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Pluricentric Languages

 
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:22 pm    Post subject: Pluricentric Languages Reply with quote

English is a pluricentric language. Discuss after reading this -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtokavian_dialect
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Что что что?!
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is Russian pluricentric ? I suspect not.

Last edited by scot47 on Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:19 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ixchel



Joined: 11 Mar 2003
Posts: 156
Location: The 7th level of hell

PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Russian is not pluricentric.
I don't know why I never knew Bosnian was Serbo-Croatian having grown up among a fair number of Serbs and Croats. Though no Bosnians which may explain it.

I also learned today why I can understand so much Norwegian from my Danish but no Swedish.
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sparks



Joined: 20 Feb 2008
Posts: 632

PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 7:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Is Russian pluricentriuc ? I suspect not.


Except here in Poland when you get "Russian" lessons from a Ukrainian and find yourself wondering why everything they tell you is different from what you read and heard in your little "Learn Russian" book and CD packet that you've bought; Smile
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmm. I have that experience even in Moscow. I think it is a reflection on how rubbish most Russian language learning material is more than anything else.
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Qaaolchoura



Joined: 10 Oct 2008
Posts: 539
Location: 21 miles from the Syrian border

PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I love using the Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin example, together with the Chinese "dialects" as an example of the political importance of lay linguistics. (Linguists usually recognize "Chinese" as many languages, and "Serbo-Croatian" as one.)

A pluricentric language basically has multiple standards and/or prestige dialects. So Russian isn't, unless you consider Ukrainian a dialect (as some Russians do), while English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (oh, especially Portuguese) are. So are Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) Persian, German, Romanian, Malay-Indonesian, and of course Serbo-Croatian.

I'd also argue that Turkish, Cypriot Turkish, and Azerbaijani might be a single pluricentric language, since from what I can tell speakers of all three can understand each other quite well. (And Cypriot Turkish, though generally accepted as a Turkish dialect is somewhat divergent from mainland Turkish, both because it's a different dialect to start, and because it didn't direct undergo Ataturk's reforms.)

The opposite of a pluricentric language is a "macro-language:" multiple languages considered one for political reasons. Thus Chinese, Arabic and Kurdish are treated as one language, despite the unintelligibility of their "dialects," which are generally accepted by linguists as independent languages.

Regards,
~Q
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the argument could be made that most - or even all - langauges are pluricentric.

Good insight in that Wiki article and it could be read with benefit by all students of Slavonic Languages, and anyone with an interest in Linguistics.
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LongShiKong



Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 1082
Location: China

PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also from Wikipedia:

Pluricentric language

A pluricentric language or polycentric[1][2] language is a language with several standard versions, both in spoken and in written forms. This situation usually arises when language and the national identity of its native speakers do not, or did not, coincide.
1 Examples
1.1 Catalan-Valencian-Balearic
1.2 Chinese
1.2.1 Writing system
1.2.2 Spoken Chinese
1.3 English
1.4 French
1.5 Galician
1.6 German
1.7 Hindi, Urdu, and Hindi languages
1.8 Portuguese
1.9 Serbo-Croatian
1.10 Others
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