Pluricentricity and Script

Activity: Talk or presentation typesInvited talk

Description

Abstract: The concept of pluricentric languages, introduced at the turn of the 1990s, became quite widespread during the past two decades, especially in Slavic Studies. This development is connected to the split of Serbo-Croatian in the wake of the breakup of Yugoslavia. The most popular kind of pluricentricity analyzed is that of a (purportedly) single languages employed and (differently) standardized in separate sovereign nation-states. Yet, pluricentricity can be defined and probed into also from the perspective of different scripts deployed for writing the (purportedly) same language. Script, like statehood, is another extralinguistic factor, which shapes and defines languages as products of politics.

Keywords: Belarusian, Cyrillic, Latin alphabet, pluricentricity, Polish

Case study: On the diachronic and synchronic plane, I plan to analyze the causes and effects of the use of the Cyrillic and Latin scripts for writing and publishing in Belarusian and Polish.
Period19 Dec 2024
Event titleLanguages, Nations and Standardization in Slavia
: So Similar and Yet So Different
Event typeConference
LocationSapporo, JapanShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • pluricentricity
  • Belarusian language
  • Polish language
  • Latin alphabet
  • Cyrillic
  • politics of script