Distance and expansion

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Distance and expansion are concepts of linguistics - more precisely of dialectology - that are used to characterize linguistic varieties . They were originally coined by the linguistic sociologist Heinz Kloss (1978), these terms were refined by Georg Bossong (2008), among others .

Language and dialect

There are linguistic varieties whose character as " language " or " individual language " or " standard language " is clear, such as B. German , English or Spanish , other varieties whose status as " dialect " of an assigned language is just as clear as z. B. Bavarian as a dialect (group) of German. In between there are many varieties that cannot easily be classified as a language or a dialect. The terms “distance” and “expansion” can be used to describe the broad spectrum between high-level language and dialect more precisely and the definition of “language” to be more precise.

Concept history

The pair of terms spacing and extension language goes back to the language sociologist Heinz Kloss , who in his book The Development of New Germanic Cultural Languages ​​since 1800 from 1978 attempted to examine the many idioms of Germanic languages, which of them was understood as dialect and which as language will and why.

Distance and expansion are also used as Germanisms in non-German-language specialist literature.

Distance language

A distance language is a language variety that is so different from another language variety that it cannot possibly be understood as a dialect of that other variety. This definition is partly made independently of the degree of development (see Kloss 1978), and partly only for varieties with a low degree of development (see Bossong 2008). The distance between a language variety and another variety is determined by their differences in the areas of vocabulary , phonetics , morphology ( nominal system - verbal system ), syntax and by the degree of mutual intelligibility , with the last characteristic being rather problematic. It goes without saying that the statement that one variety has a “large distance” or “small distance” from another should not be made with mathematical precision and as a generally valid judgment. In addition, such a defined concept of distance is gradual.

Basque , as an isolated language, clearly differs from all Romance varieties in the geographical surroundings of the language area, as well as indigenous languages ​​of America , African languages , Australian languages and languages ​​of Papua New Guinea , is named as an unquestionable example of a distance language . It remains unclear whether widely separated varieties within a dialect continuum fall under the definition of “distance language”.

Due to the "distance" to neighboring languages ​​such as German (High German), English , Saxon ( Low German ) and Dutch , z. B. Considered Frisian as a language rather than a dialect of another language. Also the Frankoprovenzalische has within the Romance languages a considerable distance to all French and Occitan varieties.

Extension language

Under development language or development dialect means a language variety that is so far advanced that it can be used for demanding communication purposes (eg. As non-fiction). A certain degree of standardization with regard to grammar , orthography and vocabulary is part of the development of the language . Extended languages ​​differ from distance languages ​​in that, due to the rather small linguistic distance to the neighboring varieties, they are not necessarily to be regarded as distance languages ​​(own language), but due to their use for high-level literature, non-fiction, science, administration etc. take, that is to say they are appropriately "developed" in their use.

While the distance criterion relates exclusively to the internal qualitative properties of language varieties, the term “expansion” is an external characterization that can also be quantified. The following criteria are decisive for the degree of development of a language variety:

  • Existence of writing with a recognized orthographic standard (written language )
  • Standardization of phonetics, morphology and syntax
  • Use of the variety for sophisticated cultural and scientific texts
  • Presence of independent literature
  • Use of the variety as a national or official language

In this sense, languages ​​such as German or Italian are of course highly developed varieties, while most German dialects lack an orthographic standard and sophisticated scientific prose, so they are rather poorly developed.

However, extension languages ​​or dialects are primarily used for language varieties which, due to their close relationship and high mutual intelligibility, are not distant languages. Examples of extended languages ​​in this sense are Yiddish , Galician (closely related to Portuguese or Spanish) or Macedonian (closely related to Bulgarian). Also the Luxembourg is often seen as expanding language are though still very dominant as official languages French and German.

Authors who deny the status of individual languages to such varieties for political or linguistic reasons use the terms "expansion dialect" or "cultural dialect". However, the distinction between language and dialect, which is assumed here, is linguistically difficult. In addition, the boundaries between dialect ↔ expansion dialect ↔ language are fluid and can shift over time.

