Language maintenance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language maintenance describes a conscious influence on the development of a language or a dialect. This includes the grammatical aspects as well as the vocabulary .

On the concept of "language maintenance"

Since the European Enlightenment , the concept of language care has been associated with ideas of care in the sense of improving language. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn writes in Merke zum Deutschen Volksthum (JCH Knopf, 1833): “But must be pursued forever with strict seriousness and relentless language cultivation under spell and attention: Those cursing words, so soul poison blacken, darken our basic view, confuse the living conditions, and deface, disfigure and desecrate German language through different, moral, legal and state terms. ” Lutz Mackensen defines language maintenance as“ efforts to use the language correctly and well ”. The term “language maintenance” is particularly common in the titles of German textbooks up to the present day.

The task of language maintenance, and thus of the language maintenance staff (teachers, writers, parents, independent language maintenance associations, etc.) is to promote the expressiveness and language skills of language users through correct and good use of the language and through practicing the naturally grown vocabulary. New words and new creations are added every day, which more or less have entered common usage, i. H. in the active vocabulary. Language maintenance should lead to a critical use of the language and to better German. A prerequisite for this is therefore a sound language criticism, e.g. B. in incorrect or bad German, in new creations (word of the year, bad word of the year) and bad language. Language maintenance therefore deals with various applications of linguistic elements: with language structure and grammar , with spelling , punctuation , language style , taking into account semantics (theory of meaning) and language aesthetics. This also includes the use or avoidance of foreign words, but not as language purism (language cleaning), which is particularly important in the 17th and 18th centuries. Century, when a standard High German language had not yet developed as a mother tongue . The word "language cleaner" was only included in the 9th edition of the Duden from 1915. The word “language maintenance”, on the other hand, has only been in the dictionary since the 1930s.

In the opinion of language critics , the language is shaped today by certain “speakers” who are constantly present in the media world, and more rarely also authors, and in some cases also endangered. They have a special responsibility that they often fail to meet. Speech carers therefore oppose language obstruction and decline , which can be observed in the new media such as e-mails or blogs , but not only . The reasons for this can also be of a technical nature (for example, only a maximum of 140 characters on Twitter ), so that in favor of the fastest possible dissemination of a message, observance of grammar is considered to be of secondary importance. In general, however, this is not necessary, something that language educators who deal with the quality of the language should always point out. The linguistics , which is primarily theoretically oriented and with the voice system and the use of language is concerned, but also with the language change comparative within and historical linguistics, rejects the practical language usage from traditionally considered unscientific. Since the mid-1990s at the latest, however, there has also been an increasing tendency to take language maintenance issues seriously. Language care tasks is dedicated to B. the "Commission for scientifically founded language maintenance" of the Institute for German Language . A scientific, d. H. Linguistic, well-founded theory of language maintenance forms the theory of language culture ; Language cultivation carried out on a scientific basis is often referred to as language criticism.

In the German-speaking area

On the history of language maintenance

The terms “care of the mother tongue” and “care of the German language” are older than the word “Sprachpflege”. This "language maintenance" first happened in the monasteries, where monks translated biblical and other works of antiquity into German and also explained them in German. But in the curriculum of the humanistic grammar schools, the German mother tongue was strictly excluded from the curriculum.

Only the language societies of the 17th century established the organized cultivation of the German language. At that time there was also talk of “language work”. As a result of the maintenance of the mother tongue in the language maintenance societies of the Baroque period, the German language gradually became more modest in the grammar schools. Citizens' classes without Latin and Greek were set up at the grammar schools for those who did not want to study, and soon also separate secondary schools.

The first German language society, the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft , was founded in 1617 based on the model of the Italian Accademia della Crusca . It encouraged further founding of similar societies all over Germany: In 1644 the society of the "Crowned Flower Order of the Pegnitz" (" Pegnesian Flower Order ") was founded. The purpose of the society was stated: "To promote the worship of God and German loyalty, care and improvement of the German language and poetry". Other foundations were the Aufrichtige Tannengesellschaft , the German-minded cooperative , the Elbe Swan Order and others. Of these, only the Pegnese Flower Order still exists today. Some of these language societies contributed to the further training of a uniform German language. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's admonition to Germans to practice their understanding and their language better, his "thoughts on the execution and improvement of the German language", comes from the time of the baroque language societies .

