wartburg puts it: "The seventeenth century submits the language, as everything, to a more and more rigorous discipline" (1949:180). The Remarques sur la langue française

154

Georges Liidi

by Claude Favre de Vaugelas and the founding, in 1635, of the Académie française (the French Academy) both aimed at governing and regulating the French language. Absolutism, national unity (but in a sense that differs considerably from the modern nation-state) and a purified classical language are the responding ideals of the period. The dominance of central French was reinforced in the period of the French Revolution: Barère wanted to eradicate the regional languages, the Abbé Grégoire proposed studying "the necessity and the means of wiping out the patois, and of universalizing the use of the French language", the constitution "enshrined French as the national language" (Tabouret-Keller 1986). But only as public primary education became universal and obligatory during the Third Republic (1875-1940) has French "become operational as the common yardstick and norm through which republican democracy has had to work" (Tabouret-Keller 1986). The key term of the centralistic and monoglossic linguistic ideology developed in the seventeenth century was bon usage, i.e., correct usage. Vaugelas conceived the idea that there is one unique bon usage (that of the elite: "the sanest part of the court") and many «bad usages» (those of the majority of the speakers), the concept «bad usage» including social as well as regional deviations from the norm. In other terms, the sociolect of the ruling group of the capital imposed itself as a norm on the entire nation. This ideology of the bon usage, slightly adapted to the needs of the new dominant class - what had been conceived by Vaugelas as a oral norm based on the actual usage at the same time grew into a written norm aligned on the so-called classical literature - persists in France until this day (cf. Balibar and Laporte 1974, Certeau et al. 1975, Schöni 1988). The correct usage - also called general French, common French, central French, standard French or even "legitimate variety" (Bourdieu 1982) - is still attributed to the dominant class of France and more specifically of Paris: "... the current correct usage (...) is the consent of good writers and of people who are concerned about expressing themselves well" (Grevisse 1961:

6);

"... correct usage (...) is that of the cultivated Frenchman (sic) who with neither affection nor snobbery, wants to continue to speak and write a sound and correct language far from the research of certain literary schools, but also of the working class coarseness which one often believes elegant to adopt. It is the language of those whom one would

French as a pericentric

language

155

have called in the seventeenth century the honest people, and also the best writers of prose of today who respect the traditions of neatness and of clarity in French" (Georgin 1961: 6); "[correct usage is] the speech of a certain sociocultural level of Parisian society" (Straka 1983: 64). In a very interesting book, Berrendonner (1982) has demonstrated the ideological character of bon usage and of the normative discourse which serves to convey it and links a given speaker's usage of language to his moral and civic qualities. In fact, it is extremely doubtful that this so-called "usage of Paris" corresponds to an existing sociolect. Nor does the French taught in French schools always match the norms of the bon usage. Instead, there is plenty of evidence that we are facing an illusion here, an imaginary object of an Utopian discourse. However, this phantasm belongs to the linguistic representations of most speakers of French, even of those who do not know it (Bourdieu 1982; Houdebine 1983; Lafontaine 1988, etc.). This explains the influence of the phantasmic norm that underlies most of the secular discussion about the defence of French.

4. The diversity of français régional Despite the ideal of the one and unique bon usage - an ideal reinforced rather than questioned by linguists, who have limited themselves mainly to the study of the standard variety and developed concepts like «functional language» (Coseriu) or «competence of an ideal speaker/ hearer» (Chomsky) to justify their enterprise - the French that is spoken and written in reality by its speakers throughout the world is of course quite heterogeneous. As a matter of fact, French does not escape the very nature of all living languages which is essentially variational.5 Various attempts have been made recently to describe the French speakers' variational competence by either adopting an abstract, theoretical point of view (e.g., Berrendonner et al. 1983), or proceeding in a descriptive way with the aim of describing the architecture of the French language within the diastratic (social variation), diachronic (historical variation), diaphasic (stylistic variation) and diatopic (geographic variation) dimension (e.g., Müller 1975).

156

Georges Liidi

In this line of research, the concept of français régional ('regional French') was developed to describe those topolects which are not a result of the linguistic fragmentation of Gaul in the early Middle Ages (fragmentation which led to three galloroman 'language types': French, Occitan and Franco-provençal, each divided into numerous dialects) but must be conceived as varieties ('regiolects') of Modern French. 6 Schematically, this distinction can be shown in the following way (cf. the graphs of Wolf 1975: 8 and 15 based on theoretical concepts developed in Heger [1969] 1976): Late Latin in Gaul

Occitan language Franco-Provençal type language type

French language type

Francian French language

I

français commun sociolects regiolects chronolects styles

Figure 1. As we have already pointed out, provincialisms - be they intrinsic, i.e., a result of the local linguistic evolution (e.g., survivals of dialectal words), 7 or extrinsic, e.g., loans from neighbouring languages in border regions - were censured in normative discourse from the sixteenth century on throughout the Modern French period because they were not part of the bon usage. This attitude was progressively extended to regions outside France according to the monocentric ideology presented above.

French as a pluricentric language

157

Until very recently, the notion of français régional is therefore a "negative" one, defined either as the sum of geolinguistic variants of French (Tuaillon 1977: 8) or as the set of linguistic properties which characterize the French of a specific place or region (Tuaillon 1983a: 19), inside or outside France. The usual standard of comparison is the above mentioned bon usage, as it is described by dictionaries and grammars: "The regionalisms are therefore to be identified at first (...) in comparison with general usage, with «correct usage»" (Straka 1983: 38), in comparison with which the regional French is characterized by a lesser prestige (Wolf 1975: 15; see also Tuaillon 1977: 10; Piron 1979: 47; Wolf 1983: 21; Valdman 1983: 679ff.; Boulanger 1985:137 and Poirier 1987:143 ff. for a comprehensive discussion). This comparison basis holds not only for presentations written with a normative aim, but can also be found in non judgmental descriptive studies (Racelle-Latin 1983: XLIII; Poirier 1983: 47; Rézeau 1984: 9; Depecker 1988; etc.). An increasing number of case studies document the amount of diatopic variation of French throughout the world, sometimes still with a normative view, but more and more frequently with a purely descriptive aim. Here are just some examples: 1. France. Against the background of a common disregard for non-standard usages in France, studies of regional varieties have long been undertaken with the methodology of traditional dialectology on the speech of rural areas (e.g., Taverdet and Straka eds. 1977 on the French spoken in winegrowers' villages). One of the first to have investigated regional variants of standard French was André Martinet in his famous study on the pronunciation of contemporary French (Martinet 1945). The survey by Henriette Walter (1982) confirmed the diversity of the various regional phonological systems with regard to vowel length, diphthongization, degree of openness of vowels, number of nasal vowels, etc. Recently, new and fascinating research work has been devoted to regional variation as documented in the extensive bibliography compiled by Rézeau (1986). A large part of this work deals with lexical particularities of different regions like Alsace (Wolf 1983), Languedoc (Achard 1983), the West (Aunis, Poitou, Saintonge) (Rézeau 1984), etc. Other studies show regional differences in intonation (e.g., Carton et al. 1983) and grammar (Tuaillon 1983b, Jadin 1985).

158

Georges

Liidi

2. Belgium. The French of Belgium has been the object of close study (see especially Baetens Beardsmore 1971, Pohl 1979 and Piron 1979 with further bibliographical indications). Its phonetic originality, resulting mostly from the underlying Walloon dialect, consists mainly in the merger of y and w (lui lwi, nuit nwi), the maintenance of vowel length {pigeon pi:3?, détour de:tu:R), the transformation of -1 in 1 + j {tailleur taljœ:R), the devoicing of voiced consonants in final position {mariage maRja:J) (Piron 1979: 206). Among the syntactic specificities we find compounds with avoir {avoir facile, difficile, dur, etc.; for details see Baetens Beardsmore 1971: 225-227), pour in the interrogative formula {Qu'est-ce que c'est pour un homme?), insertion of que 'explétif' {il est assez puissant que pour agir seul), etc. (Piron 1979: 208). But, as expected, the lexical properties are the most salient. Piron (1973) lists 243 belgicisms, i.e., words that are characteristic of Belgian French (even if they may be used outside Belgium), among them archaisms {septante, nonante '70, 90', légumier 'greengrocer'), neologisms {navetteur 'commuter', pistolet 'little bread'), dialectalisms {gosette 'kind of flaky fruit pastry') and loans f r o m neighbouring languages {blinquer 'to shine'). 3. Quebec. According to Gagné (1979: 43) there are two main French varieties in Canada: the "Acadian" (Poirier 1953, Massignon 1962) and - with many more speakers and better described - the French of Quebec, which is frequently identified with the "national" variety of Canada. Many studies have focused on the important number of canadianisms or quebecisms (often not distinguished), i.e., words exclusively used in Canada {auteure 'female author', magasiner 'to shop', chaise capitaine 'captain's chair', char 'car', constable 'police officer', péquiste 'member of the Parti Québécois', etc.). Comparing the relative differences to the French of France, Pierre Rézeau recently claimed the legitimacy of the term Québécois: "the French of Quebec is a surprising burgeoning if one compares it with centralised French and (...) it is quite legitimate to call it Quebec French or the Québécois, whereas it would be incongruous to speak of Belgian or of Swiss for example" (1987: 201). Various dictionaries, published or projected, help one to understand the Canadian French vocabulary (Seutin and Clas and Brunet 1979-1982, Dubuc and Boulanger 1983, DFQ 1985). An interesting study by Martel (1987) has shown that there is also an important set of words (argot, terms naming French institutions, anglicisms in d i f f e r e n t languages for special