The development of a variety takes a certain amount of time and can take place at different speeds. Usually, the expansion of the vocabulary is also associated with an expansion. As long as the process of language expansion is still in its infancy, it is often difficult to decide whether it is an expansion variety or not. The reverse process also occurs, namely that a standard is not maintained and a language becomes a colloquial variety again. This process is also called destandardization . This has happened, for example, with some of the New Indian languages ​​which, with the expansion of Hindi , became dialects of Hindi again, although they were once expanded languages ​​(e.g. Rajasthani , Bihari ).

Many sign languages have also gone through a process of expansion, whereby the writing of sign languages ​​is still in its infancy and therefore no rules for orthography can be expected. What has been said about vocabulary and grammar also applies to sign languages.

Not to be confused with the term extension language is that of the national variety . Swiss Standard German, for example, is not based on the Swiss German dialects, but only deviates in a manageable number of points from the German or Austrian standard variety with which it forms the German standard language.

Distance language and expansion language in the sense of Kloss

According to Heinz Kloss, the following definitions apply:

  • “Distance languages” are linguistic varieties that have a large linguistic distance from all other surrounding varieties, regardless of their degree of development.
  • "Expansion languages" are all varieties that have a high degree of expansion, regardless of their distance from other varieties.
  • A variety is qualified as a "language" if it is a distance language or an extension language (or both).

The distance language definition must, however, be specified in such a way that this does not apply to the distance to one's own sub-varieties, which is naturally small; otherwise all languages ​​that have dialects (and there are hardly any languages ​​without dialectal subdivision) would not be spaced languages ​​in the strict sense of the definition.

The extension language definition does not apply completely independently of the distance: the German spoken in Germany is linguistically so minimally removed from Austrian German that the fact that both varieties are very highly developed does not yet make these varieties two different languages. It is different with the “developed” Luxembourgish: Here the gap to German is also small, but big enough to speak of an independent “language”. These examples show that the classification as spacing or extension language can be very difficult in individual cases.

Distance language and cultural dialect in the sense of Bossong

According to Bossong, Kloss only uses the term "spacing languages" to refer to those spacing varieties that have a low degree of development. Expansion varieties with a small gap to other varieties are referred to by Bossong as "cultural dialect". This brings him to the following categorization:

Distance to
reference variety 		Degree of expansion Name
after Bossong
big high Language, high-level language
big low Distance language
small high Cultural dialect
small low dialect

A “language” is therefore a highly developed distant variety, a “cultural dialect” is a well developed variety that has a rather small distance to other varieties, while a “dialect” has a relatively small distance and a low degree of development from its reference variety. The term "spacing language" is only used here with a low degree of expansion, i.e. different from Kloss.

Examples from Romansh

According to this definition are in Romansh

Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese have a clearly definable distance to all other Romance varieties and are fully developed cultural languages. Franco-Provençal has a clear linguistic difference to the neighboring French and Occitan varieties, but it does not have a high degree of expansion, e.g. B. lacks a binding spelling or extensive specialized prose. Galician and Corsican have only a small linguistic difference to the Portuguese and Italian varieties, but have a high degree of expansion due to their independent literature.

See also

literature

  • Georg Bossong: The Romance Languages. A comparative introduction. Buske, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-87548-518-9 , in particular pp. 25-28.
  • Helmut Glück (Ed.), With the collaboration of Friederike Schmöe : Metzler Lexikon Sprache. 3rd, revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2005, ISBN 3-476-02056-8 .
  • Harald Haarmann: Distance language - expansion language . In: Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier & Peter Trudgill: Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook on the Science of Language and Society, Volume 1 . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004 (2nd edition), p. 238 ff.
  • Heinz Kloss: The development of new Germanic cultural languages ​​since 1800. 2nd, expanded edition. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-590-15637-6 .
  • Snježana Kordić : Pluricentric languages, extension languages, distance languages ​​and Serbo-Croatian . In: Journal of Balkanology . tape 45 , no. 2 , 2009, ISSN  0044-2356 , p. 210–215 ( online [accessed December 2, 2010]).
  • Heinrich Löffler: German sociolinguistics . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-503-02231-7 , pp. 63-65.

Web links

Wiktionary: Extension language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Distance language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations