Ajay Kumar at 14:16, 22 August 2023

2023-08-22T14:16:36Z

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{{Short description|Preferring a language variety as purer}}
{{For|English linguistic purism|Linguistic purism in English}}
{{Expand Polish|Puryzm (językoznawstwo)|date=December 2019}}
{{more footnotes|date=August 2019}}

[[File:DictionaryFrenchAcademy1835.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The {{Lang|fr|[[Académie Française]]|italic=no}} in [[France]] is charged with maintaining the linguistic purism of the [[French language]]. This is the first page of the 6th edition of their dictionary (1835)]]

'''Linguistic purism''' or '''linguistic protectionism''' is the [[linguistic prescription|prescriptive]]<ref>{{cite book|first=Andrejs|last=Veisbergs|title=Linguistic Studies in Latvia | publisher=University of Latvia|issue=1|volume=18|year=2010|pages=15|chapter=Development of the Latvian Language, Purism and Prescriptivism|url=https://www.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/lu_portal/apgads/PDF/Humanities_18-1-SprSum2010_Gala-Drukai.pdf}}</ref> practice of defining or recognizing one [[variety (linguistics)|variety]] of a [[language]] as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties. Linguistic purism was institutionalized through [[Language academy|language academies]] (of which the 1572 {{Lang|it|[[Accademia della Crusca]]|italic=no}} set a model example in Europe), and their decisions often have the force of law.<ref>{{harvp|Thomas|1991|p=108}}</ref>

The perceived or actual decline identified by the purists may take the form of a change of vocabulary, [[syncretism (linguistics)|syncretism]] of [[grammatical]] elements, or [[loanword]]s.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} The unwanted similarity is often with a neighboring language whose speakers are culturally or politically dominant.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} The ideal may invoke logic, clarity, or the grammar of classic languages. It is often presented as a conservative measure, as a protection of a language from the encroachment of other languages or of the conservation of the [[nationalism|national]] ''[[Volksgeist]]'', but is often innovative in defining a new standard. It is sometimes part of governmental [[language policy]] which is enforced in various ways.

The practice opposite of purism, when borrowed words displace native ones, also exists. For example, in English the native word 'bookstaff' ({{lang-de|Buchstabe}}) was replaced by the Latin word ''letter''.

==Cognate languages==
{{Main|Abstand and ausbau languages}}
In one common case, two closely related languages or language varieties are in direct competition, one weaker, the other stronger. Speakers of the stronger language may characterize the weaker language as a "[[dialect]]" of the strong language, with the implication that it has no independent existence. In response, defenders of the other language will go to great lengths to prove that their language is equally autonomous.

In this context, [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] and [[Dutch language|Dutch]] have in the past sometimes been considered dialects of [[German language|German]]. In the case of [[Low German]], spoken in eastern Netherlands and northern [[Germany]], the debate is still current, as it could be considered a dialect of Dutch or German or a language of its own. An example of a related language that has only recently attained the status of an official national language is [[Luxembourgish]]. Since linguistic science offers no scholarly definition of a dialect, and linguists regard the distinction with scepticism – see [[A language is a dialect with an army and navy]] – the argument is really about subjective questions of [[identity politics]], and at times it can invoke extreme emotions from the participants.

===Writing systems===
Closely related languages often tend to mix. One way of preventing this is to use different writing systems or different [[orthography|spelling systems]].

Examples of this include:
* [[Moldovan language|Moldovan]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]] are virtually identical in all respects except that Moldovan used a [[Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic writing system]] until the [[independence of Moldova]] in 1992 – though it is still in use in [[Transnistria]] – while Romanian uses a [[Romanian alphabet|Latin writing system]].
* [[Hindi]] and [[Urdu language|Urdu]] are distinguished by their [[Devanagari]] and [[Urdu alphabet|Arabic-based]] scripts. In recent decades, the languages have drifted further apart, due to the [[Sanskritization]] of Hindi and the [[Arabization]] and [[Persianization]] of Urdu.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}}
* The [[Serbian language|Serbian]] and [[Croatian language|Croatian]] literary standards differ mainly in using the [[Serbian Cyrillic|Cyrillic]] and Latin scripts. They exhibit a high degree of mutual intelligibility as they are based on essentially the same dialect (a stylized form of [[Štokavian|Neoštokavian]]).

