Wim Vandenbussche Shared Standardization Factors in The

Wim Vandenbussche

Shared Standardization Factors in the History of SixteenGermanic Languagesl

Abstract Der vorliegende Artikel diskutiert einige Themen, die sich aus dem Vergleich der Standardisierungsprozesseverschiedener germanischer Sprachen ableiten lassen. Es wird eine Reihe ,,typischer Standardisierer"vorgestellt, die in der Geschichte der verschiedenenhier untersuchten Sprachen auftreten: Buch- drucker, Zentren politischer Macht, Wirtschaft und Handel, Schriftsteller, Schulen, staatliche Institutionen der Sprachplanung, Wissenschaftler und nicht zuletzt die Medien. Im Anschluss untersuche ich kurz auch einige ,,ideologischeAspekte" der Standardisierung,d.h. die Art und Weise, in der standardisierungsprozessefiir ideologische Zwecke verwendet und miss- braucht wurden. This article discussesa number of issuesthat can be deducted from comparing the standardization process of different Germanic languages. It lists a series of 'typical standardizers' that appear in the histories of the different languages under scrutiny. This list includes printers, centres of political power, commerce and trade, literary authors, schools, offrcial languageplanning bodies, academicsand, finally, the media. Towards the end of the article, I briefly look at 'ideological aspects' of standardization,i.e. at the ways in which standardizationprocesses have been used and abusedfor ideological reasons.

1. Introduction

Linguistic slandardization studies tend to focus on languages and language communities affected by the same social, political or economical factors. But actually, none of the many overview works on the history of the Germanic languages - the iconic studies by Kloss (1978) and Konig/van der Auwera (1994), for example - specifically compares the processes of standardization acrossthese various languages throughout their history. A similar contrast

I I am greatly indebted to Dr. Ana Deumert (Monash University, Australia) for the discussions and correspondencethat inspired the present article. All mistakes and errors of judgement remain, of course, my own. A draft version of this article was included in the proceedings of the 'loth Symposium on Social communication' (Santiago de cuba: Centro de Lingiiistica Aplicada). 26 WimVandenbussche standardizatron emergedduring the closing discussionat a conferenceon the it was noted of the Germanic languages in Sheffield in 2001,2 when knowledge of repeatedly that most of the researcherspresent had little or no their own' At the standardization history of Germanic languages other than of shared the same time, they did find that there existed a great number from Norway standardizationaspects. Across the Germanic language area, change to Bavaria, similar factors have influenced the process of language fight certain and similar discourse strategieshave been used to defend or standardizationdecisions.3 (Monash University, Inspired by the Sheffield conference,Dr. Ana Deumert (Deumert/ Australia) and myself edited a comparative overview study Germanic Vandenbussche (eds.) 2003) on the standardization of twelve of Low standard languages,with additional chapters on the standardization languages.Each German. Scots, and Pacific and caribbean Germanic creole the language of the articles was written by an authoritative scholar from 'added value' community concerned.In order to maximize the comparative history of the volume, all authorswefe askedto discusstheir standardization model, incor- accordingto Haugen's(1966a,1966b) classicstandardization porating norm selection, codification' elaborationand acceptance' classi- Following Le Page(1988), we aimed for "a pan-chronic,typological - political, eco- fication, ihrowing into relief certain recurrent circumstances rise of a na- nomic, intellectual, etc. - that may either favour or block the would reveal tional standard,,,and we hoped that our comparative approach a number of common and ever recurring issues across the standardization histories of the individual Germanic languages'

organisedby Prof' Dr' StandardGermanic coni'erence, held at the Universityof Sheffield, (University of Andrew Linn (university of Sheffreld) and Dr. Nicola Mclelland publishedas: Linn, Andrew/ Nottingham),on 4-7 January2001. The proceedingswere Mclelland,Nicola(eds.)(2002):standardisation.StudiesfromtheGermaniclanguages' Amsterdam. Theremarkablecorrespondencesasfaraspurismwasconcernedevenledtoanew held at the university of conference,on LinguisticPurism in the GermanicLanguages, Bristol,organisedbyDr.NilsLanger(UniversityofBristol),MariaLange(Universityof Bristol),Dr.PatrickHoneybone(UniversityofEdinburgh)andProf'WinifredDavies publishedas: (Universityof Wales,Aberystwyth) in April 2003' The proceedingswere Langer,NilslDavies,WinifredV.(eds')(2005):LinguisticpurismintheGermaniclan- guages.BerlinA{ew York. Shared Standardization Factors in the History of I6 Germanic Languages 27

