Rindang

The matter of determining to which language a particular variety belongs is largely determined on sociocultural and political, rather than on primarily linguistic, grounds. Thus, regional dialects form a continuum such that, for example, Germanic dialects merge imperceptibly into each other, as do also the Slavic dialects. But because a political boundary intervenes, the people on one side of the border consider that they are speaking a dialect of German, for example, and on the other side a dialect of Dutch, despite the fact that they may be closer to each other-in fact, mutually more intelligible with each other-than each is with its own standard language. Yet, the latter serves as a reference point and is likely to influence the dialect in its own direction.
In dealing with language varieties, how do we define “different” or “same”? How do we know whether we are dealing with one variety or several? Are A and B varieties of the same language, or are they different languages? For example, is what we call “Chinese” a single language split into a number of different dialects, or does it “really” consist of a number of different languages? Which criteria are the most relevant in this connection-the narrowly linguistic ones or the more broadly considered, sociocultural ones? To what extent do political and ideological considerations and different cultural perspectives influence the answer to this question? Chinese linguists and their colleagues in the other communist countries argue that to say there are several languages is, in effect, to say that there are several nations; and since China is clearly a single nation, Chinese must be considered a single language, despite the great differences among the largely non mutually intelligible dialects. The grammar is fundamentally the same, and the phonology has correspondence rules. Furthermore, although there is no unified spoken language, the Chinese have had a unified written language for thousands of years (De Francis 1972:462-463). On the other hand, it is equally obvious that Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, although largely mutually intelligible, are separate languages, rather than varieties of a single “Scandinavian” language. William A. Stewart has devised a scheme for classifying language types on the basis of the presence or absence of four attributes:
1. Standardization-acceptance of a formal set of codified norms.
2. Autonomy-uniqueness and independence of the language.
3. Historicity-normal development over time in association with some nation or ethnic tradition.
4. Vitality-use of the language by an unisolated community of native speakers (Stewart 1968:534-537).

As examples of each of the seven types, we could cite the following:
1. Standard : Standard English, standard French, German.
2. Classical : Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit
3. Artificial : Esperanto, Interlingua, Novial
4. Vernacular : Colloquial American English, colloquial Mexican Spanish
5. Dialect : Sicilian, Plattdeutsch, Canadian French
6. Creole : Gullah, Haitian Creole, Chavacano
7. Pidgin : Pidgin English, Chinook Jargon, Sabir.

Fishman (1972b:21) has pointed out that the four criteria used in Stewart’s classification (standardization, autonomy, historicity and vitality) are not objective characteristics but rather highly evolutional characteristics; and as these evaluations change, so does the perceived type. Again, the sociologist of language does not so much classify varieties as he reports classifications of varieties which societies or subgroups have made. Thus, in the United States, for example, the typical native English speaker will learn a vemacular (that is, the ordinary spoken language of the home) and the more formal standard language at school. He might also learn a classical language at school, such as ancient Hebrew or Latin. He may also speak a dialect: regional (e.g. New York City), social class (e.g. lower class), or ethnic (e.g. Black English or Chicano English). In these cases it would be difficult to state how dialect differed from vernacular. Both are home-learned and home-used colloquial spoken languages. Few Americans are avid Esperantists, but Esperanto can be learned and used in classes and clubs throughout the country and is used as a medium of communication in international conferences. Unless an American has been to the Sea Islands of Georgia or to Jamaica, e is unlikely to have encountered a creole, although many Hawaiians speak a variety of English sometimes referred to as a pidgin, sometimes a creole.
Stewart’s typology is not necessarily an exhaustive one. For example, a type not mentioned by Stewart is the koine which perhaps might be considered as a form of the vernacular, although a koine may also become standardized. A koine is a simplified form of a language characterized by the incorporation of features from several regional varieties of a single language, but which is never detached from the language it issues from. The most famous of the koines is the common Greeak spoken about 300 years before the Christian era all over the eastem Mediterranean. In a koine, interdialect differences have been reduced (leveled). For ecample “koine-ized colloquial Arabic” attempts to level the wide differences among the Arabic dialects by suppressing localisms in favor of features which are more common and letter known (Blanc 1960:82-85).
Bell (1976) adds three other language types to Stewart’s scheme. One he calls Xized Y, that is, a language heavily influenced by another language but utilized for normal purposes in a particular community as either a first or second language, e.g. Indian English (the language spoken by many Indians and Anglo-Indians in India and heavily influenced by the languages of that country). Another type is interlanguage, the variety used by the foreign language learner who has incompletely learned the language-English, for example. The third type is foreigner talk, a simplified form of the language used to communicate with foreigners with a minimal, if any, knowledge of the language. Bell points out that we can illustrate all of the types with examples of English varieties. The remaining types with examples are as follows:
Standard : Standard English
Classical : King James Bible English
Vernacular : Black English (see section 9.2)
Dialect : Cockney
Creole : Krio (West Africa)
Pidgin : Neomelanesian (New Guinea)

