Language Empires in Comparative Perspective

Language Empires in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Christel Stolz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110408368
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
The notion of empire is associated with economic and political mechanisms of dominance. For the last decades, however, there has been a lively debate concerning the question whether this concept can be transferred to the field of linguistics, specifically to research on situations of language spread on the one hand and concomitant marginalization of minority languages on the other. The authors who contributed to this volume concur as to the applicability of the notion of empire to language-related issues. They address the processes, potential merits and drawbacks of language spread as well as the marginalization of minority languages, language endangerment and revitalization, contact-induced language change, the emergence of mixed languages, and identity issues. An emphasis is on the dominance of non-Western languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and, particularly, Russian. The studies demonstrate that the emergence, spread and decline of language empires is a promising area of research, particularly from a comparative perspective.

Language Empires in Comparative Perspective

Language Empires in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Christel Stolz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110408368
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book

Book Description
The notion of empire is associated with economic and political mechanisms of dominance. For the last decades, however, there has been a lively debate concerning the question whether this concept can be transferred to the field of linguistics, specifically to research on situations of language spread on the one hand and concomitant marginalization of minority languages on the other. The authors who contributed to this volume concur as to the applicability of the notion of empire to language-related issues. They address the processes, potential merits and drawbacks of language spread as well as the marginalization of minority languages, language endangerment and revitalization, contact-induced language change, the emergence of mixed languages, and identity issues. An emphasis is on the dominance of non-Western languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and, particularly, Russian. The studies demonstrate that the emergence, spread and decline of language empires is a promising area of research, particularly from a comparative perspective.

Language Empires in Comparative Perspective

Language Empires in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Christel Stolz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110408473
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book

Book Description
The notion of empire is associated with economic and political mechanisms of dominance. For the last decades, however, there has been a lively debate concerning the question whether this concept can be transferred to the field of linguistics, specifically to research on situations of language spread on the one hand and concomitant marginalization of minority languages on the other. The authors who contributed to this volume concur as to the applicability of the notion of empire to language-related issues. They address the processes, potential merits and drawbacks of language spread as well as the marginalization of minority languages, language endangerment and revitalization, contact-induced language change, the emergence of mixed languages, and identity issues. An emphasis is on the dominance of non-Western languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and, particularly, Russian. The studies demonstrate that the emergence, spread and decline of language empires is a promising area of research, particularly from a comparative perspective.

Empires of the Word

Empires of the Word PDF Author: Nicholas Ostler
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062047353
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid, authoritative, and remarkable work, it demonstrates how the language history of the world eloquently reveals the real character of our planet's diverse peoples and prepares us for a linguistic future full of surprises.

Empire of Difference

Empire of Difference PDF Author: Karen Barkey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139472887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
This book is a comparative study of imperial organization and longevity that assesses Ottoman successes as well as failures against those of other empires with similar characteristics. Barkey examines the Ottoman Empire's social organization and mechanisms of rule at key moments of its history, emergence, imperial institutionalization, remodeling, and transition to nation-state, revealing how the empire managed these moments, adapted, and averted crises and what changes made it transform dramatically. The flexible techniques by which the Ottomans maintained their legitimacy, the cooperation of their diverse elites both at the center and in the provinces, as well as their control over economic and human resources were responsible for the longevity of this particular 'negotiated empire'. Her analysis illuminates topics that include imperial governance, imperial institutions, imperial diversity and multiculturalism, the manner in which dissent is handled and/or internalized, and the nature of state society negotiations.

Reconstructing Non-Standard Languages

Reconstructing Non-Standard Languages PDF Author: Lenore A. Grenoble
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027257345
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Focusing on language contact involving Russian, and the linguistic varieties that emerged from that contact in different social settings, this book analyzes issues and methodologies in reconstructing both the linguistic effects of language contact and the social contexts of usage. In-depth analyses of Odessan Russian, a southern Russian contact variety with Yiddish and Ukrainian elements, and Russian lexifier pidgins illustrate the reconstruction process, which involves making the most of all available documentation, particularly literature and stereotypical descriptions. Historical sociolinguistics of this kind straddles the fields of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and contact; this book brings together the methods and theories of these areas to show how they can result in a rich reconstruction of linguistic and socially-conditioned variation. We reconstruct the circumstances and social settings that produced this variation, and demonstrate how to reconstruct which variants were used by different types of speakers under different circumstances, and what kinds of social identities they indexed.

Global and local perspectives on language contact

Global and local perspectives on language contact PDF Author: Katrin Pfadenhauer
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 396110431X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
This edited volume pays tribute to traditional and innovative language contact research, bringing together contributors with expertise on different languages examining general phenomena of language contact and specific linguistic features which arise in language contact scenarios. A particular focus lies on contact between languages of unbalanced political and symbolic power, language contact and group identity, and the linguistic and societal implications of language contact settings, especially considering contemporary global migration streams. Drawing on various methodological approaches, among others, corpus and contrastive linguistics, linguistic landscapes, sociolinguistic interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, the contributions describe phenomena of language contact between and with Romance languages, Semitic languages, and English(es).