==Forms==
Various scholars have devised classifications of purism. These classifications take different criteria as their starting point and are therefore partly independent of each other.

===Based on the approach===
One taxonomy of puristic orientations is due to George Thomas:<ref>Thomas, pp. 75–83</ref>
* '''Archaizing purism''': This happens when a speech-community tries to revive the language of a perceived or actual golden age of literature. Examples: [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Tanittamil Iyakkam]] in [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] (see also: [[Linguistic purism in Icelandic]]), [[Ancient Greek]] ([[Atticism]]), [[Katharevousa]] in [[Modern Greek]], [[Sanskrit revival|Sanskrit]], [[Latin]] (puristic obsession with classical forms among speakers of Romance languages and those influenced by them during the [[Renaissance]]). See also [[Language revival]].
* '''Ethnographic purism''': This form is based on an idealization of the countryside, folk stories and dialects. Examples: [[Nynorsk]] (New Norwegian), some versions of [[Demotic Greek]].
* '''Elitist purism''': Associated with a highly formal variety linked to an [[elite]], for example the language spoken at the court.
* '''Reformist purism''': The main feature here is to break the bonds with the past. An example of this is the removal of [[Persian language|Persian]] and Arabic words during [[Turkish language#Language reform and modern Turkish|Turkish language reform]] under [[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk|Atatürk]] in order to break with the [[Ottoman Turkish language]] influenced by Arabic and Persian. Other examples are the purist efforts in languages like [[Hausa language|Hausa]], [[Swahili language|Swahili]]{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} and [[Hindi]] to break with the colonial past. In addition, [[Language policy|language policies]] may seek to decrease similarities between mutually intelligible languages for [[Identity politics|ethno-political reasons]], as has been the case with [[Dano-Norwegian]], [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] ([[Hindi language|Hindi]] and [[Urdu language|Urdu]]) and [[Malaysian language|Malaysian]]/[[Indonesian language|Indonesian]].
* '''Playful purism''': Intended as a joke, e.g., [[Philipp von Zesen]]'s coinage ''Gesichtsvorsprung lit.'' 'facial projection' to mean 'nose'.
* '''Xenophobic purism''': involves the elimination or exclusion of foreign elements. Examples include [[Høgnorsk|High Norwegian]], [[Linguistic purism in the Korean language|Korean]] and [[Linguistic purism in English|Anglish]]. Many [[English language|English]] writers of the 19th and 20th centuries extolled the virtues of "strong" [[Anglo-Saxon]] words such as ''foreword'' over the "weak" Romance word ''preface''. [[French Language|French]], [[German language|German]], [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Latvian language|Latvian]] are known for their preference for [[Word coinage|coining]] words using native roots (often [[calques]]) over borrowing foreign words; some are more successful than others.

===Based on the goals===
* '''Democratic purism''': Aims at safeguarding the intelligibility of (modern) concepts for a larger group of language users through enforcing their expression by the means of common, every-day words or expressions (for example, "back[ing] up" instead of "sustain[ment]")
* '''Unificatory purism''': Aims at better uniting the overall user group of a language by reducing certain regional or professional linguistic peculiarities which could separate varying aspects of life, or even obstruct interconnectivity, between individuals or sub-groups of different regional provenience or professional background.
* '''Defensive purism''': Aims at defending a language from external threats. Mostly, these are to be understood as influx of foreign ideas which a given language group (or its political system) disdains or has overthrown, or influx of foreign words or expressions which tend to substitute innate vocabulary, thus diminishing and/or endangering supra-regional or inter-generational intelligibility within a language area or between its present speakers and the literary remnants of their venerated ancestors, i. e., some kind of "classical" heritage (as e. g. Shakespeare's usage is already no more widely understood amongst many of today's English speakers {{Citation needed|date=June 2017}} {{Dubious|date=June 2017}}).
* '''Prestige purism''': Aims at varying prestige functions.
* '''Delimiting purism''': Aims at establishing some kind of separating functions.

