Similar
views were repeated in 1898 by Faik Konica who suggested the
preparation of a unified grammar by combining on rational and
scientific basis features found in both the major dialects. Similar
views prevailed all through, though Tosk had the key to the press
and publication movement literature including newspapers were written
in Tosk. In fact the national liberation movement gave the greatest
impetus to Tosk as the war literature was mostly published in Tosk.
Yet Tosk was not made unilaterally the national literary standard;
by 1944, the Abanian bidialectal literary tradition was supplanted
by a single superposed variety whose base cannot be identified with
either of the major dialects owing to its mixed quality. Though the
writers from the 16th century onwards were in the habit of mixing in
their writings, words and phrases from the dialects, the present
effort is different from the earlier ones both qualitatively and
quantitatively in that this was a deliberate attempt in creating a
National standard.
Since the new socialist Government wanted to achieve the national
unity through a single language, they made concerted efforts through
different regulations in promoting a single national standard. For
instance, the standardization of the Albanian phonology was tied to
the regulation of orthography which showed a one to one
correspondence between the grapheme and the phoneme. And the editors
and proof readers were instructed to substitute the standard
orthographic types for the dialectal spellings used by different
writers. The written standard form in its turn led to a change in
the speech. Thus conscious planned efforts to eliminate the
dialectal features were made rather than leaving a evolution of the
standard to chance or historical vagaries. And because of its mixed
quality the present standard Albanian cannot be identified with
either of its major dialects. Another example of planned language
standardization is that of Norway1. It has two
official standards, viz., Nynorsk ‘New Norwegian’ and Bokmal ‘book
language’. The situations go back to two different socio-political
situations, which may be traced in brief. Until 1814 Norway was
under Danish rule and the only official language was Danish. When
Norway became a free country in 1814, there was no Norwegian
standard language. The informal speech of the upper class speakers
was a kind of Danish influenced Norwegian. An attempt was made to
revive Danish gradually in the direction of the language of the
Danish influenced Norwegian spoken by the elite which came to be
known as Riksmal ‘state language’. Riksmal was a forerunner to
Bokmal.
1Pariculars of Norwegian situation are
mostly from Einar Haugen 1966.
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peasants and farmers spoke rural Norwegian dialects. Ivar Assen, a
school teacher who had undertaken extensive study of Norwegian
dialects advocated a revolutionary approach and devised a language
of his own by amalgamating the features of different rural dialects
that were least contaminated by Dansih. It was designated as
Landsamal ‘language of the country’, which later became Nynorsk.
In 1885, under the pressure of national sentiments, Landsmal was
made an official language on par with Riksmal. Thus Norway with a
small population got two official languages which became very
expensive in that, the official documents and books had to be
printed in both the languages. And the children had to learn to read
and write in both. In each area the local councils, however, decide
which variety is to be used in public notices. The recognition of
Landsmal as an additional official language was very beneficial to
the children from lower classes and also from the rural areas, as
they could learn through a recognized standard language which
is very close to the language of their homes. Linguistically, the
spoken forms of the two standards are mutually comprehensible. The
dichotomy applies to the written standard forms.
In view of the huge expenses involved in maintaining two official
languages, successive Governments tried to reform the two languages
gradually towards each other so as to produce a single national
language for the country, for instance, the Norwegian dialects have
three grammatical genders, while Riksmal, like Danish, has only two
genders. In 1917, an order of the Government not only brought
uniformity in the two-gender system but also determined the use of
gender markers common to both. The same order also brought
uniformity in the selection and use of the other grammatical
classes/categories. The next major governmental step was in 1938,
when on the recommendation of a reform committee, the two standard
languages were brought together with respect to spelling, word forms
and inflections on the basis of the Norwegian folk language. The
order also specified not to model the standard language on the
speech of the educated upper classes, which are very important
steps in the history of language standardization. Here is an
instance where through determined process of planning at the
Governmental level, two different official standards were gradually
amalgamated into one. In the selection of different features, a
definite tilt was made in favor of folk literature and rural
population rather than upholding the elite form. Much more important
than this attempts at the Governmental level is the role of a private
individual in creating a new language from out of the features of a
number of dialects spoken by the common man. And it goes to the
credit of Ivar Aasen, a school teacher, that his attempt not only
succeeded but also enabled the children from the lower rung of the
social hierarchy
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