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, language maintenance was particularly directed against the Frenchization of the language. More recently, the General German Language Association (ADSV) followed. His successor associations are the Society for German Language (GfdS) and the largest language maintenance association in Austria, the association “Mutterssprache”, Vienna; In Switzerland, the Swiss Association for the German Language has been dedicated to language maintenance since 1904. The largest German language association is the German Language Association (VDS). Due to further start-ups, there are now numerous language associations that strive to maintain the German language. The private language maintenance associations are to be distinguished from the state-sponsored language associations, which have different attitudes.

Language maintenance in the 21st century

Today language maintenance is mainly directed against the use of English and pseudo- English words (" Denglisch "). Other topics were the spelling reform and the extinction of dialects. In addition, grammatically incorrect and illogical forms of expression as well as “inhuman use of language” (for example in the “ Unwort des Jahres ” campaign) are the focus of criticism and care.

The linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch covered in an article on March 5, 2013 the forced translation of certain terms, e.g. B. Crowdfunding , by users of Wikipedia , which he referred to as the "Germanization guerrilla". Anonymous users of Wikipedia named English terms used in German with German translations, which journalists then found in the press through research on Wikipedia and from there into general usage. This approach contradicts the requirements of Wikipedia.

State educational mandate

Critics such as the President of the German Teachers' Association, Josef Kraus , see their opinion confirmed by the PISA study that the subject of German does not have the desired status in schools. Schools and universities should therefore increasingly work towards a careful use of language and thus good and understandable German, both spoken and written. While language criticism is more analytical and theoretical, language maintenance and language education are supposed to put the results of language criticism into practice.

State language regulation

However, language maintenance must be distinguished from state language policy , i. H. voice control with the help of language regulations. Examples of this are the planned spelling reform of the Third Reich and the prohibition of the use of the German language during the Second World War and in some countries afterwards. Language policy is in danger of arbitrarily changing the language and forcing it on the language users. In the time of the Third Reich and in the GDR, attempts were made to ideologically equalize language cultivation and abuse it for political purposes.

State language regulations are therefore seen as ambivalent. The example of the spelling reform of 1996 makes it clear that such a state intervention in linguistic usage can provoke constant resistance. Representative opinion polls repeatedly show that the reform lacks the necessary acceptance. (An overview of the arguments pro and contra cited in the public debate can be found in the topic article Reform of German orthography from 1996: Pros and Cons .)

For some years now, the question of whether the German language should be included in the German Basic Law as an asset worthy of protection has been increasingly discussed.

Known language tutors

Language care prices for language trainers

Language maintenance magazines

Various language maintenance associations publish periodicals. The Society for the German Language , founded in 1947 as the successor organization to the General German Language Association , publishes the magazines Mutterssprache and Der Sprachdienst . The Association for Language Maintenance is responsible for the German language world , while the Association for German Language is responsible for voice messages . The Austrian mother tongue association publishes the Wiener Sprachblätter , the Federation for German Writing and Language The German Writing - quarterly issues to promote the German language and writing .

International

Swedish

In Sweden, language maintenance is the responsibility of the Language Council (Språkrådet) at the Institute for Language and Ethnicity (Institutet för språk och folkminnen). On behalf of the state, he follows and describes the development of the spoken and written Swedish language. The Swedish word Språkvård is a loan translation of the German word language cultivation .

French

In France, the "standardization and maintenance of the French language" has been officially recognized since 1631 by the French learned society Académie française . Since 1994, the Loi Toubon has provided legal regulations to protect the French language.

Italian

The Accademia della Crusca , which is responsible for the Italian language, is the oldest linguistic society (including a model for the oldest German society, the Fruitful Society ). Since it was founded in 1582, it has dedicated itself to “studying and preserving the Italian language”.

Spanish

In Spain, language support is the responsibility of the Royal Spanish Academy (for language) ( Real Academia Española ). Its 46 members are well-known authors in the country who have been appointed for life. It cooperates with the corresponding academies of the other Spanish-speaking countries in the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española .

Icelandic

Iceland has one of the most conservative language policies. One consequently takes care to keep the use of foreign words as low as possible. New terms are usually created from the existing vocabulary. This is how the word for “computer”, tölva , came from the words tala , “number”, and völva , “fortune teller, seer”. Yet there are a considerable number of older loanwords such as hótel ("hotel") or prestur ("priest"); a swelling of Anglicisms , similar to that in German, has also been noticeable in Iceland since the 1950s. This is why Iceland has had its own committee since 1964, which finds purely Icelandic expressions for new terms.