An overview of a number of landmarks common to most of the standardization processesof Germanic languagesdoes not, however, reveal a straight- forward standardization pattern. Still, one could argue that through time there have been four major waves of standardizationin the Germanic language area. To begin with, for those languagesthat were the first to be standardized, such as Dutch, German, English, and some of the Scandinavian languages,we note the early occulrenceof a Bible translation(1500-1600). After that, secondly, we see the development of codification tools for these larger languagesbetween 1500 and 1800; a closer look reveals that this happened in two stages:an early first codification around 1500/1600,and a second, more elaboratedcodification in the 17th century. Thirdly, in contrast to this, the smaller languages (Ldtzebuergesch,Faroese, Afrikaans, Frisian, Norwegian - both Nynorsk and Bokmil -, and Scots) have only gone through major standardizationprocesses from 1800 onwards. The twentieth century, finally, brought the establishment of language councils in many languagecommunities. However, apart from the fact that there seemsto have been little codification before 1500 (except in the case of Icelandic) and that the larger languages were standardizedearlier than the smaller ones, this does not tell us very much about the actual nature of standardizationprocesses. This comes as no surprise.After all, it is not the books, the grammarsor the languagesocieties which are at the heart of the standardizationprocess, but rather the actual languageusers and the languagecommunity. I would therefore like to con- centratethis article on three issueswhich do seemto have alarger relevance to the standardizationcontext. All three are closely related to the actions and reactionsof the speechcommunity concerned. First, I will discuss a number of typical standardizersacross all Germanic languagehistories. Then I will addressthe issue of the ideological value of standardizationfor the creation of social identity, one of the domains that so far have been neglected andlor forgotten in many traditional standardization histories. Finally, I will say a few words about the assumedsocial power of standardization.

One terminological note: I use the term 'focussing' to refer to the formation of convergencenorrns, that is, the more or less spontaneousemergence of 28 WimVandenbussche relatively unifom writing standardsin limited geographicalareas; and I use 'standardization' to refer to the consciousand deliberateattempts to come to a uniform standardlanguage.

2. The standardizers It is possible to distinguish at least eight recurring core elementswhich have had a serious impact on the standardizationof the different Germanic languages. Each of these 'standardizers' deseryesfurther analysis in the specific context of the languagecommunity concerned,across time. 1) In the early stages of standardizationhistory, printers appear as agents striving, for economic motives, towards a relative uniformity in their printed documents.In many cases,printing centres(often related to official institutions) become 'de facto' diffusers of supra-regional writing conventions.The gradualemergence ofcertain processesoffocussing al- lows us to define 'schreiblondschaften' and'Drucklandschaften', as in the case of German (Mattheier 2003).It should be noted, however, that oexogenic' the introduction of printing and the subsequentimportation of spelling and grammar patternsmay have erasedother local (and relatively uniform) writing practices. We know that this happened in the case of Scots,for example(Dossena 2003). 2) Centres of political power emerged as places where relatively consistent attempts at the uniformization of the written languagewere initiated and controlled. This can be observed in the histories of all Germanic languages where there was focussing from the Middle Ages onwards (one could refer here, among others, to English, Swedish, German, and Low German). Although the role of the written administration (chanceries, Kanzleien) in dialect levelling and variant reduction is commonly ac- knowledged, the actual lasting impact of these 'chancery standards' on the later standardvarieties remains an intriguing issue for further investi- gation. My personal impression is that we can observepatterns of limited variation in these chancery standardsthat are very similar to what we see in the 'intended standard languages' in pauper letters in the nineteenth century. These similar patterns may tell us something about the social importance of consistent spelling for specific social groups at a specific moment in time. Shared Standardization Factors in the History of 16 Germanic Languages 29