French as a pluricentric language

159

purposes, etc.) which are totally or almost absent from the Canadian use (frangine 'sister', droguerie 'chemist's shop', slip, etc.). Moreover, he identifies two categories called canadianisms and francisms «by frequency», i.e., where there are significant differences in the frequency of certain often used words in France and in Quebec (see already Hausmann 1982: 195). As far as Canadian pronunciation is concerned, Gendron (1966) is still the classic survey. Juneau (1987) has shown that many phonetic specificities are of Gallo-roman dialectal origin and that the influence of English is almost négligeable. A phonetic study of the Franco-québécois spoken in the mass media showed slight differences to the French of France mainly in the vocalism (the closed vowels are less closed, [φ] and [a] are better distinguished, the oppositions [e] vs. [ε], [œ] vs. [£] and [3] vs. [a] better maintained, the nasal vowels clearer, the «a postérieur» is darker), but also in other domains (singing intonation, light shifting of the rhythmic accent, light assibilation of the consonants) (Rochette and Bédard 1984: 76; see also Gagné 1979: 43 ff. for a short overview). 4. Switzerland. According to the well-informed presentation in Knecht and Rubattel (1984), the French of Suisse romande is phonologically characterized by its archaism in comparison with the norm of Paris (22 consonants, 16 vowels, including the oppositions [de] vs. [2] and [o] vs. [o] in final position). Syntactically, there are few helvetisms like the preverbal position of personne and ça (j'ai personne vu, on peut ça faire) and the "overcomposed" forms of the past (il a eu vite fini, quand il s'est eu retrouvé seul...). On the contrary, the lexical originality of Swiss French is salient in numerous domains: French words used with a non-standard meaning (syndic 'mayor'), words unknown in France for typical Swiss institutions (votation 'plebiscite', Conseiller fédéral 'minister'), words of dialectal, Franco-provençal origin (déguiller 'fall down'), etc. In addition to helvetisms, many regionalisms are typical of more restricted regions inside Switzerland only. Finally, the most significant differences between Swiss French and the standard variety can be observed on the phonetic level and concern particularly the intonation (resistance to accentuating the last syllable of a syntagm, i.e., the oxytony, by exploiting all means of stressing other syllables without the same stylistic nuances as in standard French) and the rhythm and fluency of speech (absence of an 'allegro' style).

160

Georges

Liidi

5. Africa Inappropriately, the French of Black Africa is often confused with «petitfrançais» spoken as vehicular language by large parts of the illiterate population and characterized by far-reaching simplification and code mixing (Manessy 1979: 341, Makouta-Mboukou 1973: 73s. ). From the fifties on, however, a growing number of inquiries has revealed "... a set of fairly dispersed, relatively stable traits endowed with a high frequency" which cannot be attributed to an approximative competence, but characterizes the speech of competent educated speakers and reveals the emergence of regional norms responding to communicative and expressive needs which were not satisfied by standard French (Bal 1983: XX, with further bibliographical information). It should be said that even if most Africans are not native speakers of French, their competence and frequency of use give them all the attributes of forming Frenchspeaking language communities. As is the case for other parts of Francophonie, the regional peculiarities are mostly of a phonological and lexical nature. According to Duponchel (1975), a rolled [r] (instead of French [R]) is for example a typical trait of the French of the Ivory Coast. To this we may add a lot of lexical changes because of the local cultural situation and of languages in contact. In fact, a large amount of work has been devoted to French lexicography in Africa, first on a single-country-basis (e.g., Duponchel 1975 for the Ivory Coast and Lafage 1975 for Togo and Benin), since the late seventies at a more global, panafrican level coordinated by Danièle Racelle-Latin with, as the first important result, a common "inventory" (Equipe IFA 1983), which lists around 3000 neologisms, semantic shifts, differences in the grammatical construction or the stylistic connotation of a word, etc. The results manifest the existence of a graduation between terms of local range (e.g., fourche à sacrifice, a ceremonial term limited to the Southern Chad), terms restricted to one country (e.g., the loan from Arab beïdanelbidane 'white Moor', used only in Senegal) and internationalisms (e.g., the loan from Lingala biloko 'object, thing' attested in the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Chad and Zaire) which would deserve closer attention.

French as a pluricentric

language

161

5. A new conception of regional varieties conceived as communicative tools in their own right More recently, the reductionist conception of français régional underlying most of these studies has been criticized (Pohl 1979: 15; Straka 1983: 36; Corbeil [1984] 1986: 117; Poirier 1987: 151) on the basis of two main arguments: • the term "regional" is too imprecise because of the ambiguity of the term "region" (Brussels, but also Wallonia and Belgium!); • one should rather look for a notion comprising the extent of the means used in a specific region, standard variants included (cf. Wolf 1972: 171; DFQ 1985: XII) and speak, for instance, of 'regional variety'. In line with Piron (1984), Hausmann (1985) and others, Poirier (1987) has therefore proposed conceiving topolects as complete linguistic systems, distinguishing between national varieties (the French of France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada) and regional ones (the regiolects of Normandy, Alsace, the canton of Neuchâtel, etc.), using the term "regionalisms" for specific properties of one or the other variety and speaking of "helvetisms", "quebecisms", "francisms" etc. for naming expressions used - mostly, but not only for institutional reasons ("statalisms") - in the limits of either state. More than a mere change of labels, this conception reflects a new attitude towards regional variation of French, an attitude which calls into question the absolute domination of the illusionary unique bon usage and grants non-central varieties of French the same respect as the usage of France and Paris. This movement goes back at least to Marcel Paquot, who was, in the 1930s, one of the first to investigate the regional varieties as autonomous systems in their own right as completely as possible without privileging the comparison with the French of Paris (Pohl 1979: 44). "We will not lose sight of the fact that the Parisian conglomeration is a «region» among others, and that the French spoken by intellectuals there is a «regional variety» of French", says Pohl (1979: 16) still believing, however, that the French of Paris is the nearest one to "general French". This new attitude would not have so much importance, namely in the light of a pluricentristic view of language, were it not accompanied by a set of sociolinguistic phenomena which indicate that it is not a mere matter of a linguist's etic view, but is part of the emic representation of the French language by the community itself.

