Diglossia

• published: 18 Nov 2014
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In linguistics, diglossia (/daɪˈɡlɒsiə/; Greek: διγλωσσία less than δι- prefix denoting two, from δίς, twice + γλῶσσα, language + -ία, suffix denoting state or attribute, "speaking two languages") refers to a situation in which two dialects or usually closely related languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labelled "L" or "low" variety), a second, highly codified variety (labelled "H" or "high") is used in certain situations such as literature, formal education, or other specific settings, but not used for ordinary conversation. The high variety may be an older stage of the same language (e.g. Latin in the early Middle Ages), or a distinct yet closely related present day dialect (e.g. Norwegian with Bokmål and Nynorsk, or Chinese with Mandarin as the official, literary standard and colloquial topolects/dialects used in everyday communication). Other examples include literary Katharevousa versus spoken Demotic Greek, Indonesian, with its Baku and Gaul forms, and the Dravidian language Tamil of southern India and Telugu with their respective high and low registers. This video is targeted to blind users. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video