Language reform
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Language reform is a type of language planning by massive change to a language. The usual tools of language reform are simplification and purification. Simplification makes the language easier to use by regularizing vocabulary and grammar. Purification makes the language conform to a version of the language perceived as 'purer'.
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[edit] Simplification
By far the most common form of language reform, simplification involves spelling simplification (cf. spelling reform); however, inflection, syntax, vocabulary and word formation can all be simplified in addition. For example, in English, there are many prefixes that mean "the opposite of", e.g. un-, im-, an-, de-, etc. A language reform might propose to eliminate all these miscellaneous prefixes and replace them by just one, say un-. On top of this, there are words such as "good" and "bad" that roughly mean the opposite of each other, but would be better (in terms of simplicity) portrayed as "good" and "ungood", dropping "bad" from the language altogether. However, the most common form of simplification is the adoption of spelling reforms. Several major world languages have undergone wholesale spelling reforms: Spanish (in the 18th century), Portuguese (in 1910, in Portugal, and in 1946 and 1972, in Brazil), German (in 1910 and 1999) and Russian (in 1728 and 1919).
[edit] Purification
Linguistic purism is the opposition to any changes of a given language, or the desire to undo some changes the language has undergone in the past. Occasionally purism reforms can inadvertently succeed in complicating a language, e.g. during the renaissance period some dictionaries complicated spelling by adopting false Latin etymologies:
- iland became island (from the Latin insula, although island is actually a Germanic word, compare German Eiland)
- ile became aisle (also from insula)
[edit] Advantages and disadvantages
As with all reform, there are overwhelming reasons for opposition. All literature, digital documents, road signs and maps would need to be rewritten. Moreover, everyone would need to relearn the language. Young children and language students would in the long run be far better off with the new, easier language, but in the short term would have a lot of work on their hands. It is argued that languages lose their poeticness, becoming harsh and souless, if they are changed.
However, such claims are unsupported by fact. Most of them are based on the assumption that the current, yet archaic, form of the language is the only one that bears the traditional 'mana', the ancient 'holiness' and that a reform would break the chain that ties the present to the past. In reality, moderate spelling reforms can do more to help than to hinder education and culture. The cost of the transition can be largely overcame by good planning, enough time for transition and capitalizing on popular support.
Examples of very successful language reforms were:
- Romanian (19th Century) — replaced the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, dropped thousands of Slavic roots and replaced them with Romance ones.
- Portuguese (20th Century) — replaced a cumbersome traditional spelling system with a simplified one (asthma, for instance, became asma and phthysica became tísica).
- German (1910) — unified the spelling system nationwide (first in Germany, later adoption by other Germanophone countries)
- Chinese
- (1920s) — replaced Classical Chinese with Vernacular Chinese as the standard written language.
- (1950s PRC) — reformed the script used to write the standard language by introducing Simplified Chinese characters (later adopted by Singapore and Malaysia, but Traditional Chinese characters remain in use in the ROC on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and various overseas Chinese communities).
- Vietnamese (20th Century)— replaced the classical vernacular script with the new Latin alphabet.
[edit] Instances of language reform
- The Turkish language and writing system were reformed starting in the 1920's, to the point that the older language is called by a different name, Ottoman Turkish. Ottoman used the Arabic alphabet, which was replaced in 1928 by a new, Latin-based Turkish alphabet. The vocabulary was "purified" by the replacement of loan-words from Persian and Arabic with native Turkish words or new coinages based (sometimes loosely) on Turkish models. (Lewis, 2002)
- The Modern Hebrew language was created from Ancient Hebrew by simplification of the grammar (especially of the syntax) according to Indo-European models, coinage of new words from Hebrew roots based on European models, and simplification of pronunciation rules.
- (Fictional): In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, English has become Newspeak, a language designed to make official propaganda easy and to make politically undesirable thoughts impossible to express.
[edit] See also
- Norwegian language struggle
- Spelling reform
- English reform
- Language revival
- Metrification
- International Phonetic Association
- Esperanto
[edit] Bibliography
- Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-925669-1.