162

Georges

Liidi

According to Bronckart (1988: 110s.), there are three types of assessments, valuations and ratings formulated by speakers with respect to certain linguistic markers (= "norms"): norms based on an authority or institution, norms originating from intellectual or economic elites and norms operating in any social group. This tripartition gives us a very useful grid for our purpose. Indeed we can group our observations into three types. • At a first level, we observe that speakers of non-central geographic areas inside and outside France attach values to certain speech markers which manifest their "regional" identity, i.e. their membership of a regional group. This may very well go along with an inferiority complex towards the speakers of the central variety (Knecht and Rubattel 1984: 147). We may explain this phenomenon by a competition between the prestige of standard French and "hidden values" or a "covert prestige" of the topolect (Labov 1972). The use of a regional pronunciation of the type described in section 4 must thus be seen as an "act of identity" as defined by Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985. • At a second level, certain regional markers are taken up by members of those social groups who are viewed as being the "possessors" of linguistic norms like journalists, writers, teachers etc. This has not only a multiplying effect, e.g. when teachers accept or even propose regionalisms in their classes, but also converts the covert prestige into a more overt one. However, this prestige depends heavily on fashions and may be subject to rapid changes. • Finally, regional markers are taken up on a institutional level by norm-setting authorities, e.g. by selecting a local standard variety as pedagogical norm or by publishing dictionaries and grammars that include or even privilege regionalisms. This is the point where the political status of a geographic area gains importance. Acts of identity are as frequent in Marseille or Quimper as in Neuchâtel or Montréal. Even the multiplication of regional markers by local elites may be independent of the political structure. But as soon as decisions on educational policy, financing of lexicographic work, participation in worldwide terminological work, etc. are involved, the regions of France are almost automatically excluded. As Alain Rey puts it, functional dictionaries are imaginable for the French of Belgium, of the Suisse romande and of Québec, but not for the South of France (Rey 1988a: 75). However, this example also shows that norm-setting of the third kind is neither a matter of dimensions (compare the French part of Switzerland with the Languedoc) nor of national sovereignty (neither of

French as a pericentric language

163

the three areas are sovereign nation-states), but depends on the existence of political, educational and institutional autonomy as it is - partly realized for the French-speaking parts of Canada, Belgium and Switzerland. In this sense - but only in this sense - , the actual political system in France excludes the integration of regional varieties inside France in a pluricentric conception of French. Depending on the political will of the population, but also on demographic, economic factors and, last but not least, on the geographic and linguistic distance from France, the evolution towards pluricentricity has developed more or less far in different parts of the Frenchspeaking world: 1. The case of Quebec For historical reasons - geographical distance, two centuries of isolation, the extended contact with English - the French spoken in Quebec presented the greatest differences with centralized French. Attitudinal tests ("matched guise") administered in the sixties to French-speaking Québécois as well as interviews showed a negative rating of Quebec French in comparison with European French (see Gagné 1979: 49s. for a discussion and bibliographical details). From 1961 on, linguistic laws were promulgated in order to correct and enrich the French language, to protect the French-speaking consumers and more generally to promote the use of French. Since 1977 (law 101: Charte de la langue française) the terminological "normalization" constitutes one of the central duties of this legislative work with the aim of elaborating a coherent and dominant language model ("norm") for oral and written use in Quebec (Gendron 1987: 354). In 1965 and 1969, the Office de la langue française still proposed a norm almost exclusively oriented towards general French, a norm that admitted only a very slight phonetic variation and a restricted number of 62 lexical canadianisms. Since 1955, Roch Valin has strongly argued in favour of a Canadian norm "as close as possible to the one which governs across teaching and literature, the evolution of French across the Atlantic" (1983: 792). In 1979, Gagné could still write (1979: 50): "Quebec French constitutes a linguistic variety doubly «submerged»: by standard French at the linguistic and by English at the social, economic and political levels." During the past years, however, things have changed. More and more, the institutionalization and legal endorsement of French monolingualism, the opening towards the «Francophonie» and the language amendment

