DO NOT Leave Your Language Alone The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus Planning in Language Policy Joshua A. Fishman DO NOT Leave Your Language Alone The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus Planning in Language Policy DO NOT Leave Your Language Alone The Hidden Status Agendas Within Corpus Planning in Language Policy Joshua A. Fishman Stanford University, California New York University Yeshiva University, New York LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2006 Mahwah, New Jersey London Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform, byphotostat,microform,retrievalsystem,oranyothermeans,without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 www.erlbaum.com Cover design by Tomai Maridou Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fishman, Joshua A. Donotleaveyourlanguagealone:thehiddenstatusagendaswithincorpus planning in language policy / by Joshua A. Fishman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-5023-6 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-8058-5024-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Language planning. 2. Language policy. I. Title. P40.5.L35F57 2006 306.44'9—dc22 2005054160 CIP BookspublishedbyLawrenceErlbaumAssociatesareprintedonacid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For three guardian angels, Gella (first and foremost for well over half a century), Guadalupe and Chris, all of whom were available at the drop of a hat and without whose help this volume could simply not have been completed. “Peace unto you, oh guardian angels!” For Elissa, whom I love so dearly and who knows full well that the most important care of all, for children as for languages, is offered by those who love them unconditionally. Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction to Language Planning: Some 1 Preliminaries 2 Corpus Planning and Status Planning: Separates, 11 Opposites, or Siamese Twins 3 The Directions and Dimensions of Corpus Planning 19 4 Purity Versus Vernacularity: Does “Folksiness” 25 Come Before or After “Cleanliness”? 5 The Bipolar Dimension of Uniqueness Versus 41 Westernization 6 The Classicization Versus “Panification” Bipolar 63 Dimension 7 The Ausbau Versus Einbau Bipolar Dimension 89 (or, Must the Lamb Look Unlike the Wolf in Order Not to be Mistaken for the Wolf?) vii viii CONTENTS 8 The Interdependence and Independence 107 Dimensional Clusters 9 Can Opposites and Incommensurables 113 be Combined? 10 Epilogue: Some Things OLD and Some Things NEW, 119 and Some Things BORROWED on Which to Chew Appendix 1: Questions For In-Class Discussion 127 or Written Assignment Appendix 2: A Terminology Committee at Work 129 References 149 Author Index 153 Subject Index 155 Preface Inearlierandmoreinnocenttimes,itwaswidelybelievedthatlanguage, just as any other gift from God, could neither be “planned” nor “im- proved”.Asthosetimeswerecomingtoanend,anattemptwasmadeby ProfessorRobertA.Hall(1950)tofosterthecompletedisappearanceof languageplanningbyharshcriticism,discouragingscholarlyactivityin the language-planning direction. His book, Leave Your Language Alone!,nowstandsasamonumenttoabygoneage.Today,thewheelhas turnedoncemore,aswheelsaresupposedtodo,andscholarlybookson languageplanningaremorelikely,byfar,toconsiderhowtointervene, whether in the language change process itself (all living languages change, with orwithouthuman intervention, overtime), or, even more so,inthefunctions(or“uses”and“purposes”)towhichparticularlan- guagesareputwithinthespeechandwritingcommunitiesoftheirusers. Itisdifficulttosaywhichofthesetwoapproachesto“languageprob- lems”isthemoredifficultformosthumans:nottointerveneatallorto dosowiselyandeffectivelyinaworldbrimfullofunanticipatedandof- ten undesirable consequences. But, in any case, the Rubicon has been crossedanditisnolongerpossibletoput“thetoothpastebackintothe tube”. Languages are increasingly viewed as scarce national resources (notunlikefloraandfauna,agriculturalorenvironmentalresources,and allothersuchimprovableoralterableresourceswhosequalitycanbein- fluencedbyplannedhumanintervention).Speechandwritingcommu- ix