Plautdietsch

The internationally active organization of the Plautdietsch Friends campaigns in Germany (in cooperation with the Federal Council for Low German ) and increasingly in other countries for the maintenance of the Plautdietsch spoken by the Russian mennonites . This is mainly done through projects such as the Plautdietsch FRIND magazine , the oral history video project Moving Memory or study trips (e.g. 2006 Siberia or 2009 Belize).

See also

literature

Germany

  • Jochen A. Bär : As a linguist, are you allowed to cultivate the language? - Notes on the theory and practice of working with language, on language, for language . In: Journal for German Linguistics (ZGL) 30/2002, pp. 222-251.
  • Uwe Förster: Language maintenance on a scientific basis. Contributions from three decades. Edited by the Society for German Language . Duden, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-411-71091-8 .
  • Albrecht Greule and Elisabeth Ahlvers-Liebel: German language maintenance . History, Practice and Goal Setting. Darmstadt 1986.
  • Wolfgang Hendlmeier: Language and writing maintenance serve culture (series of publications Bund für Deutsche Schrift und Sprache; Issue 1). Association for German Writing and Language, Seesen 2002, ISBN 3-930540-19-3 (16 pages, Fraktur).
  • Horst Hensel : Decline of language and cultural self-abandonment - a polemic. Kettler, Bönen / Westfalen 1999, ISBN 3-925608-61-3 (119 pages).
  • Theodor Ickler: Critical commentary on the "new regulation of German spelling", with an appendix to the "Mannheim hearing" (Erlanger studies, volume 116). 2nd revised and expanded edition. Palm & Enke, Erlangen / Jena 1999, ISBN 3-7896-0992-7 (289 pages).
  • Walter Krämer : Get involved or look the other way - Problem case German language (Lecture on the award of the German Language Prize 1999; Weimar, September 24, 1999). In: Henning Kaufmann Foundation for the Care of the Purity of the German Language (Ed.): Deutscher Sprachpreis 1999 . Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Essen 1999 (40 pages).
  • Wolfgang Lindner: Language culture alongside culture language. Dialect nursing associations in old Bavaria . Dissertation, University of Regensburg, 2006 ( full text ).
  • Thomas Paulwitz : Basics and approaches for common language maintenance . In: Society for freedom of thinking (ed.): Genius, 4/2000, pp. 256–263.
  • August Pick: The new humanism and the German language maintenance in the learned schools of the German states . Frankfurt, Phil. Diss., 1927. Landau / Rheinpfalz 1927 (139 pages).
  • Peter von Polenz : German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present. Volume III: 19th and 20th centuries. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1999.
  • Max Preitz: Of German Language and Art. Contributions to the history of the modern German language, to the art of language, language maintenance and to folklore . Edited by the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the German Language Association as a festive gift. M. Diesterweg, Frankfurt a. M. 1925 (177 pages).
  • Heinz-Günter Schmitz: The Americanization and Internationalization of the German Language after the Second World War . Our Land Study No. 1, 1999 (Our Land - Scientific Foundation for Germany eV, Working Group Our Language, ARKUS, Starnberg). Starnberg 1999 (21 pages; thoroughly revised new edition in April 2006 as Unser-Land-Study No. 1, 2006).
  • Bastian Sick : The dative is the genitive's death, episode 2 . Cologne / Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-462-03606-8 .
  • Gerd Simon : Language maintenance in the “Third Reich”. In: Konrad Ehlich (Ed.): Language in Fascism (Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 760). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-28360-X , pp. 58-81.
  • Leo Weisgerber : Science and language maintenance . In: Language of the Present, Volume 2: Sprachnorm, Sprachpflege, Sprachkritik. Yearbook 1966/1967. Pedagogical Verlag Schwann, Düsseldorf 1968, pp. 204–210.
  • Dieter E. Zimmer : German and different - the language in modernization fever. Text and writing in the age of the internet . Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-455-10421-5 .
  • Language maintenance in the Third Reich. Reputation, echo and effect . German Language Association, Berlin 1935 (15 pages).