164

Georges Liidi

(notably in the field of terminology) are accompanied by the awareness of a French-Canadian linguistic identity. For example, the French spoken in the mass-media (radio, TV) in Quebec has been standardized to a large degree, seeking a maximal effectiveness, but giving the public the opportunity to identify itself with this variety: "It was not Parisian French, but a French really from here, simply refined from the local elements which risk hampering communication" (Bédard 1984: 16). This is particularly visible in the lexical domain (Gendron 1987: 359). Dictionaries are published which consider the French language in the perspective of a Canadian speaker and do not hesitate to qualify a term used in France but not in Canada as "francism" thus inverting the usual French practice qualifying regionalisms as "canadianisms", "helvetisms", etc. On the other hand, a local standard variety has finally been selected as a pedagogical norm (Gagné 1983: 499 and Note 7)). "So, from the unconditional alignment to the common language (...), we have passed to an increasing linguistic autonomy with the evolution of the spirits and under the necessity of creating an institutional language" (Gendron 1987: 359). 2. The case of Switzerland A marginal part of the linguistic area of metropolitan French, but belonging politically to Switzerland whose major language is German, the Suisse romande in fact has a status that favours the awareness of its specificities and their maintenance (Jolivet 1984: 137). In some parts of the Romandie (namely Geneva and Neuchâtel), a regional accent carries quite a high social prestige; even teachers of French tend towards manifesting their identity by maintaining a number of phonetic and lexical characteristics that identify their speech as Romand and not French of France (Knecht and Rubattel 1984: 144s.; see Bayard and Jolivet 1984 for slightly different results for the canton of Vaud). Thus, regionalisms play a similar role to the Swiss German dialects as markers of a distinctive national or regional identity. However, this use has not led to any attempt to standardize a Swiss French codified norm even if the facts are unequivocal on the level of the usage, including that of the local elites. The admission of several hundred helvetisms in the current French dictionaries (namely the Petit Larousse) compensates satisfactorily for the lack of a project for a functional dictionary. Curiously, the newly adopted manual Maîtrise du française for teaching French as a mother tongue is strongly engaged in favour of

French as a pericentric

language

165

diversity of the linguistic repertoire, but accepts the necessity of a "central" standard variety without even asking the question of the feasibility of Swiss norms. 3. The case of Belgium. In a fascinating case study, Lafontaine (1988) investigated the normative attitudes of a significant sample of teachers and supervisors at different levels of the Belgian school system. Almost half of his informants accepted the statement that belgicisms are juicy and should not be suffocated; a third of them themselves manifested a heavy regional accent. Generally, social markers were accepted less than regional markers. However, primary school teachers were significantly more tolerant towards regionalisms than their colleagues at higher school levels who follow a different and longer training. If the results of Lafontaine's inquiry (by questionnaire and interviews) reflect, at least partly, the normative behaviour of his informants in their teaching practice, we can assume that the Belgian school system does not transmit one homogeneous standard variety, but that the officially imposed general French standard is, in fact, introduced in two steps: the second step, which suppresses the regional markers affects only the pupils who go to high school; in a first step, which affects the whole population (primary school), social markers are suppressed, but regional markers tolerated. If one thinks of the prestige conferred on a variety by its being confirmed or imposed by the school system (Corbeil 1983: 289), this gives the Belgian "national variety" quite an important weight. 4. The case of Africa One could expect a different ideology in Africa where French is learnt as a second language and where the subsequent feeling of insecurity presumably leads to hypercorrection more than to deviations from the norm (Manessy 1979: 346). Already in 1973, however, MakoutaMboukou urged Africans not to be passive consumers of a language foreign to them, but to reshape ("recréer") French in order to adapt it to their way of life and of thinking (1973: 165). According to this claim, taken up again by Valdman (1983: 679), the right to differ from the international norm forms part of the cultural identity of every part of the Francophonie. Consequently, the inventory of lexical particularities of African French mentioned before was from the beginning conceived as a necessary step in the direction of lexical norms that would accommodate better to the natural, sociocultural and linguistic realities of the African countries.

166

Georges Liidi

6. Multiple norms as a threat to the unity of Modern French? French has always been subject to an important amount of "interventionism". In 1985, when addressing the 2nd International meeting on the application of linguistic legislation in French-speaking countries ( "2e Rencontre internationale sur 1' application des législations linguistiques dans les pays francophones") in Brussels, Philippe de Saint Robert, the (French) Commissaire général de la langue française, still argued strongly in favour of a significant amount of intervention in the line of a French tradition, going back to Malherbe and Richelieu, which "has succeeded in maintaining (...) the unity and the syntactic rigour of our language, guarantees of a mutual comprehension between the Francophone communities and of a relatively rational evolution") Saint Robert 1986: 160). This argumentation raises two questions. The first one is beyond our topic and concerns the so-called syntactic rigour of French (see Berrendonner 1982 for a comprehensive analysis of the linguistic arguments in the discussion about the correct usage). The second question refers to the goals of standardization. Despite the usual terminological pluralism (cf. Fodor and Hagège 1983, Haugen 1983, Daoust and Maurais 1987, Sociolinguistica 2, 1988) there is sufficient consensus about the definition of the concept 'standardization', which includes: • on the linguistic level ('corpus planning' according to Haugen 1983: 275): the elaboration (the modernization of the terminology; the increase of the stylistic means) and regulation (the selection of certain phonological, orthographical, syntactic and lexical variants to be included in the prescriptive norm) of a standard variety; • on the social level ("status planning"): the choice (the selection of a variety, the setting of social norms) and emancipation (the creation of socio-communicative conditions allowing the speaker to identify without conflict with a variety; the enlargement of the domains of use and the improvement of the prestige) of a standard variety. With respect to French, several aspects are nowadays subject to language planning. In Quebec, the emancipation of French as the national language has always been the central goal. A second aim has been the defence of French against the imaginary or real threat of anglicisms. In this respect, the Canadians clearly are more uncompromising than the Europeans and even the French. More generally, standardization processes are intended to maintain the coherence of the French language.