===Based on the intensity===
* '''Marginal purism''': Purism never becomes at any stage a value-feature of the speech community. On the contrary, there is a certain openness to all sources of enrichment, at the same time characterized by a lack among the language elite of intellectual digestion of foreign influxes, or by a lack of such an elite as a whole. Examples: [[English language|English]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Ancient Greek]].
* '''Moderate, discontinuous purism''': A moderate attitude is discernible over a long period of time. Examples: [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[French language|French]] and [[Italian language|Italian]].
* '''Trimming purism''': A reactive correction to a potentially dangerous trend in the development of a standard language. Examples: [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Slovak language|Slovak]].{{clarify|date=April 2020}}
* '''Evolutionary purism''': Purism is seen early in the development of a written language. There are no radical changes or orientation. During the standardising process, purism gains momentum after which it slows down. Examples: [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Latvian language|Latvian]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]] and [[Slovene language|Slovene]].
* '''Oscillatory purism''': Involves repeated swings between intense purism and a more inclusive attitude. Examples: [[German language|German]], [[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Yiddish]].
* '''Stable, consistent purism''': No interruption or fluctuation in intensity is seen. Purism is a constant value-feature of the speech community. Examples: [[Arabic]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]] and [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]].
* '''Revolutionary purism''': An abrupt change from the previously mentioned patterns to another. Examples: [[Turkish language|Turkish]].

===Based on linguistic level===
* '''Lexical purism''': directed at the lexicon, first of all against direct lexical loans, often combined with the development of loan translations (such as in Norwegian: ''hand out'' > ''støtteark'' and ''snowboard'' > ''snøbrett'' or [[Arabic]] ''tilifūn'' > ''hātif'' and ''kumbyūtir'' > ''ḥāsūb''.
* '''Orthographic purism''': directed against foreign orthographic elements (such as in Norwegian: ''genre'' > ''sjanger'', in Spanish: ''football'' > ''fútbol''). Note that there is also reverse orthographic purism. Some Spanish speakers prefer the English spelling "blue jean"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-475160 |title=CĂ"MO CREE QUE SE ESCRIBE: BLUE JEAN O BLUYĂ?N – Archivo Digital de Noticias de Colombia y el Mundo desde 1.990 |date=20 August 1996 |publisher=eltiempo.com |access-date=2015-08-11}}</ref> and object to the spelling ''bluyín''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://rae.es/bluyín |title=bluyín |access-date=April 29, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091129200915/http://rae.es/bluy%C3%ADn |archive-date=November 29, 2009 }}</ref>
* '''Morphological purism''': directed against foreign inflection and declension (such as the resistance to plural -s in noun endings in Scandinavian languages).
* '''Syntactic purism''': directed at syntactic features from other languages (such as the stylistic resistance in Nynorsk against some passive constructions and some constructions with the genitive).
* '''Phonetic purism''': directed at foreign phonemes and phonematical combinations (such as ''gánster''<ref>[http://rae.es/gánster] {{dead link|date=August 2015}}</ref> or ''champú''<ref>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100522113929/http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=Champ%C3%BA|url=http://buscon.rae.es:80/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=Champ%C3%BA|title=champú|archive-date=22 May 2010|access-date=12 April 2019|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}}</ref> in Spanish). There is a reverse phonetic purism, which insists in the original pronunciation, such as pronouncing ''gá'''ng'''ster'' and '''''sh'''ampú'' in Spanish.

