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This volume presents a comparative, socio-historical study of the Germanic standard languages (Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Frisian, German, Icelandic, Low German, Luxemburgish, Norwegian, Scots, Swedish, Yiddish as well as the Caribbean and Pacific Creole languages). Each of the 16 orginal chapters systematically discusses central aspects of the standardization process, including dialect selection, codification, elaboration and diffusion of the standard norm across the speech community, as well as incipient processes of de-standardization and re-standardization. The strongly comparative orientation of the contributions allow for the identification of broad similarities as well as intriguing differences across a wide range of historically and socially diverse language histories. Two chapters by the editors provide an overview of the theoretical background and rationale of comparative standardization research, and outline directions for further research in the area. The volume will be of interest to language historians as well as sociolinguists in general.
In order to lend a democratic dimension to the cultivation of that linguistic distinctness, the imagery of a Luxembourgish 'folk standard", natural and regionally inclusive, has provided the other main source of justification for the puristic choices made throughout the process of feature selection." "This book attempts to shed light on the modalities of interaction between the ideology of linguistic distantiation and Luxembourg's language reality. Beside, the modalities of that interaction are placed within the wider perspective offered by the case of standard West Frisian, a linguistic entity likewise largely defined by contrast with a genetically related neighbour and H-language, i.e. Dutch."
Of the many fine scholars who made and have maintained the high reputation of the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Franciscus Junius the Younger (1591-1677) is one who has not yet been given the attention he deserves. Born and brought up among the élite Calvinist scholars of Leiden University, he began his career as a theologian. As a consequence of the religious quarrels between the Arminians and Gomarists, he resigned from his office, and went to England where in 1620 he was attached as a tutor and librarian to the household of the Earl of Arundel, an assiduous art-collector. His work as Arundel's librarian resulted in the publication in 1637 of De pictura veteru...
The letters Dutch immigrant Ulbe Eringa wrote home from the United States are rich with information on farming, the family, the household economy, church activities, and school involvement as he related them to his relatives back in the Netherlands. His memoirs, written in 1942 and 1943, supplement the letters and provide details about his life before emigrating. Brian Beltman's introduction and chapter-by-chapter commentary place Eringa's story within its historical context, complementing findings that there has been more continuity than discontinuity between the European past and the American ethnic experience.
This volume presents fourteen case studies of standardization processes in eleven different Germanic languages. Together, the contributions confront problematic issues in standardization which will be of interest to sociolinguists, as well as to historical linguists from all language disciplines. The papers cover a historical range from the Middle Ages to the present and a geographical range from South Africa to Iceland, but all fall into one of the following categories: 1) shaping and diffusing a standard language; 2) the relationship between standard and identity; 3) non-standardization, de-standardization and re-standardization.
In this volume, Germen de Haan gives a multi-faceted view of the syntax, sociolinguistics, and phonology of West-Frisian. The author discusses distinct aspects of the syntax of verbs in Frisian: finiteness and Verb Second, embedded root phenomena, the verbal complex, verbal complementation, and complementizer agreement. Because Frisian has minority language status and is of interest to sociolinguists, the author reviews the linguistic changes in Frisian under the influence of the dominant Dutch language and, more generally, reflects on how to deal with contact-induced change in grammar. Finally, in three phonological articles, the author discusses nasalization in Frisian, the putatively symmetrical vowel inventory of Frisian, and the variation between schwa + sonorant consonants and syllabic sonorant consonants.
The 19th century saw a new wave of dictionaries, many of which remain household names. Those dictionaries didn't just store words; they represented imperial ambitions, nationalist passions, religious fervor, and utopian imaginings. This volume shows how 19th-century lexicography continues to influence how we speak, write, and think in the 21st century.
This book contextualises case studies across a wide variety of languages and cultures, crystallising key interrelationships between linguistic standardisation and prescriptivism, and between ideas and practices. It focuses on different traditions of standardisation and prescription throughout the world and addresses questions such as how nationalistic idealisations of ‘traditional’ language persist (or shift) amid language change, linguistic variation and multilingualism. The volume explores issues of standardisation and the sociolinguistic phenomenon of prescription as a formative influence on the notional standard language as well as the interconnections between these in a wide range of geographical contexts. It balances the otherwise strong emphasis on English in English language publications on prescriptivism and breaks new ground with its multilingual approach across languages and nations. The book will appeal to scholars working within different linguistic traditions interested in questions relating to all aspects of standardisation and prescriptivism.
Today, Europe is a favoured destination for refugees from all over the world. We might have forgotten an earlier exodus during the aftermath of the Second World War in the opposite direction. Jewish survivors of the Holocaust aimed for Palestine, and after 1948, the State of Israel. Protestants from the Netherlands, Switzerland, America and Germany intended to join the Jewish people in their new homeland by building the village Nes Ammim. The Netherlands had been occupied during the war; Switzerland had remained neutral. Germany carried the taints of guilt and defeat, the United States the laurels of the victor. What made them work together? And why did the Americans and the Swiss withdraw i...