French as a pluricentric

language

167

As Philippe de Saint Robert puts it: "even a language which is widely spread in the world needs to defend itself; it requires attention to be paid to its coherence and wealth." As a negative example, he adduces the case of English, "because if the English tool is not defended better, it will gradually lose its unity, while that which is acknowledged as the language of Shakespeare, will be incomprehensible to an American teacher" (1986: 159). The final goal consists in maintaining and developing the role of French as an international vehicular language. In these processes, a certain confusion may sometimes exist between different dimensions of standardization. Thus, the term 'technological normalization" (used for example by Bédard and Maurais 1983: 436) combines two factors which are not necessarily linked, i.e., the creation of new terms for new denominative needs and the selection of one of several newly coined terms - and in many cases even the creation of a new term as substitute for a banished, but frequently used variant - in order to unify the terminology and protect the language. This confusion may be due to the fact that "standard language" is used as a synonym for "national language" and "official language" (Bédard and Maurais 1983: 435). In the debate about French, there is consensus about the general principle of intervention by governmental and non-governmental bodies. The important points of discussion concern the optimal degree of intervention and of international collaboration within this task, principally with respect to two sets of questions. (1) How democratic can and should norms be, in other words how far should the real usage of the population be respected, to what extent should the official, prescriptive norm correspond to the objective, social norms of the speakers? These questions arise particularly in relation to the - rarely denied elitist nature of French norms.8 However, as Lafontaine (1988) puts it, the existence of a set of "authorized" judgements on linguistic variants does not determine completely either the linguistic behaviour or the linguistic judgements of the individual. Not only does he still keep a margin of freedom; we have seen that his acts of identity can and do entail changes in norm-setting. In fact, linguistic norm-setting cannot be separated from other decision-taking processes in a society and is subjected to the play of political forces. Standardization must thus be conceived as an integrating part of the social organization (Corbeil 1983: 301).

168

Georges

Liidi

(2) This claim is also true for the second set of questions: How pericentric can and should standardization be, in other terms how far should the intervening bodies in different parts of the French-speaking world coordinate their work or even seek absolute uniformity? Is it true that there may be quite a lot of variation within spoken French, whereas one unique norm remains the ideal for the written usage (Gagné 1983: 497)? Can and/or should a common written standard variety guarantee the unity of the language and counterbalance the importance of the diatopic variation in the dimension of spoken language (which is given a high priority indeed through a pedagogical réévaluation of oral competence)? One immediately notes possible contradictions e.g., between, on the one hand, the necessity of socio-communicative emancipation of a variety of Canadian French or of varieties of African French corresponding to real communicative needs of its speakers so that they can confidently identify with it and, on the other hand, the determination of maintaining (at all costs?) the unity of written French. Be this possible at the level of grammar, the lexicon can evidently not be neatly separated into a written and oral code! This brings us back to the communicative functions of standard varieties. • According to Bédard and Maurais these are: to be a symbol of the unity and of the specificity of a language community, to bestow prestige on its speakers, to allow distinguishing good and bad usage and to give its speakers access to modern cultural and scientific life. As Bourdieu (1982) puts it, the unification of the society entails the unification of the "linguistic market" and thus the elaboration of a "legitimate" standard variety. By these criteria, Francophonie is doubtless too heterogeneous to form one language community or a unified society. • Another line of research emphasizes two functions of standardization processes: the ones of stabilizing the system and of guaranteeing understanding throughout the language community (cf. Gagné 1983: 469ff.). Bronckart (1988: 17) speaks of a kind of banister ("gardefou") to prevent accidents. At the same time, he insists, however, on the social and linguistic necessity of language diversity. In an interesting article, Corbeil (1987) compares the standardization of many languages and concludes that there is a general movement from lack of stability through to death by immobility. According to this hypothesis, French, often quoted as the best example of normative