Standardization
The concept of standard language is one of the most universal and theoretically critical concepts of the field. There are questions of how standard languages arise historically and under what social circumstances they change or give way to other language varieties. We are particularly interested in the actual processes by which the language variety recognized as standard gains and maintains its standard character, that is, the processes of standardization.
The concept of standard language was first explicitly developed by linguists of the so-called Prague School, who characterized it as a codified form of language, accepted by and serving as a model for a larger speech community (Garvin 1969:237). A standard language thus conceived must be flexible enough in its codification to allow for modification in response to culture change. Another property of a standard language is “intellectualization,” involving a systematization of the grammar and explicitness of statement in the lexicon, in the interest of more definitive and accurate expression. Thus, printed prescriptive grammars and dictionaries are made available and obligatory.
It has been suggested that a number of different functions are fulfilled by the standard language. One of these can be called the unifying function, for it unites individual speakers and groups within a larger community, and another the separatist function, which opposes the standard language to other languages or varieties as a separate entity, thus serving as a symbol of national, ethnic, or class integrity and identity. Another function is the prestige function, for a standard language confers a special prestige upon those who have mastered it; and finally, a frame-of-reference function, in that the codifed norm provides a basis for evaluating “correctness” (Garvin and Mathiot 1978). Dittmar (1976:8), however, defines the standard languages as “that speech variety of a language community which is legitimized as the obligatory norm for social intercourse on the strength of the interests of dominant forces in that society.”
The standard-nonstandard dichotomy is in number of respects parallel to the well-known folk-urban dichotomy or continuum. For one thing, folk speech as a variety a variety of language has not been affected by language planning. Folk speech, nonstandard language, or the vernacular, however these are conceptualized, are certainly unplanned developments arising from the “natural” processes of language and society. Standard languages, on the other hand, arise out of a process of fairly self-conscious social and linguistic planning. In addition to the deliberate planning, we are compelled to observe the social forces at work. Among the latter, the process of urbanization stands out as particularly significant, and a standard language may be considered a major correlate of an urban culture. The degree of language standardization is often a measure of the urbanization of its speakers (Garvin and Mathiot 1968:365:366).
The concept of standard language is sometimes confused with two other similar concepts, namely official language and national language. An official language has been officially recognized by some governmental authority. A national language can refer either to a language serving an entire nation state or to a language functioning as a national symbol. Thus, for example, although there are many speakers of standard German in the United States, in no place does it serve as a national or official language. On the other hand, for millions of Spanish-speaking persons in the United States, Spanish constitutes a national language, as in some Chicano communities in the Southwest, Puerto Rican communities in the Northeast and Cuban colonies in Florida. In some of these localities, it has reached official status as well. On the other hand, it is clear that, at the national level, English is the national language of the United Stated, even though this fact lacks a constitutional basis. Many other countries, however, state in their written constitutions what the official language or languages are to be.
It is also necessary not to confuse the notion of standard language with the notion of written language, although there is considerable overlap in meaning. While written and standard language are characterized in terms of linguistic variables, official language and national language are matters of political decision or ethnic reality. The standard and the written language require the active cooperation of the speech community; an official or national language requires only passive acceptance.
The first printed grammars and dictionaries of the modern European languages coincided with the rise of their countries to wealth and power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first printed grammar of any modern language was Nebrija’s Gramatica de la Lengua Castellana of 1492. Part of the same movement was the first academy devoted to winnowing out the “impurities” of a language, the Accademia della Crusca, founded in 1582 to promote the Tuscan dialect of Florence as standard Italian. It was, in turn, the model for Cardinal Richelieu’s Academie Francaise, founded in 1635 as part of his policy of political centralization. He asked its members “to labor with all the care and diligence possible to give exact rules to our language and to render it capable of treating the arts and sciences” (Robertson 1910:13). Similar academies were soon founded in Spain (1713) Sweden (1739), and Hungary (1830). Their chief products were dictionaries.