Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren

Abstract

This article takes an ethnographic approach to language standardisation. My research focuses on Romani language use in Prizren, Kosovo, which has a tradition of multilingualism. Moving away from approaches to standardisation that focus only on linguistic processes, I look more broadly at the social processes behind language standardisation. I explore discussions, debates, and attitudes towards me as a language learner to show how a Romani standard is being produced and legitimised in Prizren. Applying theories of purism and standardisation, I examine how certain speech practices are made inferior and how social hierarchies legitimise this. I relate this more broadly to the politics of Romani language and to theories of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. (Romani, Kosovo, standardisation, purism, language ideology)*

A roma hagyományok és a romani nyelv mint a tanulást támogató erőforrások: az (in)szekuritizáció meghaladása

“…Ezek az okai annak, hogy a magyart tisztának látjuk (pedig nagyrészt jövevényszókból áll), a romanit pedig kevertnek (részletes elemzéshez a romani kapcsán vö. Abercrombie, 2018).…”

Linguistic purism as resistance to colonization

“…Sociolinguistic and anthropological inquiries into linguistic purism have provided insights into how language purification campaigns and discourses are never simply “purely” linguistic (Abercrombie, 2018; Hill & Hill, 1980; Jernudd & Shapiro, 2011). Linguistic differentiation and purist discourses have always been ways of debating the historical, political, and cultural relationship between the dominated and the dominant (England, 2003; Roche, 2021; Wertheim, 2003).…”

Language Contact

“…In both cases, the direct experience with the source languages varies considerably across language users, as do ideologies about and awareness of whether the phonological elements and the words which accompany them are impositions or not. The social role of these elements concomitantly varies, and the critical insight is that there is not an unmediated relationship between language experience/proficiency and use of contact phenomena (see also example of linguistic purism, such as Lepic, 2021;Annamalai, 1989;Abercrombie, 2018). This is instantiated in examples and counter-examples of "borrowability" hierarchies (Muysken, 1999;Backus, 2014b).…”