French as a pluricentric language

169

centralization, has gone and is still going through four phases: lack of a stable norm in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, progressive stabilization f r o m the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, temptation of immobilization in the twentieth century and a renascent discussion about norms in the framework of the present reappraisal of regional varieties (Corbeil 1987: 563). According to this line of argumentation, a certain amount of variation - which may entail pluricentricity - would save French from sclerosis. The question whether standardization is contradictory to the coexistence of multiple norms, whether there are theoretical or practical reasons that require every language to have one unique standard variety is a more theoretical one. According to Heger a language - opposed to a dialect on the one hand, to a language type on the other hand - is a diasystem between dialect and language type which is characterized by the existence of one norm: "If a given diasystem in the 'speech community' has a number of fixed norms, there is an error of 'linguistic consciousness' insofar as diasystems that are closely related, which correspond to more or less fixed norms, are regarded as a single diasystem" ([1969] 1976: 225). According to this view - and with respect to the will of Quebec to codify norms at a "regional" level (Bédard and Maurais 1983) - one could argue in favour of the hypothesis that Modern French is not a language any more, but a language type. Thus, complementary to the French of France, the Québécois (and in a lesser degree the Frenches of Africa, Swiss French, etc.) would constitute languages in their own right. This seems to be the most recent position of Wolf (Wolf 1987: 11). In flagrant contradiction to this opinion is the very strong feeling of French speaking countries throughout the world that they are part of the same large francophone community. Heger himself speaks of one language even in the much more pluricentric case of English, "... whose existence as a language (with an extremely high-ranking and thus very abstract diasystem) hardly any one would call into question. It would be in insuperable task however to describe a single standard form of it" (1986: 227). In conclusion one can say that multiple norms are not and cannot be a threat for the language of a group which shows such a strong language awareness as the French-speaking one, but constitute rather a chance for the future of French.

170

Georges Liidi

7. In quest of a new equilibrium between coherence and pluricentricity The position of French as a world language is indeed an unstable one being affected by the revival of regional languages in France, by the coexistence with other national languages in multilingual countries (e.g., Belgium and Switzerland) and by the keen competition by other international languages (mainly English and Arabic) where it is taught as L2. The usual answer to this situation consists in growing language planning. As Stélio Farandjis, secretary general of the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie, put it: We do not think the languages can survive without intervention, without organization, without planning (...). Language planning is just as essential to make the French language survive in maintaining its genius and in constantly enriching it, as it is for maintaining the coexistence, the good linguistic housekeeping. (Haut Conseil de la Francophonie 1989: 37) In view of the fact that, dominated as they are, the speakers of French must stick together, and that France is evidently no longer willing (or able) to impose its norm, the logical issue lies in international collaboration and negotiation: "[As far as language planning is concerned], international collaboration supported by national policies which are occasioning legislative texts is essential to achieve valuable results" (Chicoine 1986: 37) The national and international institutions which participate in this work are numerous from the very important Agency of Cultural and Technical Cooperation (international, regrouping most countries of the Francophonie at a high governmental level), the Haut Conseil de la Francophonie (international, but chaired by the President of France), the International Association of Parliamentarians of the French Language and the International Council of the French Language (CILF), the International Network for Neology and Terminology (the Réseau International de Néologie et de Terminologie, created, following a Canadian initiative, for coordinating the work of the national terminological offices) and the Association of Partially or Entirely French-speaking Universities (AUPELF) to national and regional organizations like the French Academy, the Office of the French Language in Quebec and the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (see Bostock 1986 for an exhaustive presentation of all these institutions).

French as a pluricentric

language

171

The task of these decision-making bodies is not easy. They must find the difficult equilibrium between sufficiently precise normalization and sufficient acceptance by their national and regional communities (Heger 1989: 226). The future will show whether an international standardization of French will continue to be operational, how much place the defence of French will occupy in these processes, how variational the proposed norms will be - and whether these norms will be accepted by populations which are, on the one hand, more and more refractory to centralism and dirigism in other aspects of their lives, whose normativeness seems to be, on the other hand, sensibly higher than that of speakers of other world languages. Will they transfer their normative attitudes to newly developed national varieties? How will norms then be negotiated in international situations (e.g. in supranational TV-channels)? Will a "supralectal" norm develop for contact situations? Or will there be a loss of normativeness (and should this fact be positively or negatively rated)? The famous French lexicographer and linguist Alain Rey is probably right in his claim that "there can, (...) there must be several appropriate ways of using the common language, several norms, several correct usages of French" (Rey 1988b: 4). Will "the feeling of an enrichment, an adventure, a stimulation be stronger than the apprehension of an exuberant growth and a resulting danger for the glorious unity of an imaginary French" as he is hoping (Rey 1988b: 4s.)? It will be a fascinating task of future research to explain (if not to predict) the solutions that will be chosen on the base of a theoretical framework that will have to confer an important weight to the individual speaker and to the way he makes use of linguistic marks to position himself in his group and towards other groups (cf. Le Page and TabouretKeller 1985) in the framework of a sociolinguistic theory based on social networks (Milroy 1980).

Notes 1. I am extremely grateful Robert Le Page, Andrée and insightful comments are my translations from

to Michael Clyne, Monica Heller, John Humbley, Tabouret-Keller and Richard Watts for their critical during the preparation of this paper. The quotations the original.

