Purism vs. compromise in language revitalization and language revival

Abstract

Conservative attitudes toward loanwords and toward change in grammar often hamper efforts to revitalize endangered languages (Tiwi, Australia); and incompatible conservatisms can separate educated revitalizers, interested in historicity, from remaining speakers interested in locally authentic idiomaticity (Irish). Native-speaker conservatism is likely to constitute a barrier to coinage (Gaelic, Scotland), and unrealistically severe older-speaker purism can discourage younger speakers where education in a minority language is unavailable (Nahuatl, Mexico). Even in the case of a once entirely extinct language, rival authenticities can prove a severe problem (the Cornish revival movement in Britain). Evidence from obsolescent Arvanitika (Greece), from Pennsylvania German (US), and from Irish in Northern Ireland (the successful Shaw's Road community in Belfast) suggests that structural compromise may enhance survival chances; and the case of English in the post-Norman period indicates that restructuring by intense language contact can leave a language both viable and versatile, with full potential for future expansion. (Revival, purism, attitudes, norms, endangered languages, minority languages, contact)

Definición de buenas prácticas en la revitalización de lenguas: una agenda en curso

“…En el estado del arte de las lenguas amenazadas todavía estamos en la fase del reconocimiento de cuáles son las formas más exitosas en la reversión del cambio lingüístico y, como lo ha sugerido Dorian (1994), es preferible el "compromiso" sobre la "pureza" del lenguaje. Otras voces han sugerido la utilización de los medios y el arte para potenciar las lenguas amenazada, como en nuestra propuesta.…”

Authenticity and Unification in Quechua Language Planning

“…Rather to the contrary, recent work indicates 'that linguistic acculturation may in fact represent adaptation for survival ' (1989: 365). Furthermore, Dorian (1994) and others (Hamp, 1989;Huffines, 1989) suggest that the absence of puristic attitudes may coincide with language longevity. It seems, then, that corpus planners would do well to heed Dorian's (1994) warning and 'to accept considerable compromise rather than make a determined stand for intactness ' (492).…”

Ways of Talking (and Acting) About Language Reclamation: An Ethnographic Perspective on Learning Lenape in Pennsylvania

“…These include the tendency of academic experts to represent languages as universally owned, hyperbolically valued commodities (Hill, 2002) or to focus on counting languages and speakers, which results in reductive notions of what counts as a language and who counts as a speaker (Moore et al, 2010;Muehlmann, 2012 illustrates community resistance to this kind of labeling). Purist language ideologies that resist language change may delegitimize and ultimately discourage younger speakers (Dorian, 1994;Goodfellow, 2003;Meek, 2010). Duchêne and Heller (2007) critique the essentializing and homogenizing effects of "discourses of endangerment" that parallel nationalist discourses, representing a language as an essential part of a specific identity and place.…”

“…A locally responsible, participatory educational response to the complex issue 2 We use real names of institutions and some participants, with their permission and encouragement. 3 Other terms include language regenesis (McCarty, 2013), regeneration (Hohepa, 2006), reawakening (Amery, 1995) or reviving (Dorian, 1994) (bringing a dormant language back into use). 4 That is, institutions founded by non-Indigenous people during or after the colonial periode.g., federal, state, local governments, universities, churches, and schools.…”