LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Diglossia in Dravidian Languages E. Annamalai Traditional grammars of Dravidian languages recognize varieties of the language they describe. Tolkāppiyam, the first grammar of Tamil of the early centuries of the Common Era, mentions twelve regional varieties of Tamil (Chevillard 2008). It also mentions two non-regional varieties of Tamil, viz. ceyyuḷ 'that which is composed (in verse)' and 0 3 2 0 valakku 'that which is in practice (in life). Modern linguistic scholars of Tamil take these terms to refer to the language of literature and the language of speech respectively and that they different grammatical features. It is, however, possible to understand these terms as referring to the literary language with its aesthetic and metrical features and ordinary language of non-literary communication, both of which do not differ grammatically as much as they do in style. Another variety of Tamil is found in inscriptions that are contemporaneous with literary works from the beginning of the written history, and its grammatical and lexical features are at variance with those of the contemporaneous literary language. The first grammar of Telugu by Nannaya of the 11 th century (some place him in the 16 th century) classifies the words of Telugu origin into dēsya 'of the (Telugu) country' and grāmya 'of the village', of which the latter are not fit for literature. Modern Dravidian languages have additional varieties which are correlated with regional-social divisions, with class (educated and uneducated) and with medium of communication (writing and speaking). Theorizing a particular kind of language variation, Ferguson (1971 (1959)) introduced the concept of diglossic difference, setting it apart from differences between dialects, styles and registers. He suggested that Tamil, though not included in his set of languages defining diglossia, is illustrative of it. Though this concept is largely ignored by the traditional grammarians of Dravidian languages of the modern times, who reject the lower of the diglossic varieties as unworthy, linguists enthusiastically embraced it and examined their languages to validate existence of diglossia. Ferguson's original idea was to describe a property of some languages which have two grammatically and functionally differentiated varieties in special ways. The concept of diglossia was expanded by others (Fishman 1967) to describe a speech community using functionally differentiated codes, whether the codes are grammatically related (i.e. varieties of a language) or not (i.e. distinct languages) and was brought to overlap with bilingualism. The difference between diglossia and bilingualism in the expanded concept is that the code choice for use in different functional domains in the former is societally governed and the choice is made by individual speakers in the latter. This distinction ignores the possibilities that an individual can break the societal norms (as Tagore did in the case of Bangla) and that a bilingual's use of codes adheres to the societal pattern. It should, however, be said that in identifying a code whether it is a distinct language or a variety of the same language, non-linguistic factors play a role; the functional differentiation of Sanskrit and Prakrit (Deshpande 1986), for example, may be treated as an instance of bilingual use or diglossic use depending on how their relationship is conceptualized. The Dravidian linguists stayed close to the original concept of diglossia as primarily a property of language rather than of speakers. They, however, expanded the concept in another direction. The analysis of the language of the pre-modern literature, which was rarely in prose and the speech of the modern times showed grammatical and lexical differences between them; the former was to be learned formally and was bestowed with prestige as the learned language. As these are the characteristics attributed by Ferguson to the High variety of diglossia, existence of a literary variety and a colloquial variety in a Dravidian language came to be regarded as evidence for diglossia. The issue to decide was

Diglossia is the sociolinguistic phenomenon of the existence of more than one variety of a language within a geographical location. The use of such varieties depends upon sociological factors like caste, or class. Diglossia may knowingly or unknowingly become a tool of exclusion and discrimination against certain communities. Here the prevalence of Diglossia has been discussed in the Indian context, with a more focused attention on Tamil. It was found that diglossia exists in Tamil, and amongst other factors caste defines it to the greatest extent. Diglossia is a well-known sociolinguistic phenomenon in which two varieties of language subsist as discernible members of a language spoken in the same geographical location. They generally do not form separate languages due to a variety of shared features, and on the other extreme, they cannot even be considered as dialects of the same language, as they do not fit the bill of a dialect as described by Varshney (1995), who says that a dialect is a regional variety of a given language, and characterizes diglossia as a situation where two widely divergent forms of the same language are in use by all members of the community under different conditions. He further notes that these language forms vary considerably at all levels of language viz. Sounds, words, grammar and meaning. Fergusson (1959) who originally gave the term diglossia, categorized as higher or lower, relative to each other, the stable-overtime varieties of language in use in diglossic communities. His conception of the high variety includes a highly codified variety learned mainly by formal education in which a body of literary works exists. He further conceived of the high variety as the one in which most of the formal and written transactions take place, but which is not used in ordinary transactions. Schiffman (1997) has summarized the main issues being explored, in the field of diglossia, after Fergusson (Post-1959), according to him the 'research on diglossia has concentrated on a number of variables and important questions: function, prestige, literary heritage, acquisition, standardization, stability, grammar, lexicon, phonology, the difference between diglossia and standard