172

Georges Liidi

2. The case of triglossic Luxemburg is quite special and situates this country between category 1 and 2. Legally, Letzeburgesch (Luxembourgian), French and German are, since 1984, equally valid for all official purposes. According to a survey on the linguistic customs and needs in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg carried out in 1983 quoted by Lebrun 1989, Letzeburgesch is the first language of 75.2% of the population and mostly used for oral exchanges in private life (71%). But a trilingual educational programme as a response to the requirements of a multilingual environment promotes vigorously German and French. If Letzeburgesch is used in nursery schools and in the first years of primary education, it is then progressively replaced by German and French. Thus, French is taught in primary school from the second semester of grade 2 onwards; in secondary schools, French serves even as the language of instruction, first for mathematics, from grade 4 onwards for all subjects except German language and literature. This makes it possible that, at work, French is the predominant language as a whole; its first place is undisputed in written communication; in oral communication, 58.9% of the persons surveyed use French (compared with 74% who use Letzeburgesch). Its massive presence in the daily environment and active usage by a very large part of the population (for more details see Lebrun 1989) confers French a status that is, in many respects, comparable to that of a first language. 3. In the latter case, the number of speakers of French has usually dropped in the last decades (e.g. in the Channel Islands or in the United States) and their inclusion in the first circle of Francophonie by all current sources may be influenced by ideological positions. 4. The list of the countries belonging to the last group is open and often heterogeneous. Léger (1987) adds Laos, Vietnam, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Santa Lucia and Domenica by virtue of their participation in the Agency of Cultural and Technical Cooperation (Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique). As a starting point for his fascinating book on the lexical diversity of Francophonie, Depecker (1988: 8) thus considers as part of Francophonie every state "which explicitly adhers to it" whatever this may mean. 5. It is true that the degree of diversity probably varies from one language to another. As John Humbley puts it (private communication), French could represent, in this respect, an intermediate case between more variational (Arabic, German) and less variational (Polish) languages. 6. Following the tradition in Romance linguistics, 'dialect' is used here with the limited meaning of 'topolect resulting from the fragmentation of the Romania during the first millenium A.D.' 7. In the rural areas, the patois are spoken far beyond the revolutionary period and disappear only under the pressure of the school reform by Jules Ferry. 8. See however the discussion on the elaboration, by the French school system of the 19th century, of an "elementary French" which should be accessible to all pupils at primary school level (Balibar and Laporte 1974, Schöni 1988).

French as a pericentric

language

173

References Achard, Claude 1983 Anthologie des expressions du Languedoc. Marseille: Ed. Rivages. Baetens Beardsmore, Hugo 1971 Le français régional de Bruxelles. Bruxelles: Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles. Bal, Willy 1977 "Unité et diversité de la langue française", in: Reboullet, André and Tétu, Michel (eds.): Guide culturel. Civilisations et littératures d'expression française. Paris: Hachette, 5-28. 1983 "Genèse et travaux de base", in: Equipe IFA 1983, xv-xxxv. Balibar, Renée - Dominique Laporte 1974 Le français national. Paris: Hachette. Bayard, Catherine - Rémy Jolivet 1984 "Les Vaudois devant la norme", Le Français moderne 52, 151-158. Bédard, Edith 1984 "Avant-propos", in: Rochette, Claude et al.: La langue des animateurs de la radio et de la télévision francophones au Québec - une analyse phonétique, un sondage d'opinion. Québec: Editeur officiel du Québec (= Dossiers du Conseil de la langue française, 20), 9-20. Bédard, Edith - Jacques Maurais (eds.) 1983 La norme linguistique. Québec: Conseil de la langue française. Bengtsson, Sverker 1968 La défense organisée de la langue française. Etude sur l'activité de quelques organismes qui depuis 1937 ont pris pour tâche de veiller à la correction et à la pureté de la langue française. Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells. Berrendonner, Alain - Le Guern, Michel - Gilbert Puech 1983 Principes de grammaire polyledale. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Berrendonner, Alain 1982 L'éternel grammairien. Etude du discours normatif. Bern/Frankfurt: Lang. Boulanger, Jean-Claude 1985 "A propos du concept de régionalisme", in: Lexique 3, 125-146. Bourdieu, Pierre 1982 Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard. Bostock, William W. 1986 Francophonie. Organisation, co-ordination, evaluation. Melbourne: River Seine Publications. Bronckart, Jean-Paul 1988 "Fonctionnement langagier et entreprises normatives", in: Schöni et al., 109-132. Carton, Fernand et al. 1983 Les accents des Français. Paris: Hachette.

174

Georges Liidi

Certeau, Michel de - Dominique Julia - Jacques Revel 1975 Une politique de la langue. Paris: Gallimard. Chaudenson, Robert 1989 1989. Vers une révolution francophone? Paris: L'Harmattan. Chicoine, Lise 1986 "Le dommage linguistique et la Charte de la langue française", in: L'avenir de la langue française. 2ème Rencontre internationale sur l'application des législations linguistiques dans les pays francophones. 7-8 juin 1985, Bruxelles. Paris: La Documentation française, 29-37. Corbeil, Jean-Claude [1984] "Le

£

s α

α

ε o

Its»

a

s

«

cu -Vi

• S

cu £

§

Cu

S ¡3

tu

s

.κ -5

s

s

S

ε

C «

?CU

I - S « S , « ,

>2

00

s

£

>2 ì 00

CU

Ì

Ν Ν

-s:

«υ

I

"a a «so ί

è

tu

^

?

è

«Sì,

Κ O o

κ o o

ûo

Oo