Arabic in Contact

Arabic in Contact PDF Author: Stefano Manfredi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027263620
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The present volume provides an overview of current trends in the study of language contact involving Arabic. By drawing on the social factors that have converged to create different contact situations, it explores both contact-induced change in Arabic and language change through contact with Arabic. The volume brings together leading scholars who address a variety of topics related to contact-induced change, the emergence of contact languages, codeswitching, as well as language ideologies in contact situations. It offers insights from different theoretical approaches in connection with research fields such as descriptive and historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and language acquisition. It provides the general linguistic public with an updated, cutting edge overview and appreciation of themes and problems in Arabic linguistics and sociolinguists alike. As of January 2023, this e-book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.

The Politics of Language

The Politics of Language PDF Author: Carol L. Schmid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019028594X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Important aspects of the history of language in the United States remain shrouded in myth and legend. The notion of "one nation, one language" is part of the idealized history of the United States, although in its short history it has probably been host to more bilingual people than any other country in the world. Language is more than a means of communication. It brings into play an entire range of experiences and attitudes toward life. Furthermore, language is a potent symbolic issue because it links power and political claims of ownership with psychological demands for group worth. How people belonging to different language and cultural communities live together in the same political community and how political and structural tensions arise to divide them along language lines, are questions addressed in The Politics of Language. This book analyzes the historical background and recent controversy over language in the United States and compares it to two official multilingual societies: Canada and Switzerland. It's accessibility as a survey of this topic makes it ideal for courses in linguistics, political science, and sociology.

Comparative Perspectives on Imperialism and Empire in Late Imperial Russia

Comparative Perspectives on Imperialism and Empire in Late Imperial Russia PDF Author: Moritz Deutschmann
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 364079771X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2009 in the subject History Europe - Other Countries - Modern Times, Absolutism, Industrialization, European University Institute (Department of History, Florenz), language: English, abstract: There are few topics that have been as present in post-Soviet histories as empire and its aftermath. Tales of century-long Russia oppression have become core elements of many historical narratives in the former Soviet republics. In Western European scholarship concepts from imperial history and post-colonial studies have had a big influence on the historiography of Russia and the Soviet Union. However, these are recent phenomena: in most histories of Russia, written in Russia or the Soviet Union itself as well as in the West before 1991, empire has been left out to an astonishing degree. Only for the Soviet Union the so-called "nationality question" was a larger topic, appearing in Soviet praise for the "friendship of the peoples" or condemnation of "anti-Soviet nationalism" and "Great-Russian chauvinism". This essay picks up on some of these issues and looks at how various scholars interested in the imperial aspects of Russian history have put them into a comparative perspective. Although the number of works is still limited, especially compared to the huge number of studies on different Western European empires, it is possible to draw some general conclusions. This will also be helpful in considering to what extent Russian experiences could reflect back on more general theories of empire or post-colonial studies.

Rome and China

Rome and China PDF Author: Walter Scheidel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199714292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Transcending ethnic, linguistic, and religious boundaries, early empires shaped thousands of years of world history. Yet despite the global prominence of empire, individual cases are often studied in isolation. This series seeks to change the terms of the debate by promoting cross-cultural, comparative, and transdisciplinary perspectives on imperial state formation prior to the European colonial expansion. Two thousand years ago, up to one-half of the human species was contained within two political systems, the Roman empire in western Eurasia (centered on the Mediterranean Sea) and the Han empire in eastern Eurasia (centered on the great North China Plain). Both empires were broadly comparable in terms of size and population, and even largely coextensive in chronological terms (221 BCE to 220 CE for the Qin/Han empire, c. 200 BCE to 395 CE for the unified Roman empire). At the most basic level of resolution, the circumstances of their creation are not very different. In the East, the Shang and Western Zhou periods created a shared cultural framework for the Warring States, with the gradual consolidation of numerous small polities into a handful of large kingdoms which were finally united by the westernmost marcher state of Qin. In the Mediterranean, we can observe comparable political fragmentation and gradual expansion of a unifying civilization, Greek in this case, followed by the gradual formation of a handful of major warring states (the Hellenistic kingdoms in the east, Rome-Italy, Syracuse and Carthage in the west), and likewise eventual unification by the westernmost marcher state, the Roman-led Italian confederation. Subsequent destabilization occurred again in strikingly similar ways: both empires came to be divided into two halves, one that contained the original core but was more exposed to the main barbarian periphery (the west in the Roman case, the north in China), and a traditionalist half in the east (Rome) and south (China). These processes of initial convergence and subsequent divergence in Eurasian state formation have never been the object of systematic comparative analysis. This volume, which brings together experts in the history of the ancient Mediterranean and early China, makes a first step in this direction, by presenting a series of comparative case studies on clearly defined aspects of state formation in early eastern and western Eurasia, focusing on the process of initial developmental convergence. It includes a general introduction that makes the case for a comparative approach; a broad sketch of the character of state formation in western and eastern Eurasia during the final millennium of antiquity; and six thematically connected case studies of particularly salient aspects of this process.