Switzerland

  • August Steiger: Maintaining and protecting the German language in Switzerland . Finckh, Basel 1917 (35 pages).
  • Roland Stiefel: Language maintenance in German-speaking Switzerland. Previous services, new plans and their feasibility. An inventory (series of publications by the Philipp-Albert-Stapfer-Haus on the Lenzburg, issue 5). Sauerländer, Aarau 1971 (40 pages).
  • Daniel Erich Weber: Language and dialect maintenance in German-speaking Switzerland. Language norms and language didactics in the bilingual state (Studia Linguistica Alemannica, Volume 9; also: Dissertation 1982/83, University of Zurich). Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-7193-0933-9 (IX, 243 pages).
  • Language, language history, language maintenance in German-speaking Switzerland. 60 years of the German-Swiss language association . German-Swiss Language Association, Zurich 1964 (100 pages).

Austria

  • Maria Hornung: Language maintenance in Austria. In: Language of the Present. Volume 2: Language norm, language maintenance, language criticism. Yearbook 1966/1967. Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann, Düsseldorf 1968, pp. 215–219.

Web links

Wiktionary: Language maintenance  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter von Polenz : German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present: 19th and 20th centuries. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1999.
  2. ↑ Gisela Harras, Kristel Proost, Edeltraud Winkler: From intentionality to the meaning of conventionalized signs. Festschrift for Gisela Harras on her 65th birthday. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2006.
  3. ^ Lutz Mackensen : New dictionary of the German language. Spelling, grammar, style, word explanation, foreign dictionary. 3rd edition, Südwest-Verlag, Munich [1962].
  4. ↑ Max Krauße: Language maintenance in metal trade specialist classes. Contributions to the maintenance of German lessons in vocational and trade schools . H. Broedel & Co., Leipzig 1925.
  5. ^ Anton Veltman: Language practice and language maintenance in elementary school . Gilde-Verlag, Cologne 1931.
  6. ^ Willy Sanders: Language criticism. 2nd revised edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-534-14110-5 .
  7. ↑ Recommendations for the use of the subjunctive . Decided by the Commission for scientifically based language maintenance of the Institute for German Language. Formulated by Siegfried Jäger based on his monograph The conjunctive in the German language of the present (language of the present; vol. 10). Schwann, Düsseldorf 1970.
  8. ^ Uwe Förster: Language maintenance on a scientific basis. Contributions from three decades. Edited by the Society for German Language . Duden, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-411-71091-8 .
  9. ↑ Gymnasium (historical development in Germany). In: Meyers Konversationslexikon. Volume 7, p. 960.
  10. ↑ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz : Admonition to the Germans. Of German language maintenance. Unchanged reprographic reprint of the Leipzig 1916 edition (Libelli, vol. 216). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1967.
  11. ↑ Eduard Engel: Speak German! A book to evacuate. Hesse & Becker, Leipzig 1917.
  12. ↑ Language smuggler in Wikipedia by Anatol Stefanowitsch on sprachlog.de (March 5, 2013)
  13. ↑ Wikipedia: No theory finding
  14. ^ Claudia Ludwig, Astrid Luise Mannes (ed.): With the fun society in the educational emergency. 1st edition. Leibniz-Verlag, St. Goar 2003, ISBN 3-931155-20-X (2nd edition, Stolz-Verlag, Düren 2004).
  15. ^ Ewald Geißler: Language maintenance as a race obligation (pamphlets of the German language association, 1). German Language Association, Berlin 1937.
  16. ↑ Allensbacher Reports, 2002 / No. 7 ( Online ( Memento of July 31, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), PDF, 11  kB ).
  17. ↑ Allensbacher Reports, 2005 / No. 11 ( Online ( Memento from October 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive )).
  18. ↑ Gottfried Fischer: For the language tutor Eduard Engel on the 150th birthday. In: Wiener Sprachblätter, magazine for good German, issue No. 1, 2002, pp. 3–5. ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / homepage.univie.ac.at
  19. ↑ Gottfried Fischer: Ludwig Reiners - Silence Teacher Germany. In: Wiener Sprachblätter, magazine for good German, 2nd issue, 2002, pp. 39–41.
  20. ^ Gottfried Fischer: Wilhelm Emanuel Süskind - poet and linguist. In: Wiener Sprachblätter, magazine for good German, 4th issue, 2002, pp. 111–113.
  21. ↑ Gottfried Fischer: Sprachpfleger Gustav Wustmann (1844-1910): The exact one. In: Wiener Sprachblätter, magazine for good German, issue 3, 2002, p. 76 f. ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / homepage.univie.ac.at
  22. ^ Swedish Language Council ( Memento of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ↑ http://movingmemory.blogspot.com/
  24. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.plautdietsch-freunde.de
  25. ↑ http://mienbelies.blogspot.com/