3) Commerce and trade seemto have favoured the spreadand the promotion of specific regional varieties as a means of supra-regional communication. This became particularly clear in the case of Low German, where the Ltibeck norm took a high flight all over the Hanse area (Langer 2003). Whether, and to what extent, these varieties were actually fully mastered by the merchants involved remains to be seen. I am also in- trigued by the way in which these standardswould have been used by the olower' 'less-educated' and classes involved in the international Hanse trade. We do not have the necessaryprimary sources,but one could imagine that some of thesemerchants may have communicatedthrough highly simplified varieties basedon the 'prestige standard'. 4) In the case of the Nordic languages,literary authors and legal writing played a major part in standardizationmatters, before official instances started to interfere with standardization.In the case of Icelandic, for example, the twelfth century sagaswere published together with grammar treatises.Studying the relationship between the creation and diffusion of vemacular literature, on the one hand, and the growing sensibility for standardizationissues in early literate societies, on the other, might be a promising approach for a better understanding of the development and acceptanceof the standardizationprocess. Since many language communities have incorporated literary heroes into their collective history, 'who taught their people how to read and write', it may also be worthwile to describe and check in how far these authors actually contributed to the spreadof standard writing (Dutch in Flanders,for example). s)Schools traditionally function as centres where writing standards are passedon to the next generation.Here, however, we also meet the 'black box' of historical pedagogy,which, as I see it, is one of the crucial points for future advancesin the study of the spreadof literacy and standardized writing behaviour. We know little, almost nothing, about the methods and practices used in languageteaching in earlier times, especially where the lower classes or the non-elite are concerned. From our research so far (Vandenbussche1999) we do know that there is a connection in many linguistic communities and in many different societiesbetween class and the spread of literacy, between class and the spread of the mastery of standard nonns, and between the handarbeit/schriftarbeit-oientation of the scribesand the quality of their written language. 30 Wim Vandenbussche

It is crucial that we develop further insights into the language teaching methods used in upper class and lower class schools.It is equally important to get a clear understanding of the appreciation and importance of standardnonns in different professional groups. If we understandwhich kind of 'functional literacy' was expected from the lower and middle classes,we may be able to explain the relative neglect of 'minimal variation in form' in the non-elitist school circuit. One can imagine that in lower class jobs, 'writing with minimal variation in form' was not considered as important; other physical skills probably were more vital. Ac- cordingly, there may have been no perceived need to teach the lower classeswhat they would not need in work life later. 6) Official language planning instances (academies,language councils, or committees) appearonly fairly recently as a phenomenonin the history of 'Germanic standardizations'. In the recent standardization history of many languagesthey have, however, clearly taken over the central posi- tion and power, and have become the guardian of the norm in the case of Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, and other languages.It remains a striking fact that similar, official language planning bodies are not present (nor wel- come) in the larger (and politically and economically more powerful) languagecommunities of English and German,for example. 7) Over the past few centuries, academics (not necessarily linguists) have clearly put their mark on the creation of standardlanguages and on the 'management' of standardizationmeasures. And today, in the case of the beginning standardizationof Creole languages,academics are still at the centre ofthe debate. 8) As far as recent trends and developmentsin language standatdizationare concerned, it is impossible to overlook the major impact of the media, both with respect to the spoken and the written language varieties. The moderate processes of uniformization which were instigated by the printed media during the Middle Ages, are totally overshadowedby the present-day status and power of television and radio in the standatdization debate.Anecdotal as it may sound,the use of the term 'BBC English' next to the 'Queen's English' is illustrative of this shift from the upper social classestowards television when it comesto the norm referencethat is most widely accepted. Shared Standardization Factors in the History of t6 Germanic Languages 31

Three remarks spring to mind, however, when looking through this eight- point list. First of all, it is striking that the power and the decisions of these 'standardizers' were/are not always unanimously appreciated. Present-day examples show that conflicting viewpoints of different standardizersmay act:uallycause serious opposition against certain standardization measures within the languagecommunity. Although a number of documentsthat have been preservedfrom earlier times allow us to try and appreciatesimilar fee- lings during the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies, it is not always possible to assessthe reactionstowards (or even the basic interest in) earlier attempts at standardizationor creation of convergencenofins. Secondly, it is equally remarkable thatlarge segmentsof the language communities concerned hardly ever appear in the traditional accounts of standardization. Undoubtedly, this can be accounted for partially by the lack of original historical sources,but one still wonders what has been the role of the lower social classes,of women and children in the evolution of many of the Germanic languages.As Arnason (2003, p. 267) put it when discuss- ing the social history of Icelandic: "We cannot exclude the possibility that the speechof the lower strata of society was different from what the written sourcesimply". The fact that they usually 'lagged behind', does not necessarily exclude them from possible interferencewith and influence on the development of the language. After all, these groups do comprise the larger part of the languagecommunity, and recent investigations into the linguistic behaviour of these groups seem to indicate that there may have been transi- tional substandardor 'intended standard' varieties which were widely used and occupied an important place in the language continuum at the time and which actually served a prestige function for the lower strata of society (see German,English, and Dutch, for example). Thirdly, given the fact that today we can follow the emergenceof a number of standardizationprocesses in real time (in the case of the Creoles), it may be a promising approachto go back to one of Labov's ground rules and "to use the present to explain the past". The practical, social, and political dis- cussionsthat spice and flavour the actual standardizationdebates in the Cre- ole communities today may be reminiscent of equally animated discussions in the history of the 'older' languages.I am aware that the context is entirely different, but I believe that the type of argument and the general underlying ideological discoursein those debatesmay not have altered that much in cer- 32 WimVandenbussche tain cases.For example, when I look at the argumentsand discussionsused through time in purist discussionsin the Germanic languageatea' I can see many parallels, across time and societies (cf. LangerlDavies (eds.) 2005). The reactions against orthography reforms, for example, in the Danish "mayonnaise war" (cf. Kristiansen 2003), or the animosity surrounding the latest German spelling reform (Johnson 2005), may bear resemblance to equally intense polemics on radical standatdization proposals in earlier times. Some may argue that one cannot draw these historical parallels, be- cause standardization in the twenty-first century is fundamentally different from earlier standardizations in that the earlier standardization attempts were an elitist affair. Yet, those elites probably attackedor embraced slandardization reforms on the basis of what they felt that those reforms would do to the symbol which language represented for them. Nowadays, the language community involved - albeit larger and more diverse - may basically be inspired by the same idea, even if the public debate today is far more influ- encedby external factors like the media.

3. Ideologicalaspectsofstandardization Two main strategies of ideological exploitation have appearedthroughout the various Germanic standardizationhistories. The first is known as the "standardisation ideology", as expressedand de- scribedby Milroy (1999) and Blommaert (ed.) (1999). In many Germanic language communities, a uniform standard language was pfopagated at a certain stage as an "intrinsically better" system comparedto the other varieties at play in the languagecommunity. Many of the standardizersdiscussed above presentedtheir standard as a token ofbeing educated,of a schooled identity, and as a badge of clear social and moral superiority over the users of non-standardvarieties, and they went to great lengths to convince the language community of these inherent qualities. It may be worth exploring and comparing how and when this idea of conscious and deliberate social dis- tinction actually spread in the various language communities under discus- sion. Close attention to current developmentsin the selection of standards for Creole languagesmay be enlightening in this respect.But, of course' we should never forget that membersof a languagecommunity may also choose to deny and fight the associationof a standardvariety with social superiority, which can either lead to the creation of new languagesintentionally basedon regional and dialectal features (Nynorsk, Faroese)or to conscious attempts Shared Standardization Factors in the History of 16 Germanic Languages 33 to save the "innocence" of the languageby stripping the prestige variety of its overt class connections(as in the caseof Danish). Considering Milroy's claim that "the idea that a spelling system should be invariant is a post-eighteenth-centurynotion" (1999,p.34), many of the standardsof the elite groups in society propagatedat the time may actually not have had the "minimal variation in form" which is nowadays taken for granted. One gets the impression that the very sensitivity to this "formal standardness"(the ultimate reduction of variation in form) only affected specific social groups at the specific moment in time when this "standardness" became important for their social prestige or economical welfare. In Bour- dieu's (1991) terms, one could argue that this change only came about once the mastery of the standardizedvariety had acquired the status of "symboli- cal capital". The fact that both mass literacy and the spread of minimal- variation-in-form through society gained momentum in Europe only after the successof the Indushial Revolution and the subsequentrearrangement of the traditional social structures (together with the creation and the rise of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes),may be illustrative for the sudden instrumental value (upward social mobility) that becameattached to a former symbol of an unreachablesocial identity. The second and equally widespread type of ideological "recuperation" was the exploitation of standardization,by political rulers and languageplanning lobbies, as a core representationofsovereignty, national unity, and identity. The idea behind this political dimension of standardization,which appeared in a striking manner after the rise of the nation-state concept and which is still very much at the centre of national language policies nowadays, was rephrasedin swollen lyrical terms by Scaglione (1984): "This is the pride and glory of national languages:to save a nation from drifting apart in moments of internal material chaos, and to keep it together in moments of calm". In this view, the existing unity of the community is crowned with the adoption of a common standard language, such as, for example, Swedish. The opposite also occurred, for example, when the adoption of a common standard language was used to reinforce and create the idea of the unified community. In other words, instead of considering the standardlanguage as the final emanation of an identity, certain discriminated sociolinguistic communities believed that the national identity could be pursued and ob- tained through the creation/adoptionof a standard language. This evolution 34 Wim Vandenbussche was noted in the case of certain pluricentric languages(Dutch, for example, cf. Willemyns 2003), with separatepolitical and social developmentsin their internal and external peripheries, as well as in young nation-statesin search (and pressing need) ofa national identity in order to free the state from any reminiscencesof former occupiers (cf. Letzebuergesch,where, at the time of the second World War, a new spelling system was considered an effective counter-measurethat would help to purify the language of undesired political connotations(cf. Gilles/Moulin 2003, p. 3 I 6)).

4. Conclusion?

In the end, it appearsthat our understandingof language standardizationis greatly enhancedby Haugen'sview on the process,in the sensethat it is particularly rewarding to interpret language standardizationdebates in the context of the "ecology of language", d concept which Dll (1972, p. xiv) re- ferred to as "perhaps the most impressive element in Haugen's work as a linguist". Haugen introduced the metaphor of "language ecology" to refer to the study of the interaction between languagesand their broader social, linguistic, historical and political environment, or "the interrelationship between organismsand their languages"(Haugen 1987,p.92).In the context of languageecology, standardizationis fundamentally viewed as a social and psychological process which goes far beyond the mere technical level of agreeingupon coherentrules, and which cannot be consideredindependently of its implications for the languagecommunity.

It is indicative of the continuing appeal of Haugen's views that academics involved in the earliest stagesof present-day Creole standardizationexplic- itly refer to the importance of an ecological approach to language: "Stan- dardisation is not a technical matter to be carried out by linguistically trained experts but an ecological one", says Mtihlhtiusler (2003, p. 357), stressingat the same time the vital aspectof an integrated and holistic view of the process (Mtihlhiiusler 1996) which takes into account the importance of the underlying socio-cultural conditions in the languagecommunity.

Haugen's critical appreciation of the impending disappearanceof smaller language communities is taken to the point where standardization is pre- sented as the ultimate means for saving languagesand cultures before it is too late - an ideological turn in its own right: "The steamroller approach to small languageshas much in common with the super-highway that destroys Shared Standardization Faclors in the History of 16 Germanic Languages 35 our landscape.What is group cohesion and ethnic pride worth, how can one measurein money the values that arelost when a group gives up its language in favour of another?"(Haugen 1987,p.96).

Although history teachesus that language standardizationhas actually contributed to this effect in the case of a number of languagesdiscussed (Dutch in Belgium, Ldtzebuergesch,Frisian), one cannot isolate the standardization process from the social context in which it is embedded.Languages survive as long as they serve a communicative function in the lives of their speakers, either in the centre or at the fringes of the languagecommunity, and with or without explicit standardization.The power of standardizationlies in the fact that it presents language users with a tool enabling the long-lasting and strengthenedpresence of their language in their daily lives. Its major weak- ness remains its ultimate dependenceon the approval or refusal of the language community and the speakers,who are not only free to select and elaboratea specific variety, but also to acceptand diffuse it, or not.

5. References

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Kloss, Heinz (1978): Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kultursprachen seit 1800. Diisseldorf. Kdnig, Ekkehard/van der Auwera, Johan (eds.) (1994): The Germanic languages. London. Kristiansen, Tore (2003): Danish. In: Deumert/Vandenbussche(eds.), pp.69-92. Langer,Nils (2003): Low German.In: Deumert/Vandenbussche(eds.), pp. 281-301. Langer, Nils/Davies, Winifred V. (eds.) (2005): Linguistic purism in the Germanic languages.(: Studia Linguistica Germanica 75). BerlinA{ew York. Le Page, Robert B. (1988): Some premises concerning the standardizationof languages,with special referenceto Caribbean Creole English. In: International Jour- nal of the Sociologyof Language7 l, pp. 25-36. Mattheier, Klaus J. (2003): German. In: Deumerflandenbussche (eds.), pp. 2ll- 244. Milroy, James (1999): The consequencesof standardisationin descriptive linguis- tics. In: Bex, TonyAVatts,Richard (eds.): StandardEnglish. The widening debate. London, pp. 16-39. Miihlhiiusler, Peter (1996): Linguistic ecology: Language change and linguistic im- perialism in the Pacific region. London. Miihlhiiusler, Peter (2003): Pacific pidgins and creoles. In: Deumert/Vandenbussche (eds.),pp. 355-381. Scaglione, Aldo (1984): The nise of national languages: East and West. In: Sca- glione, Aldo (ed.): The emergenceof national languages.Ravenna, pp.9-49. Vandenbussche,Wim (1999): Een bijdrage tot de studie van het taalgebruik van de lagere klassen in het negentiende-eeuwseBrugge. PhD Dissertation, Vrije Uni- versiteit Brussel. Willemyns, Roland (2003): Dutch. In: Deumert/Vandenbussche(eds.), pp.93-125. ChristianFandrych/Reinier Salverda (Hrsg.)

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