===Other forms===
* '''Regressive purism''': The eradication of very old loan-words. It is one of the main features of ultrapurism.
* '''{{visible anchor|Ultrapurism}}''': The extreme upper limit of purism. In this pattern, everything expressed by human speech can become a target for puristic intervention, even geographical names, proper names, etc. (The attitude – in itself "puristic" and associated with increased education and foreign language competency – opposed to the translation or adaptation of toponyms, or even personal names, is historically quite recent, as names are not considered fixed or unchanging in most cultures; and there are many exceptions even in English, especially the names of historical personages, Native Americans, and even contemporary royalty. Historically, names were part of the lexicon of a language just as every other word, and it was common to have different names associated with different language communities. See [[exonym and endonym]]. The longer established the tradition of a name or term, the more likely are strong differences.) Two recorded examples of this are [[High Icelandic]] (Háfrónska), and the usage of the German renaissance humanist [[Johannes Aventinus|Johann Georg ''Turmair'']] who even translated the name of the ancient Roman general [[Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus|Fabius Cunctator]] into ''Zauderer Bohnenmaier'' (i. e. literally "Laggard Bean-Mayor"). While not ultra-purism per se, [[phono-semantic matching]] is commonly used in a number of languages, notably for translating proper names into Chinese.

==By language==
{{div col}}
* [[Bengali language|Bangla]] – [[Bengali language movement|Bangla language movement]]
* [[Basque language|Basque]] – {{Interlanguage link|Euskara garbia|eu|Sabindarren euskara garbia}}
* [[Croatian language|Croatian]] - [[Croatian linguistic purism]]
* [[English language|English]] – [[Linguistic purism in English|Anglish]]
* [[Esperanto]] – {{Interlanguage link|La bona lingvo|eo}}
* [[Greek language|Greek]] – [[Katharevousa]]
* [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] – [[High Icelandic|Háíslenska/High Icelandic]]
* [[Italian language|Italian]] – see [[Italianization]]
* [[Hindustani languages]] – [[Hindi-Urdu controversy]]
* [[Korean language|Korean]] – see [[Linguistic purism in the Korean language]]
* [[Malayalam language|Malayalam]] – see [[:ml:പച്ചമലയാളപ്രസ്ഥാനം|Pacchamalayala Prasthanam]]
* [[Malay language|Malay]] – Beka Melayu<ref>[https://www.thepatriots.asia/beka-melayu-lumpuk-ujar-dalam-pemerintahan/ Beka Melayu Lumpuk Ujar Dalam Pemerintahan], The Patriots
(Malay article) </ref>
* [[Meitei language|Meitei]] (officially known as [[Manipuri language|Manipuri]]) - [[Meitei linguistic purism movement]]
* [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] – [[Høgnorsk|Høgnorsk/High Norwegian]]
* [[Russian language|Russian]] - [[Lovers of the Russian Word]]
* [[Sinhala language|Sinhala]] – [[Hela Havula]]
* [[Tamil language|Tamil]] – [[Tanittamil Iyakkam]]
*[[Revival of the Hebrew language#Hebrew during the Haskalah|Hebrew during the Haskalah]]
* [[Turkish language|Turkish]] – [[Öztürkçe]]
{{div col end}}

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Inkhorn debate]]
* [[Language policy]]
* [[Language planning]]
* [[Language revitalization]]
* [[Language secessionism]]
* [[Linguistic imperialism]]
* [[Linguistic prescription]]
* [[Phono-semantic matching]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
;Notes
{{Reflist}}

;Bibliography
* {{cite journal|first=Endre|last=Brunstad|title=Standard language and linguistic purism|journal=Sociolinguistica|number=17/2003|page=52–70}}
* {{cite journal|first=Nancy|last=Dorian|title=Purism vs. Compromise in Language Revitalization and Language Revival|journal=Language in Society|number=23|page=479–494}}
* {{cite book|first=George|last=Thomas|series=Studies in Language and Linguistics|title=Linguistic Purism|publisher=Longman|year=1991|isbn=9780582037427}}

==External links==
*[http://germanic-studies.org/Lexical-purism-neologisms-and-language-contact-in-Icelandic-and-Faroese.htm Neologisms and loanwords in Icelandic and Faroese]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Linguistic purism| ]]
[[Category:Concepts in language policy]]

Linguistic purism - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 14:16, 22 August 2023