TAC Meera 2014 (हिंदी, 日本語 ,عربي )

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Re: TAC Meera 2014 (हिंदी, 日本語 ,عربي )

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-01-25, 19:54

Aóristos wrote:In both languages, the colloquial form is the most prevalent register.

How do you mean?

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Re: TAC Meera 2014 (हिंदी, 日本語 ,عربي )

Postby dEhiN » 2015-01-26, 3:50

vijayjohn wrote:
Aóristos wrote:In both languages, the colloquial form is the most prevalent register.

How do you mean?

Yeah wouldn't by definition a modern colloquial and modern literary form co-existing mean that there is no prevalent register? Or rather, the colloquial form is the prevalent spoken register and the literary the prevalent written?
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Re: TAC Meera 2014 (हिंदी, 日本語 ,عربي )

Postby TeneReef » 2015-01-26, 4:38

Aóristos wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:He apparently thinks diglossia in Arabic is similar to diglossia in Tamil, but I doubt that it's all that similar. For one thing, in the case of Tamil, Madurai dialect seems to be more or less assumed as a kind of standard spoken dialect, and for another, I'm not sure any of the dialects of Tamil show significant differences in terms of syntax (even though the dialects of Arabic definitely do). :hmm: It's definitely possible to find a course that teaches the written language alongside Madurai dialect (I can think of one off the top of my head; they seem to teach vocabulary in both, and most of the differences between Madurai dialect and the written language appear to be phonological rather than morphological or syntactic), but I've never seen any such resources for any other dialect of Tamil. By contrast, there is no spoken standard for Arabic at all. Egyptian Arabic is widely understood because Egyptian media has been popular throughout the Arab World for decades by now (and apparently Levantine Arabic is also somewhat widely understood by people who speak various dialects), but not everyone understands it. I've never seen a dialect of Arabic being taught alongside MSA in the same way I've seen Madurai dialect taught along with written Tamil, and I don't think that would be possible because the differences between MSA and the dialects are a lot more than just phonology.

I'd compare the case of Tamil's diglossia to that of Persian's. They both seem to exhibit three vague layers of diglossia: a classical literary style featuring several archaisms, a modern literary style and a modern colloquial form. In both languages, the colloquial form is the most prevalent register.



Modern literary Tamil is basically 13th century spoken Tamil. :roll: It's hardly ''modern''.


dEhiN wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Aóristos wrote:In both languages, the colloquial form is the most prevalent register.

How do you mean?

Yeah wouldn't by definition a modern colloquial and modern literary form co-existing mean that there is no prevalent register? Or rather, the colloquial form is the prevalent spoken register and the literary the prevalent written?


Jaylalita does not give her speech in colloquial Tamil but in formal Tamil (aka Modern literary Tamil, which was last modified in the 13th century).
Nor people discuss politics in colloquial Tamil but in formal Tamil (even in SL):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKrqNc3VLYg


To give you a general idea, differences between formal Tamil (modern literary Tamil) and spoken TN Tamil are similar to those between Geoffrey Chaucer English and 21th century Hollywood English. :P Formal Tamil and colloquial TN Tamil sound like 13th century Latin and modern Italian. :mrgreen: I studied Latin for 2 years, and after that I took Italian for 2 years, and yes, Latin helped me immenesly with Italian, it's practically the same language diachronically. :mrgreen:
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