Issues in Rusyn language standardisation

This thesis is an examination of the factors which have led to the standardisation of several variants of the Rusyn language in central and eastern Europe since 1989. It includes an assessment of aspects of the linguistic and extra-linguistic language planning activities carried out within and between the different Rusyn standard languages. The thesis considers the development of Rusyn standard languages with particular focus on those created for the Rusyns of the Prešov Region of Slovakia and the Lemkos of Poland, with reference to the language situation in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine and that of Vojvodina Rusyn in Serbia and Croatia. It also considers factors which have facilitated and militated against the creation of standard languages in the regions concerned and sets the development of Rusyn standardisation in the context of the development of regional and minority languages elsewhere and as an element of identity construction and assertion. A study is made of the prospects for the so-called Rusyn koiné, an auxiliary standard proposed for use across all Rusyn groups

Historiography of the Formation of Assamese Identity: A Review

Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology - Peace and Democracy in South Asia, Volume 2, Numbers 1&2, 200

Arrègulas: Oral Poetry and Minority Language Standardisation

Arrègulas is a proposal for the standardisation of Campidanese Sardinian approved by the Province of Cagliari, in 2009. It began as a reaction to the promotion by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia of one Logudorese-based standard language (Limba Sarda Comuna) to be used across the whole of Sardinia. What is peculiar about Arrègulas is that it is modelled after the koiné language employed by cantadoris, who are extemporaneous poets with a strong following in the Campidanese area. This koiné can be described as a form of Southern Campidanese deprived of its most marked features. The Arrègulas proposal gives this oral language a standard orthography with a comparatively straightforward phoneme-grapheme correspondence. All things considered, the standard has potential for a higher degree of acceptability with respect to Limba Sarda Comuna in the Campidanese area, both among proficient native speakers and among the many heritage speakers of Sardinian

Scaling language competition in a small island state : graphic verbs in Seychellois Creole and English

One of the sensitive aspects of a small country is the predicament of its language. Seychellois Creole, one of that country`s three official languages and the native language of its Creole population, is asserting its linguistic identity against the globally-established English and French, the other two official languages of the country. How resilient is Seychellois Creole in this language triangle? Are the challenges it faces related to the small number of speakers, citizens of the small country? To what extent, and in what particular way, does Seychellois Creole vulnerable position, as a small language neighboured by two international languages, affect its development? These questions are approached in this paper by means of the comparative analysis of some linguistic parameters of Seychellois Creole and English. Research has been carried out with a group of English and Seychellois Creole verbs conceptualizing the process of graphic representation. The paper focuses on the capacity of the two contrasted languages for concept lexicalisation, patterns of semantic development and syntactic shifting.peer-reviewe