2019

Diglossia is usage variaties of one language that coexist with their respective roles. In their development, the usage roles of high variety (H) and low variety (L) are found not only in one language, but also in multi languages, also called double diglossia. The double diglossia can be in the form of double overlapping diglossia, double nested diglossia, or linear polyglossia.

Collecting linguistic data in a diglossic speech community poses a special challenge for grammarians because of the socially sensitive variation between a High and a Low variety. In Ferguson’s (1959a) original definition only those cases counted as diglossia in which the varieties belonged to the same language. Later definitions expanded the scope to include communities where non-cognate languages serve as High and Low variety, which are much easier to keep apart for both speakers and grammarians. In this paper I explore how Latin and Arabic grammarians dealt with the linguistic variation in their speech community. They regarded all variation as part of one language; yet, in their description of the language they limited themselves to data from the High variety, which was the only one recognized by them as correct speech. Even when they referred to speech errors, they did not target the Low colloquial, but mistakes made in writing by semi-literate users of the High variety.

In some speech communities where people use two or more varieties of the same language in different situations, a phenomenon called Diglossia exists. Arabic, which is the official language for more than twenty-six countries, is a diglossic language. Recently, clear inadequacy and deficiencies have been noted in our students’ linguistic skills in using the standard Arabic. Thus, this paper attempts to introduce the term diglossia and then examine its impact on teaching and learning the Arabic subject in one of Misurata Schools. Moreover, it attempts to investigate the reasons that stand behind the use of the vernacular in teaching Arabic by teachers. Begin with the introduction and providing a definition of the issue, supported by a review of the most relevant academic literature that dealt with it, then I will present the study method and how the data was collected and analyzed, end up with the findings and conclusion.

Diglossia, 2020

This entry provides an overview of the concept of diglossia in the sociolinguistic literature of the last six decades. It presents the trajectory from the original Fergusonian definition, which assumed a particular hierarchical relation between related varieties, to approaches which assume diglossic configurations in situations of bilingualism or plurilingualism as well as in standard-with-dialects constellations. The problematization of diglossia as a meaningful theoretical concept in the light of recent developments in sociolinguistics is discussed.

2014

The present case study is an exploratory study, focusing on the status of Punjabi and Urdu languages in Central Punjab, Pakistan. From sociolinguistics point of view, Pakistan is linguistically a rich region having many languages and language varieties. Bilingualism and diglossia are fascinating phenomena in Pakistan. The present study investigates the diglossic situation in Central Punjab analyzing Urdu and Punjabi and concludes that there is a diglossic

2023

Diglossia is a variety of languages in society. These variations of language each have a function for their use. The case study was conducted on Tadris English students class of 2020. This research uses qualitative methods with descriptive data. The research was conducted to find out diglossia in the use of language among Tadris English students class of 2020. The results of the study showed that the 2020 class of Tadris English students used two languages, namely Indonesian and local language (Bugis language). From the use of these two languages, Indonesian is classified into a high language variety used by students in formal situations and local languages are classified into a low language variety used in informal situations or when talking to friends. But sometimes students use Indonesian and local languages together or combine the two languages with the intention of showing politeness in speaking and are more often used for communication to older people or those with higher positions.