Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache
Encyclopedia
The Ausbausprache – Abstandsprache – Dachsprache (ˈaʊsbaʊˌʃpʁaːxə] - [ˈapʃtantˌʃpʁaːxə] - [ˈdaxˌʃpʁaːxə) framework is a tool developed by sociolinguists
for analysing and categorising the status of language varieties
along the cline between autonomous language
s on the one hand and dialect
s on the other. The terms were coined by Heinz Kloss
(1967). They are designed to capture the idea that there are two separate and largely independent sets of criteria and arguments for calling a variety an independent "language" rather than a "dialect": the one based on its social functions, and the other based on its objective structural properties.
describes it as "language by development", Abstandsprache as 'distance language' and Dachsprache as 'umbrella language' (literally: 'roof language'). The terms are often rendered with the qualifier untranslated in English, as ausbau language and abstand language.
, between Filipino
and Cebuano
and between Mandarin and Cantonese as well as Shanghainese
.
, Swedish
and Norwegian
, which are mutually intelligible to a large degree but nevertheless constitute three separate languages on criteria of ausbau. The concept of ausbau is particularly important in cases where the local spoken varieties across a larger region form a dialect continuum. In such cases, the question of where the one language ends and the other starts is often a question more of ausbau than of abstand. For instance, the Low German
dialects of Dutch
and German
on some sides of the Dutch-German border are similar, with both languages merging to some degree; nevertheless, on the level of the ausbau standard languages Dutch and German clearly constitute two separate languages. In some instances, ausbau languages have been created out of dialects for purposes of nation building. This applies for instance to Luxembourgish
vis-a-vis German. Other examples of ausbau languages are Persian
of Iran and Afghanistan (cf. Dari
), Serbian
and Croatian
, Bulgarian
and Macedonian
, Malaysian
and Indonesian
and to some extent Hindi and Urdu, Tamil
and Malayalam
.
form that serves as standard language
for different dialect
s, mostly in a dialect continuum
, even though these dialects may be so different that mutual intelligibility is not possible on the basilectal level between all dialects, particularly those separated by significant geographical distance. In 1982, "Rumantsch Grischun" was developed by Heinrich Schmid
as such a Dachsprache for a number of quite different Romansh language forms spoken in parts of Switzerland
. Similarly, Euskara Batua
(Standard Basque) and the Southern Quechua
literary standard were both developed as standard languages for dialect continua that had historically been thought of as discrete languages with many dialects and no "official" dialect. Standard German
and standard Italian
to some extent function in the same way. Perhaps the most widely used Dachsprache is Modern Standard Arabic, which links together the speakers of many different, often mutually unintelligible varieties of Arabic
.
Kloss has also used the term pseudo-dialectized abstand language for cases where a variety is so different from its Dachsprache that it ought to be regarded as a separate language on abstand grounds, but is nevertheless treated more like a dialect in social practice. Examples include Low German
vis-à-vis (High) German
, Sardinian
vis-à-vis Italian
, Occitan vis-à-vis French
, Gheg Albanian
vis-à-vis (Tosk) Albanian
, Cantonese vis-à-vis Mandarin, Cebuano
vis-à-vis Filipino
or Maithili
vis-à-vis Hindi.
for instance was both ausbau language and dachsprache of a few thousand local dialects in the Netherlands, in North, Central, and former eastern territories of Germany and in parts of the Baltic states and their former German (today Russian) vicinity. With the end of the Hanseatic League
, Low German lost its status as an official language to a large degree. Approximately at the same time Dutch started to replace Low German as a dachsprache of the Low German dialects in the Netherland which form today's Dutch Low Saxon
group, and most Central German dialects went under the umbrella of the evolving High German. Only parts of Northern Germany kept Low German, while it mainly disappeared from the East rim of the Baltic Sea. Today, Low German has become a group of dialects of German under the dachsprache Standard German
to a large degree. Geographically distant Low German varieties, if they survived at all, have often become abstandsprachen of one another, especially pairs being under the Dutch versus the German umbrella, but none of those near the border. This happened despite the effect of notable emigration/immigration streams in either direction between the Western (Dutch) and Eastern (Prussian, now mainly Polish and Russian areas) of the region of the Low German languages, motivated both by religious intolerance and labour need. In the West Central German dialect area, with the cease of the dominance of Low German in trade and official use, social divergence of language development, with the influence of Standard German
in central government, lead to diglossia
which in part still persists. Modern Kölsch
as a spoken language developed independently of the written language after the switch to New High German spelling. Although widely referred to as dialects by the public, West Central German languages such as Kölsch, Palatinate German
, Luxemburgish, et al., linguistically are quite distant from Standard German, but with the recent exception of Luxemburgish, are not ausbau languages.
