Politics and the Slavic Languages

Politics and the Slavic Languages PDF

Author: Tomasz Kamusella

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-17

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1000395995

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During the last two centuries, ethnolinguistic nationalism has been the norm of nation building and state building in Central Europe. The number of recognized Slavic languages (in line with the normative political formula of language = nation = state) gradually tallied with the number of the Slavic nation-states, especially after the breakups of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. But in the current age of borderless cyberspace, regional and minority Slavic languages are freely standardized and used, even when state authorities disapprove. As a result, since the turn of the 19th century, the number of Slavic languages has varied widely, from a single Slavic language to as many as 40. Through the story of Slavic languages, this timely book illustrates that decisions on what counts as a language are neither permanent nor stable, arguing that the politics of language is the politics in Central Europe. The monograph will prove to be an essential resource for scholars of linguistics and politics in Central Europe.

The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders

The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders PDF

Author: Tomasz Kamusella

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2016-02-04

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9781137348388

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This book analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. It offers perspectives from a number of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy.

The Slavic Languages

The Slavic Languages PDF

Author: Roland Sussex

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-09-21

Total Pages: 5

ISBN-13: 1139457284

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The Slavic group of languages - the fourth largest Indo-European sub-group - is one of the major language families of the modern world. With 297 million speakers, Slavic comprises 13 languages split into three groups: South Slavic, which includes Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian; East Slavic, which includes Russian and Ukrainian; and West Slavic, which includes Polish, Czech and Slovak. This 2006 book, written by two leading scholars in Slavic linguistics, presents a survey of all aspects of the linguistic structure of the Slavic languages, considering in particular those languages that enjoy official status. As well as covering the central issues of phonology, morphology, syntax, word-formation, lexicology and typology, the authors discuss Slavic dialects, sociolinguistic issues, and the socio-historical evolution of the Slavic languages. Accessibly written and comprehensive in its coverage, this book will be welcomed by scholars and students of Slavic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the discipline.

The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders

The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Identities and Borders PDF

Author: Tomasz Kamusella

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 1137348399

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This book analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. It offers perspectives from a number of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy. Languages are artefacts of culture, meaning they are created by people. They are often used for identity building and maintenance, but in Central and Eastern Europe they became the basis of nation building and national statehood maintenance. The recent split of the Serbo-Croatian language in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia amply illustrates the highly politicized role of languages in this region, which is also home to most of the world’s Slavic-speakers. This volume presents and analyzes the creation of languages across the Slavophone areas of the world and their deployment for political projects and identity building, mainly after 1989. The overview concludes with a reflection on the recent rise of Slavophone speech communities in Western Europe and Israel. The book brings together renowned international scholars who offer a variety of perspectives from a number of disciplines and sub-fields such as sociolinguistics, socio-political history and language policy, making this book of great interest to historians, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists interested in Central and Eastern Europe and Slavic Studies.

The Soft Power of the Russian Language

The Soft Power of the Russian Language PDF

Author: Arto Mustajoki

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-12

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0429590350

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Exploring Russian as a pluricentric language, this book provides a panoramic view of its use within and outside the nation and discusses the connections between language, politics, ideologies, and cultural contacts. Russian is widely used across the former Soviet republics and in the diaspora, but speakers outside Russia deviate from the metropolis in their use of the language and their attitudes towards it. Using country case studies from across the former Soviet Union and beyond, the contributors analyze the unifying role of the Russian language for developing transnational connections and show its value in the knowledge economy. They demonstrate that centrifugal developments of Russian and its pluricentricity are grounded in the language and education policies of their host countries, as well as the goals and functions of cultural institutions, such as schools, media, travel agencies, and others created by émigrés for their co-ethnics. This book also reveals the tensions between Russia’s attempts to homogenize the 'Russian world' and the divergence of regional versions of Russian reflecting cultural hybridity of the diaspora. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book will prove useful to researchers of Russian and post-Soviet politics, Russian studies, Russian language and culture, linguistics, and immigration studies. Those studying multilingualism and heritage language teaching may also find it interesting.

