Nagaland
is situated in the Angami belt, one could also consider that variety
as a claimant for the norm. Even though head hunting and
inter-village feuds amongst the Nagas now form part of their
history, mutual suspicion across different ethnic/linguistic
boundaries still exist. Hence no Naga would accept as the norm of
the Naga Pidgin a variety that is likely to be associated with any
single ethnic or linguistic group. We cannot therefore accept either
the size or the adminitrative headquarters as a criterion for the
selection of the norm. In view of these, viz., non-acceptance as the
norm, a variety that is likely to be associated with any group by
the other Nagas and the simultaneous need to aim at the instrumental
and social goals, we are obliged to adopt certain criteria in
developing a norm. The criteria adopted here in this grammar were
enunciated in Sreedhar (1976 : 376/1977 : 166)1
which set up the hypothesis that if pidgins are the result of
inter-lingual fusion. Such an expediency was adopted primarily
because one of the important principles of language planning is that
if it is to have any success, it must consider certain
psychological, social and cultural pre-requisties; language planning
must therefore simultaneously aim at instrumental and sentimental
social goals. The sentimental goal must, in turn, be given
importance when selecting a particular variety as the norm. This
also implies that the different groups within the society varying in
their linguistic repertoire have equal access to the code so
selected.
This grammar of the standardized Naga Pidgin is the result of
fusion of various features found in different varieties of the Naga
Pidgin. No Naga uses all the features found in this grammar. To that
extent, this grammar is a neutral one. Such an attempt is tenable
within the strict norms of language planning. For instance, Tauli
(1968:27) defines language planning as ‘The methodological
activity of regulating, improving existing language or creating new
common national, regional language’. Tauli (1968:9) further claims
that ‘since language is an instrument, it follows that languages
can be evaluated . . . . and a new language be created at will’.
This writer had, however, no access to Tauli (1968) when the above
mentioned paper was written in 1974. Subsequent to the setting up of
the hypothesis, it was written in 1974. Subsequent to the setting up
of the hypothesis, it was found that similar attemts were made in
the past in other countries. Of these, the two well-known instances
of creating a standard form out of the dialects/languages are:
Norwegian and Albanian. Of the two, the former is the earlier
attempt, but attempted at an individual’s level at the early stage
1The paper was earlier presented at the II
International Conference on ‘Pidgin’s & Creoles’, Hawaii,
January, 1975 and subsequently published. A copy of this paper
appears in appendix 1 of this monograph.whereas
the latter was a planned purposeful effort by the intellectuals and
others at the societal level. It is proposed to offer a brief
account of both these instance beginning with that of Albanian.
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Albanian1 has two major dialects, viz., Geg
(spoken in northern Albania) and Tosk (spoken in southern Albania).
In addition, Albanian has a central dialect known as Elbasan, with
mixed cultural and linguistic influence from both the major
dialects. The earlier printed literature in both Tosk and Geg were
only of religious nature, with the Tosk literature going back to
18th century A.D. and Geg literature to the 16th century A.D.
Despite a long history of separate literary development, the
speakers of Tosk and Geg did not make any claim for either a
separate nationhood or a separate linguistic State. The
intellectuals in both the groups rather made concerted attempts to
reach a literary rapprochement through cross cultural borrowing with
a view to creating a single national language. One of the attempts
to create national unity through language amongst the bidialectal
population was the writing of the Bible translations in Geg by using
the Roman alphabet and in Tosk in Greek alphabet, but this did not
have much effect on the traditional literary style.
There were three different schools amongst the intellectual who
took up the case of a single national language. These were : (i)
Those who demanded the national status for Tosk, the southern
variety, (ii) Those who demanded the national status to Elbasan, the
central variety and (iii) Those who demanded the creation of a
neutral variety by hybridization of the good features of both the
major dialects.
Aleksander Xhuvani, the proponent of the first school contended
that all literary languages had their origin in a single dialect.
Since all major literature pertaining to the freedom movement are in
Tosk, it alone can claim the status of the National standard. The
choice of Elbasan was demanded on the assumption that it being a
neutral variety would help uniting both the south and the north. In
fact the congress of the Albanian education held in September 1909
did make a specific proposal to that effect and beginning from 1923
to 1940 Elbasan got official status and was used in schools. But a
negative attitude towards Elbasan was developed during the national
liberation movement in early 1940s and all discussions thereafter
took place in Tosk and Gen only. The protagonists of the third
school were active as early as 1881, for instance, S. Frashevi hoped
that the dialects would disappear by amalgamating into the literary
standard the words and phrases found in all the dialects.
1Excerpts from Janet L. Byron (1976).
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