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...
for analysing and categorising the status of language varieties
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
along the cline between autonomous language
Autonomous language
An autonomous language or variety is usually a standard language that has its own established norms, as opposed to a heteronomous variety.An autonomous language will usually have grammar books, dictionaries and literature written in it...
s on the one hand and dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s on the other. The terms were coined by Heinz Kloss
Heinz Kloss
Heinz Kloss was a German linguist and internationally recognised authority on linguistic minorities....
(1967). They are designed to capture the idea that there are two separate and largely independent sets of criteria and arguments for calling a variety an independent "language" rather than a "dialect": the one based on its social functions, and the other based on its objective structural properties.
Terminology
Ausbausprache may be translated literally as 'upgrade language', although Heinz KlossHeinz Kloss
Heinz Kloss was a German linguist and internationally recognised authority on linguistic minorities....
describes it as "language by development", Abstandsprache as 'distance language' and Dachsprache as 'umbrella language' (literally: 'roof language'). The terms are often rendered with the qualifier untranslated in English, as ausbau language and abstand language.
Ausbausprache
A variety is called an ausbau language if it is used autonomously with respect to other related languages. This typically means that it has its own standardized form independent of neighbouring standard languages. This often involves being taught in schools, and being used as a written language in a wide variety of functions, possibly including that of an official national language. In contrast, varieties that are not ausbau languages are those that are only spoken and typically only used in private contexts.Abstandsprache
A variety is called an abstand language in relation to another language if both are so different from each other that the one cannot be considered a dialect of the other. This criterion deals with objective structural properties of the language systems. The framework does not in itself specify exactly how "distance" is to be measured objectively. An often used, but debated criterion is mutual intelligibility. Abstandsprachen may be deemphasized in languages where the dachsprache has a long written tradition. There is for example, a great deal of abstand between Standard Arabic and colloquial Egyptian ArabicEgyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....
, between Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
and Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
and between Mandarin and Cantonese as well as Shanghainese
Shanghainese
Shanghainese , or the Shanghai language , is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Shanghainese, like other Wu dialects, is largely not mutually intelligible with other Chinese varieties...
.
Interrelation of Ausbausprache and Abstandsprache
A language may be an abstand language without being an ausbau language. This is often the case with minority languages used within a larger nation state, where the minority language is used only in private and all official functions are performed in the majority language. On the other hand, a language may be an ausbau language even when it has relatively little abstand from its neighbours. Examples are the Scandinavian languages DanishDanish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, which are mutually intelligible to a large degree but nevertheless constitute three separate languages on criteria of ausbau. The concept of ausbau is particularly important in cases where the local spoken varieties across a larger region form a dialect continuum. In such cases, the question of where the one language ends and the other starts is often a question more of ausbau than of abstand. For instance, the Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
dialects of Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
on some sides of the Dutch-German border are similar, with both languages merging to some degree; nevertheless, on the level of the ausbau standard languages Dutch and German clearly constitute two separate languages. In some instances, ausbau languages have been created out of dialects for purposes of nation building. This applies for instance to Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish language
Luxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...
vis-a-vis German. Other examples of ausbau languages are Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
of Iran and Afghanistan (cf. Dari
Dari (Afghanistan)
Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized...
), Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
and Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
, Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
and Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, Malaysian
Malaysian language
Malaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized form of the Malay language of the Austronesian family. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people...
and Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
and to some extent Hindi and Urdu, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Malayalam
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
.
Dachsprache
Dachsprache means a languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
form that serves as standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
for different dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s, mostly in a dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
, even though these dialects may be so different that mutual intelligibility is not possible on the basilectal level between all dialects, particularly those separated by significant geographical distance. In 1982, "Rumantsch Grischun" was developed by Heinrich Schmid
Heinrich Schmid
Heinrich Schmid was a Swiss linguist and "father" of the Rhaeto-Romance Dachsprachen Rumantsch Grischun and Ladin Dolomitan....
as such a Dachsprache for a number of quite different Romansh language forms spoken in parts of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Similarly, Euskara Batua
Batua
Standard Basque is a standardised version of the Basque language, developed by the Basque Language Academy in the late 1960s, which nowadays is the most widely and commonly spoken Basque-language version throughout the Basque Country...
(Standard Basque) and the Southern Quechua
Southern Quechua
Southern Quechua , or only Quechua, is the most widely spoken of the major regional groupings of mutually intelligible dialects within the Quechua language family, with about 5 million speakers...
literary standard were both developed as standard languages for dialect continua that had historically been thought of as discrete languages with many dialects and no "official" dialect. Standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
and standard Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
to some extent function in the same way. Perhaps the most widely used Dachsprache is Modern Standard Arabic, which links together the speakers of many different, often mutually unintelligible varieties of Arabic
Varieties of Arabic
The Arabic language is a Semitic language characterized by a wide number of linguistic varieties within its five regional forms. The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions. The Arabic of North Africa, for example, is often incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker...