The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe

The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe PDF

Author: T. Kamusella

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-12-16

Total Pages: 1140

ISBN-13: 0230583474

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This work focuses on the ideological intertwining between Czech, Magyar, Polish and Slovak, and the corresponding nationalisms steeped in these languages. The analysis is set against the earlier political and ideological history of these languages, and the panorama of the emergence and political uses of other languages of the region.

Interslavic zonal constructed language

Interslavic zonal constructed language PDF

Author: Vojtěch Merunka

Publisher: Slovanská unie z.s.

Published: 2018-02-01

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 8090700497

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Interslavic zonal constructed language is an auxiliary language, which looks very similar to real spoken Slavic languages in Central and Eastern Europe and continues the tradition of the Old Church Slavonic language. Interslavic shares grammar and common vocabulary with modern spoken Slavic languages in order to build a universal language tool that Slavic people can understand without any or with very minimal prior learning. It is an easily-learned language for those who want to use this language actively. Interslavic enables passive (e.g. receptive) understanding of the real Slavic languages. Non-Slavic people can use Interslavic as the door to the big Slavic world. Zonal constructed languages are constructed languages made to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of closely related languages. They belong to the international auxiliary languages, but unlike languages like Esperanto and Volapük they are not intended to serve for the whole world, but merely for a limited linguistic or geographic area where they take advantage of the fact that the people of this zone understand these languages without having to learn them in a difficult way. Zonal languages include the ancient Sanskirt, Old Church Slavonic, and Lingua Franca. Zonal design can be partially found also in modern languages such as contemporary Hebrew, Indonesian, and Swahili.

Current Studies in Slavic Linguistics

Current Studies in Slavic Linguistics PDF

Author: Irina Kor Chahine

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2013-12-15

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 9027270961

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This volume represents an overview of current research on Slavic linguistics in Europe and North America based on selected papers presented during the 6th Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistics Society (September 1-3, 2011, Aix-en-Provence, France). It includes topics across a range of linguistic fields (morphosyntax, syntax, and semantics) and discussions on specific aspects of Slavic languages within a typological perspective. All the papers illustrate a range of approaches, and each paper presents rigorous analysis of a set of Slavic data within the context of various models and aspects of language. While the main focus of the collection is impersonal constructions in Slavic languages, the book also includes morphological topics, such as reflexives, antipassive and evidential markers, syntactical relations with zero sign, auxiliary verbs and subordinate clauses, and semantics of nouns, adverbs and adjectives. The volume will be of interest to all scholars studying Slavic languages as well as those interested in general linguistics and linguistic typology.

Contested Tongues

Contested Tongues PDF

Author: Laada Bilaniuk

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780801472794

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During the controversial 2004 elections that led to the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, cultural and linguistic differences threatened to break apart the country. Contested Tongues explains the complex linguistic and cultural politics in a bilingual country where the two main languages are closely related but their statuses are hotly contested. Laada Bilaniuk finds that the social divisions in Ukraine are historically rooted, ideologically constructed, and inseparable from linguistic practice. She does not take the labeled categories as givens but questions what "Ukrainian" and "Russian" mean to different people, and how the boundaries between these categories may be blurred in unstable times.Bilaniuk's analysis of the contemporary situation is based on ethnographic research in Ukraine and grounded in historical research essential to understanding developments since the fall of the Soviet Union. "Mixed language" practices (surzhyk) in Ukraine have generally been either ignored or reviled, but Bilaniuk traces their history, their social implications, and their accompanying ideologies. Through a focus on mixed language and purism, the author examines the power dynamics of linguistic and cultural correction, through which people seek either to confer or to deny others social legitimacy. The author's examination of the rapid transformation of symbolic values in Ukraine challenges theories of language and social power that have as a rule been based on the experience of relatively stable societies.

Political Russian

Political Russian PDF

Author: Natasha Simes

Publisher: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9780757534164

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Simes (Russian, John Hopkins U.) and Robin (Slavic languages and literatures and international affairs, George Washington U.) present a revised textbook for generalists and practitioners involved in international relations, foreign trade or people-to-people exchanges with Russia. The emphasis is on the development of functional proficiency in three