Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

18 Language Planning and Education
influence on succeeding generations of nationalist thinkers and can be seen as giving
language a foundational role in European nationalism.
A common, though not universal, feature of European nationalist movements,
then, has been the active consideration given to language matters, one of the more
common objectives being the differentiation of the language of the group from
related varieties on the same dialect continuum – the North Germanic or Romance
continuum, for example – and the fusion of language varieties believed to be internal
to the group into a single variety so as to forge a distinct language. This could then
form part of the case for political independence where the group had yet to achieve
a state of its own, nations being entitled to states. Or, where political autonomy had
already been attained, it could reinforce the solidarity and cohesion of the national
population.
Even where the language of the group was already sufficiently distinct linguistically
not to require differentiation from related varieties, an Abstand as opposed to
an Ausbau language, to use Kloss’s (1967) terms, nationalist-inspired intervention
was not absent. A case in point is Greece, which achieved independence from
Ottoman rule in 1832 following an extended nationalist struggle, and whose
national self-definition could draw on the resources of a distinctive Orthodox
Christianity, a unique alphabet, a glorious past and a language readily identifiable as
separate on linguistic grounds. For the new state, however, the issue of what form the
written, standard language should take remained open.
The solution eventually adopted by the Greek government, albeit in a more
extreme form than originally envisaged (Trudgill 2000: 247), was that advocated by
a group of purists under the leadership of Adamantios Korais (1743–1833), who had
argued for a vernacular form of Greek, but one purified of Turkish and regional
dialect influences and closer to classical Greek, this being known as Katharevousa.
Progressively institutionalised as the language of government and education during
the nineteenth century, this was a variety quite distinct from the everyday spoken
vernacular, Dhimotiki, this difference becoming in the twentieth century a major
focus of contestation in Greek politics (see Trudgill 2000).
Illustrated here is a thesis increasingly upheld by contemporary commentators on
language and national identity (e.g. Joseph 2004), which is that – far from being
primordial as Fichte proclaimed – national standard languages are cultural and
political constructs. The German language itself, specifically standard German, is
an example: as Joseph (2004: 98) points out, it emerges from a patchwork of dialects
in the sixteenth century, a product both of individuals’ contributions (e.g. Luther’s
translation of the Bible) and of wider socio-cultural developments – the introduction
of printing, for instance.
If the German case can be interpreted as an instance of speakers accepting that
their related but sometimes barely mutually intelligible varieties are dialects of a
single standard language (Barbour 2000b), there are converse cases where speakers
of related and mutually intelligible varieties come to view themselves, because they
have distinct ethnic sensibilities and affiliations, as speaking separate languages.
Not uncommonly, such perceptions are encouraged by interventions consciously