.
Kloss has also used the term pseudo-dialectized abstand language for cases where a variety is so different from its Dachsprache that it ought to be regarded as a separate language on abstand grounds, but is nevertheless treated more like a dialect in social practice. Examples include Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
vis-à-vis (High) German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
vis-à-vis Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Occitan vis-à-vis French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Gheg Albanian
Gheg Albanian
Gheg is one of the two major varieties of Albanian. The other one is Tosk, on which standard Albanian is based. The dividing line between these two varieties is the Shkumbin River, which winds its way through central Albania....
vis-à-vis (Tosk) Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
, Cantonese vis-à-vis Mandarin, Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
vis-à-vis Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
or Maithili
Maithili language
Maithili language is spoken in the eastern region of India and South-eastern region of Nepal. The native speakers of Maithili reside in Bihar, Jharkhand,parts of West Bengal and South-east Nepal...
vis-à-vis Hindi.
Change of roles during history
There are several instances of languages, and language pairs, which have undergone role changes during history. Low GermanLow German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
for instance was both ausbau language and dachsprache of a few thousand local dialects in the Netherlands, in North, Central, and former eastern territories of Germany and in parts of the Baltic states and their former German (today Russian) vicinity. With the end of the Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
, Low German lost its status as an official language to a large degree. Approximately at the same time Dutch started to replace Low German as a dachsprache of the Low German dialects in the Netherland which form today's Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
group, and most Central German dialects went under the umbrella of the evolving High German. Only parts of Northern Germany kept Low German, while it mainly disappeared from the East rim of the Baltic Sea. Today, Low German has become a group of dialects of German under the dachsprache Standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
to a large degree. Geographically distant Low German varieties, if they survived at all, have often become abstandsprachen of one another, especially pairs being under the Dutch versus the German umbrella, but none of those near the border. This happened despite the effect of notable emigration/immigration streams in either direction between the Western (Dutch) and Eastern (Prussian, now mainly Polish and Russian areas) of the region of the Low German languages, motivated both by religious intolerance and labour need. In the West Central German dialect area, with the cease of the dominance of Low German in trade and official use, social divergence of language development, with the influence of Standard German
Standard German
Standard German is the standard variety of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas...
in central government, lead to diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
which in part still persists. Modern Kölsch
Kölsch language
Kölsch is a very closely related small set of dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian Central German group of languages. Kölsch is spoken in and partially around Cologne in the area covered by the Archdiocese and former Electorate of Cologne reaching from Neuss in the north to just south of Bonn,...
as a spoken language developed independently of the written language after the switch to New High German spelling. Although widely referred to as dialects by the public, West Central German languages such as Kölsch, Palatinate German
Palatinate German
Palatine German is a West Franconian dialect of German which is spoken in the Rhine Valley roughly in an area between the cities of Zweibrücken, Kaiserslautern, Alzey, Worms, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Speyer, Landau, Wörth am Rhein and the border to the Alsace region in France...
, Luxemburgish, et al., linguistically are quite distant from Standard German, but with the recent exception of Luxemburgish, are not ausbau languages.
See also
- Autonomous languageAutonomous languageAn autonomous language or variety is usually a standard language that has its own established norms, as opposed to a heteronomous variety.An autonomous language will usually have grammar books, dictionaries and literature written in it...
- Heteronomous languageHeteronomous languageA heteronomous language variety is a nonstandard language variety whose speakers normally use another, autonomous language variety in writing and education. In such cases, the heteronomous variety is said to be oriented towards the autonomous one...
- Heinrich SchmidHeinrich SchmidHeinrich Schmid was a Swiss linguist and "father" of the Rhaeto-Romance Dachsprachen Rumantsch Grischun and Ladin Dolomitan....
- A language is a dialect with an army and navyA language is a dialect with an army and navy"A language is a dialect with an army and navy" is a description of the distinction between dialect and language. It points out the influence that political conditions can have over a community's perception of the status of a language or dialect...
- Linguistic demography
- Post-creole speech continuumPost-creole speech continuumThe Post-creole continuum or simply creole continuum refers to a situation wherein a creole language consists of a spectrum of varieties between those most and least similar to the superstrate language...
- Register (linguistics)Register (linguistics)In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
- DiasystemDiasystemIn the field of structural dialectology, a diasystem or polylectal grammar is an analysis set up to encode or represent a range of related varieties...
- Dialect continuumDialect continuumA dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
- Sarkar's Linguistic Concepts and Criteria
External links
There are useful definitions included in these two scientific articles:- Peter Trudgill, Norwegian as a Normal Language (2002)
- Peter Trudgill, Globalisation and the Ausbau sociolinguistics of modern Europe (2004)